There has been an abundance of posts concerning Australis and Firefox 29. I think it would help to solidify all of the posts into one massive thread. Furthermore, I wouldn't mind seeing actual civilized discussion concerning the updated UI. I think it has it's pros and cons. However, anything that seems to indicate that a person likes the UI change seems to be downvoted like no tomorrow instead of people providing civil discourse. I'm disappointed /r/firefox. The sheer vitriol that is being displayed won't be the way to move forward. Do I expect Mozilla to wave a magic wand and make everything better? No. Do I expect everything to just work for the users? Yes, but that is not the reality of the situation. Yelling and screaming isn't solving problems.

The way I see thing right now is that there are a few courses of action. You can switch to a different browser. Go on then, leave. Bye. Still here? Then it's probably because you want to use Firefox. Australis is here, for better or worse.

For what it's worth, here are some of my thoughts: Look at the average user. What does the average user think when he or she uses or sees Firefox? Many seem to think that Firefox is slow, bloated, outdated. A vast majority do not customize anything. They don't brother using addons, if so, then it's usually less than 5. Disclaimer: This is purely anecdotal, however, I'm sure many of you could say similar things. As much as we love our browser, us "power users", we are in the minority. As such, I think that a UI update was long over due. (I remember seeing the old FF mockups for this UI...it's been in the making for a long time.) Look at many of the tech blogs. Many are correct in pointing out that the interface is somewhat similar to Chrome. However, I still hold that the advantage of Firefox is within it's addons and the ability to change things.

Australis took away the ability to customize many things. However, it also adds some consistency to the feel of the browser. How many times in this subreddit alone do we get cries of help on how to restore simple things in the UI? A fair amount. I'm not saying that some of the changes done by Mozilla are correct. However, I'm saying that they are incorrect either. This is something that we could debate for a long time and I personally would love to see the metrics, data, and thought process Mozilla used in their decision making.

As I was saying, the power of Mozilla is in the ability to customize things. As many have suggested, there are some things such as the classic theme restorer that brings back much of the functionality that was removed. Others are making addons for Australis such as "The Fox, Only Better" (which I personally think looks very nice.)

Somethings such as themes not working or addons breaking are due to them needing to be upgraded. Now if the last update was for Firefox 3.5/4.0 as many themes/addons seem to be, I'm sorry. It's unlikely that it'll be updated. However, the strength of the community is also on it's extension developers. I'm confident that developers will create an array of extensions that will embrace or change Firefox and make it even better.

I will say that I've been using the updated UI since it was in the UX branch and from there, the Nightly builds. Initially I did dislike it. However, I've seen it improve greatly and I've come to like it, especially as more addons get updated for it, as it becomes smoother and nice to use. And seeing articles such as this with features such as the Desktop Reading Mode or the new Context Menu mockups, well, it's nice.

However, I'm also saddened to see something such as the removal of the close buttons option from the about:config or the addon bar (which I've moved on to using the addon The Puzzle Piece which I prefer myself anyways).

There's a lot I want to say. But I also want to hear the community. What you like, what don't you like. The good and the bad.

EDIT: I forgot to post this link. For those who want to revert the UI, this should help: http://www.ghacks.net/2014/04/26/turn-new-firefox-29-old-firefox/. I'm of the opinion that you should try the new UI for atleast a week though, give it a fair chance.