Firefox 32 will open the preferences pane in a new tab by default

May 19, 2014 12:46 GMT  ·  By

Mozilla has already implemented the most significant UI refresh for its browser in Firefox 29, but it appears that the company is preparing even more updates in the coming builds.

Firefox 32 will open the options menu in a new tab by default which might indeed be really helpful, but at the same time, it will make the browser look even more like Google Chrome, which already has such a feature.

gHacks is reporting that this feature is already available in Firefox 29 to Firefox 32 (which is currently in the nightly development channel), but it needs to be manually enabled from the about:config screen.

To do this, type “about:config: in the address bar, hit enter and choose yes when asked if you want to proceed. Search for the “browser.preferences.inContent,” right-click and select the toggle option to enable it.

The next time you click on the options button in the Australis interface, Firefox automatically opens a new tab providing access to configuration settings in a similar manner with Google Chrome.

As said, this was supposed to come in handy to those who are trying to set up their browsers; on the other hand, this menu takes a lot more space and obviously confuses many of the consumers who got used to the classic interface.

Mozilla Firefox 29 has already been criticized for looking too much like Google Chrome and this new change doesn't help at all, especially because such a configuration screen is already available in Google's browser since a few versions ago.

As far as Australis is concerned, this UI refresh is here to stay and is also available in newer versions of the browser that are currently under development and will see daylight in the coming months as the company continues developments of new features and improvements.

Mozilla says Australis was designed from the very beginning to make browsing easier, as it provides some of the key features of the application right in the main screen at one-click distance.

“Australis includes a set of visual improvements to streamline and unify the browser interface on desktop, as well as new features that make Firefox more efficient to use and easier to customize. In this post, I’m going to focus specifically on why browser tools are placed where they are and why we increased the prominence of Customization,” Mozilla said in a blog post in late 2013 when it detailed the new Australis UI.