How to Go Back to the Old Firefox Design

Firefox has just released its brand-new NOVA design browser UI, and a lot of people absolutely hate it! The update changes the appearance of tabs, icons, spacing, colours, and other parts of the interface. It's supposed to make Firefox feel more modern and customizable, but the design is a massive change on the previous UI, which is super jarring, especially if you are running dark mode or a custom Windows theme. So follow along as this article shows you how to keep all of the other upgrades that came with the update but disable the new UI.

How to Disable the Nova Design in Firefox

Thankfully, Mozilla was kind enough to have an option to disable the new NOVA layout in Firefox. The setting you need to find is in Firefox's about:config page. This section has all the advanced browser preferences, so make sure you change only the setting described below.

• First, open Firefox and click the address bar. Enter:

• Press Enter to open the advanced configuration page.
• Firefox may display a warning explaining that changing advanced preferences can affect the browser.
• Confirm that you want to continue.
• Next, use the search field at the top of the page and look for:

• You should see a single preference with the same name in the results.
• Its value will normally be set to true when the Nova interface is enabled.
• Click the value or the toggle button next to the preference and change it to false.

• Once you have changed the setting, close Firefox completely and open it again.
• After restarting the browser, Firefox will go back to the other UI and should still be using the old theme as well.

If the change does not immediately happen, make sure Firefox has been fully restarted rather than simply closing a single browser window. You can restart your computer to make sure of it.

What Happens After Disabling Firefox Nova?

Disabling Nova only removes the visual changes added by the new interface and brings Firefox back to its previous appearance. This includes all the older tab styling and interface layout, it also removes the ridiculously rounded corners and edges on everything. For me, that was the worst part about the entire design.

It's not all horrific though, the Nova refresh also adds some customisation, including a new theme picker, additional Firefox themes and wallpapers, and a more customizable New Tab page with pinnable Shortcuts. Compact Mode is also available as a dedicated setting and can reduce the space used by interface elements.

If you ever change your mind and decide that you want to try the new design again, just go back to the same location about:config, search for browser.nova.enabled, and set the value back to true. Then restart Firefox once more to make the change take effect.

We'll see how long they leave this option as a setting that we can change whenever we want. Google Chrome usually only leaves things like this around for a few versions before removing them entirely, forcing us onto the new version.