Please let us move the new extensions button into the overflow menu

[Yodel5447]

With the version Firefox 109 release, you added this new button without the option to change its position or move into the overflow area. Please let use move it. I can remove/hide almost every other UI element in the browser, why not this?

[DubiousRuffian]

On top of the ability to move or hide the extension button, I'm requesting that we be able to hide which extensions appear in the button. I have a ton of extensions, and half of them just run in the background. This thing is completely cluttered.

Just on a personal level, the inclusion of this button seems entirely redundant. We have an overflow menu, to hide the things we only sometimes want to deal with, and a menu for extensions... that we only sometimes deal with. This feature bugs me so much I made an account on a forum just to complain about it.

[owl_]

I've build some automation  that depends on icon's to be on the right place. This change has destroyed my scripts and it would be quite some work for me to fix that. Moving or removing the button would be great.

[code_soft_build]

What they said.

[Aurora1]

The fact that we cannot remove it, under the normal customize firefox option, is absolutely ridiculous. If I want to do something with an extension, I know where to find it. I don't need an ugly looking puzzle piece just hanging out in the corner of my screen, taking up extra menu-bar real estate. I mean really, is that not what the menu icon is there for?! -- Hello, McFly!

Please, Mozilla, STOP messing with stuff that works and stop taking things away from us that we like. Come on man! -- WTF!

The least ya'll could've done is make it removable under customization. But noooooooooo! -- You just had to keep that from us -- didn't you!?!

[Tim_]

The new button is totally fine a long as a user can remove it. As with other firefox toolbar buttons the new one should be customizable with "Customize toolbar" action, where you can stash it or move to Overflow Menu. A good note from another related topic:

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@CocoTheMii wrote:

The nice thing about the old design is that it makes your extensions feel like a native part of the browser; the overflow menu can hold extensions and native controls

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Providing extension permissions information per-site is definitely a good feature, but its current realization is not so good.

[jscher2000]

There is a temporary preference in about:config to roll back to the Firefox 108 layout. This isn't expected to last very long. See: https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/version-109-0-new-extensions-icon/td-p/23072

[Aurora1]

You're saying that it's not expected to last very long is not sitting well with very many Firefox users, which, to say the least should tell you something about the rigid decision-making process apparently being implemented here in regards to this issue.

Again, I go back to my original contention:  Mozilla is not listening to their customers!

[xeode]

Hi there,

If the button does occasionally indicate that action needs to be taken (and this can't be shown under each actual extension's button and has to be shown at a global level via the extension manager's shortcut button?) can it at least only come to the front when this is the case, rather than just being stuck there so pointlessly just to act as an oversized shortcut? 

Don't mind it being there by default and think this is better understood by most users, but providing this configurability but only via the about:config parameters and inexplicably non-functional when trying to configure via the toolbar designer is frustrating and confusing way of doing this? 

I don't want to have to search for things like this on the internet to find what's going on and if I'm losing my mind, can there not be something in the UI when things like this change or just in general when a user tries to do something that used to work in a certain way and overnight has since been 'designed out'?  Even if the grand plan is great, if no one knows about it and just wants to do some work it's just creating bafflement and internet searches and relying on the search engine finding the other people that were similarly baffled that morning.

Thanks for your help and love the software.

[jasonlovesmoz]

The solution is simple: when a hidden extension needs my attention, throw an extension attention badge on the menu icon. You do it for updates and other alerts. Why not repeat this proven UI/UX construct for this new manifest feature?

[PaganDegree]

Forcing this UI element feels like Firefox is going down the Microsoft Edge path.  Mozilla used to stand for something, now every time I update Firefox, Data Collection and Studies get turned back on automatically.

[kacnje]

Very annoying. Please let us remove the icon.

[Ezra]

Please allow us to move this icon, I already pin all my important extensions to the toolbar so this icon just becomes a "second overflow menu" that I never want to look at. I'd rather have it folded away into the main overflow menu to free up valuable space in the toolbar.

[CJD]

I've been working in IT for 40+ years and this new extensions button is the most counterintuitive thing I've seen in awhile. I finally had my extensions grouped where I could get to them ... I even moved the bookmark toolbar items up into the menu bar so I had the whole bookmark toolbar for extension icons (which works great). when there wasn't room in the main bar they overflowed into the overflow menu...imagine that... now they go WHERE? The menu where they used to go is completely empty except for firefox's own auxilary menus... and I have this new button full of extensions that I can't select to bring up their UI, there doesn't seem to be any way to drag them around, and only some can I right click and choose PIN (to move them somewhere useful). What does it mean when the extension's name is white/shadowed/blurry (those are grouped near the bottom)? You need balloon help or something to explain this... its a MESS.

I defend firefox against the teeming masses of lemmings and something that breaks existing functionality used by millions of people without notice or debate is not acceptable.

My menu bar and tab bar used to have lots of icons I had strategically placed in logical groups by functionality... and now most of them are gone and I can't even drag them anywhere I can see them. So even if the background functionality is working, I can't see the icon changing, click on them, see numbers on them, open their interface or use them at this point.

PLEASE FIX THIS.

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And while we're on the topic of extensions...

Firefox, and browsers in general, need some ROBUST extension management features, not just a linear vertical menu. Maybe I'm an outlier, but I have a TON of extensions installed, and there isn't room for them all to be visible, even after I took over the bookmarks toolbar for them. (Moving the "bookmark toolbar menu items" icon up to the end of my menu bar works great, as long as you have nothing but folders in the root of it it's just an icon.)

How about having an icon somewhere that when mouseover, opens up into a two dimensional rectangle of user configurable size with say two dozen rows by two dozen columns of places where we can dock extension icons, instead of a bar, we have a big rectangular banner where we can group the icons horizontally AND vertically.

(Instead of an icon, it could just be something like the bookmarks toolbar that I've repurposed but when you linger on it, it unfurls to reveal the rectangle.) LIKE THIS:

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| * * * * * * * * * * * * * * | <- Only this one usually visible (default most important)

| * * * * * * * * * * | <- the rest become scrolled thru with mousewheel row by row

| * * * * * * * * * * * * | <- or all of the rows show up if you linger or drag or turn arrow

| * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * | <- organize groups horiz and vert not just horiz as with bar.

----------------------------------------

When an event occurs that an icon needs the user's attention or throws a flag, the currently visible row of icons scrolls up or down to reveal the row with the icon in question, it flashes a few times and then flips back to the top (default) row of icons that are usually visible. If the mouse is over the bar you could even scroll through the rows with the mouse wheel. I think this would have to be built into the browser, that seems beyond the power of an extension...

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Also we need either built in functionality or a plugin to dynamically load and unload extensions on the fly based on user-defined criteria such as a hostname present in the current tab or ANY tab... i.e. if I'm in facebook, any youtube specific extensions do not need to be loaded and are just wasting resources, so if there is not an opened tab with content from youtube.com, then 30 seconds or a minute later, the youtube flagged extensions are dynamically unloaded (and vice versa when they GO to youtube.) same should be configurable for instagram, facebook, whatever...

Lastly, there should be a way to define groups of extensions and turn them on and off on the fly with a click on a menu item (after it's configured of course)...say I have a bunch of extensions that deal with photos...when I'm done working with them, I click a menu item and they go away. Frees up cpu, ram, icon space, and context menu space.

There are at least two extensions trying to do at least some of this but they arent able to save changes because of some permissions issue.

Someone, please take up this challenge and run with it...we need this. Thank you

[Perey]

Ditto, @jasonlovesmoz. This explanation…

This is by design. The extensions toolbar button is now the primary user interface and allows access to per-site permissions for MV3 extensions.

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…is a non-explanation. There are plenty of UI elements that provide the “primary user interface” for something, and yet hide themselves when not called for: Updates. Passwords. Site permissions. (In fact why not roll per-site extensions permissions into the site permissions interface?) There are plenty of other “primary user interfaces” that don’t have a toolbar presence at all, living on the hamburger menu just fine. And mandating an interface for MV3 extensions does not require mandating a corresponding user interface.

I think some of these “how dare you” comments state things a bit too strongly, but I do believe the public deserves an actual explanation. What was the decision process that resulted in this, an explicitly immovable, unhideable button, being the chosen design?

[STS_56]

Whole heartily agree tabs are valuable real estate