Everyone is writing their pet peeves, so here are mine:
* Having a large tree of bookmark folders, navigating it to add a new bookmark is horrible in the small pop-up that is the "Add Bookmark" UI.
* The Bookmarks sidebar allows to search by name but not to find where they are. A bookmark search add-on (Bookmark search plus 2) solves this, but it shouldn't be needed.
EDIT: I've been told about right-click -> Show in Folder. This is great! Not the best UI, though (the mentioned add-on is still much more intuitive)
* Cannot have multiple sidebars. So you cannot have Tree Style Tabs opened (for vertical tab handling) and the bookmarks folders & search at the same time. Bonkers.
Actually, that's all. Mostly it's about handling of bookmarks! Not sure if the rest of the UI is just fine or that I got used to it and I'm now blind to its quirks, but I feel pretty comfortable with Firefox. I never felt a strong need to complain about style redesigns, like some other people do.
Bookmarks have received woefully little attention in all browsers for reasons unknown to me. If one pulls up a browser from 20 years ago, bookmark management is basically identical or even slightly better in some circumstances.
I guess making bookmarks better isn’t sexy so nobody’s bothered.
Over the years, there have been dozens of serious attempts at reinventing bookmarks (from third-party services and plugins), and none of them have caught on.
My conclusion is that they're just not a concept that works for people; they got squeezed out by web search on one side and complex note-taking applications on the other.
I think there’s room for better bookmarks, but they have to be a part of the browser proper… third party apps and even browser extensions can never be integrated to the required extent, but none of the big browser makers have iterated in this space at all.
Do you perhaps have muscle memory for the Ctrl+Shift+B shortcut that used to open a large side panel but now just shows a narrow horizontal bar?
I do and I'm certainly annoyed by this redesign, but I discovered the "manage bookmarks" shortcut Ctrl+Shift+O that opens a larger pop-up window with your bookmarks, which so far seems almost as comfortable as the old side panel.
It also lets you search for bookmarks and right-clicking to select "show in folder" in the context menu shows you where in the hierarchy it is. (Though all my bookmarks are in "other bookmarks", so I don't expect to be using this much.)
No, I don't have muscle memory, and in fact you have introduced me to the Ctrl+Shift+B shortcut to show or hide the Bookmarks Toolbar! :-D I won't use it though, because I have it visible and it's not something one typically changes a lot.
With "side panels" I mean what strictly speaking Firefox calls "Sidebar": menu View -> Sidebar -> choose ONE among Bookmarks, History, Synced Tabs, Bookmark search plus 2, or Tree Style Tab.
Why the hell I cannot have e.g. Tree Style Tab AND a Bookmarks sidebars on the left, at the same time? Seems silly to me. Ages ago I worked with Qt and made desktop applications that could have detachable panels (QDockWidget), or their native equivalents such as palettes on Windows, that could be placed anywhere on a main window; but now that we're living in the future it seems we went backwards on what our UIs are able to do.
* Having a large tree of bookmark folders, navigating it to add a new bookmark is horrible in the small pop-up that is the "Add Bookmark" UI.
* The Bookmarks sidebar allows to search by name but not to find where they are. A bookmark search add-on (Bookmark search plus 2) solves this, but it shouldn't be needed.
EDIT: I've been told about right-click -> Show in Folder. This is great! Not the best UI, though (the mentioned add-on is still much more intuitive)
* Cannot have multiple sidebars. So you cannot have Tree Style Tabs opened (for vertical tab handling) and the bookmarks folders & search at the same time. Bonkers.
Actually, that's all. Mostly it's about handling of bookmarks! Not sure if the rest of the UI is just fine or that I got used to it and I'm now blind to its quirks, but I feel pretty comfortable with Firefox. I never felt a strong need to complain about style redesigns, like some other people do.