Design

The Clean Glass Firefox Customization

After we wrote about the All-Glass Firefox theme, reader bc//G_A wrote in with an even more impressive customisation that enables the Aero Glass effect across almost every UI element.

Enabling the complete glass look requires more than a few steps—you’ll need to install the Glasser extension, the Stylish extension, a number of user styles, and another extension to fix up the font colours. All of the instructions for setting up the glass theme can be found in the DeviantART guide, but the glass menus in the screenshot are thanks to the userstyles.org link sent in by reader Scott. Readers should note that the glass menus are a little buggy, and the overall style hides a lot of UI elements you might be used to, so while it’s not for everybody it’s an interesting customisation worth a look for those serious about tweaking their browser.

You’ll need to be running the latest beta of Firefox to be able to use the glass menus, but you can install an older version of Glasser and use the rest of the glass effects. For more, check out All-Glass Firefox, or take a look at the more productive Aero Geek customization.

Clean Glassed Firefox [DeviantART]
Glass menus [userstyles.org]

Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)

  • Darkest Daze

    I'm assuming this doesn't work on Vista SP2, since glasser and the all-glass Firefox extension do not work properly on it yet.

    Darkest Daze

  • The How-To Geek

    @ssj4Gogeta: My mistake, I should have more clearly stated that it was 7/vista only. I updated the post to reflect that!

  • The How-To Geek

    @abeworld: I guess I actually forgot to put "Windows only" at the beginning... added it now!

  • ssj4Gogeta

    @baron_army: Please read the article. It enables the AERO effect across the UI elements, and Aero is Vista/Windows 7 ONLY.

    ssj4Gogeta

  • Gravyman

    @MkFly:

    Agreed. Far too many gradients for my liking.

  • Nabeel

    @abeworld:
    Yeh totully dood, u wuz ona mac.

    Seriously, you give Mac users a bad name.

  • shambidextrous

    @jonny6pak: Shiny?*

    *May not actually be shiny.

    shambidextrous

  • corylarue

    There isn't an effect, it's just for UI coordination.
    If you don't run aero (vista/7) then I doubt any of these features will look good

  • jonny6pak

    So how does this actually improve the usage of Firefox to get things done smarter or more efficiently? I'm not trying to troll, I just don't see any value in this thing at all and I'm curious if others can note a good reason to use this sort of thing.

    jonny6pak

  • baron_army

    I tried messing around with this but couldn't get it to work on my XP at work. I doubt it'll work right on my Xubuntu laptop.

    @shambidextrous: You forgot "uncontrollable oily discharge"

  • omegakumar

    @wicketr: zing!

    omegakumar

  • shambidextrous

    "Enabling the complete glass look requires more than a few steps..."

    Clean glass is not for everyone. Common side effects may include dizziness, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, congestive heart failure, leprosy, random crashes, buggy menus, 450 separate beta products, hours of lost time...

    shambidextrous

  • abeworld

    @Phoshi:

    Hahaa People were raving how cool it looked. And i thought it was fugly coz i was ona mac. Now i know!!

    abeworld

  • corylarue

    I'll stick with the All-Glass extension, works perfectly for me on windows 7

    corylarue

  • Brent James Millard

    @mantuswsh: Yeah, don't know what CDC is but that is the Longhorn logo. Why you'd want it I don't know..

    Brent James Millard

  • wicketr

    An all-glass Firefox? Does it shatter instead of lock-up??

  • MkFly

    @mantuswsh: ? Appears to be the Longhorn logo to me.

    MkFly

  • MkFly

    Dear God, that is ugly as sin.

    MkFly

  • nukee

    @Phoshi: Shh... let him dream.

    nukee

  • Phoshi

    @abeworld: Well, Obviously it's not going to work on a mac.

  • nukee

    A bit much if you ask me.

    nukee

  • abeworld

    somehow, not as smooth as i thought. does not look that nice to me. then again i am trying this on my Mac

    abeworld

  • mantuswsh

    Is that a CDC logo in the menu?

  • Nabeel

    @PhillySaxon:
    I don't know if that was directed at me, but I'd make that my commenting sig if I could.

  • ben36

    It Looks Terrible!

    ben36

  • Dean Seirafi

    For some reason when I click on "File" it shows me the menu, but its halfway down the screen for some reason? Anyone having this issue or anythin g?

    Dean Seirafi

  • PhillySaxon

    @Nabeel: Shot through the Apple, and you're to blame, you give Macsss, a bad naaame!

  • MkFly

    Even the stock Firefox 3.x theme for me was too over the top: I spent a bit of time when 3.0 hit making my Firefox look like the more "sensible" previous versions:

    >> [i42.tinypic.com]

    MkFly

  • wewillchange

    @shambidextrous: lol win. major win.

  • MarkBirn

    With all due respect this is just one..poor example of a glass theme. It looks kind of ugly, has no tab button. I personally use chrome now but when I used firefox I'd either use chromifox extreme on 3.5 or I'd use stylish and get the windows seven aero (stylish) theme. It matched windows 7 scheme perfectly. I personally am in no rush to go back to firefox or to get this.

  • Tri Nguyen An

    how about this?
    [img29.imageshack.us]

    Tri Nguyen An

  • gpzbc

    I much prefer the look of ChromiGlass when used in conjunction with the Chromifox theme.
    [addons.mozilla.org]
    [addons.mozilla.org]

    gpzbc

Post Your Comments

Got something to say? There are two ways to comment:

1. Guests

Click here to comment instantly.

2. Facebook Users

Click below to comment using your Facebook account.

We're looking for comments that are interesting, substantial or highly amusing. If your comments are excessively self-promotional, obnoxious, or even worse, boring, you will be banned from commenting. All comments are moderated.