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I'm running Ubuntu 16.04 and I've just upgraded the firefox package (released today) from 45.0.2 to 46.0.

The release has brought an unwelcome change; the ugly Ubuntu scrollbars, and even uglier Ubuntu menu colours. How can I disable these, and get back the standard Firefox/GTK style?

Before: Firefox 45.0.2 on Ubuntu 16.04

  • Menus and textbox popups use black text on light grey background
  • Scrollbars are grey, have up/down/left/right icons

Firefox 45.0.2 on Ubuntu 16.04

After: Firefox 46.0 on Ubuntu 16.04

  • Menus and textbox popups use grey text on Ubuntu off-black background
  • Scrollbars are orange flat-design travesties

Firefox 46.0 on Ubuntu 16.04

I want to keep Firefox 46.0 but get rid of the sucky Ubuntu UI theme. Here are the steps I've already tried:

  • Checked Tools -> Addons -> Appearance to see if it's a distinct theme from the default -- it isn't, this IS the default.
  • Tried changing Firefox theme to several complete themes -- several of these changed every aspect of the Firefox UI except the scrollbars and popup menus, others did change them but I just didn't like their aesthetics.
  • Checked Tools -> Addons -> Extensions and disabled the "Ubuntu Modifications" addon. This didn't help.
  • From the old "how do I disable overlay scrollbars?" question, I tried apt-get remove overlay-scrollbar, then restarting my session. This didn't help.
  • From the same question, I tried gsettings set com.canonical.desktop.interface scrollbar-mode normal and this didn't help either.
  • From the same question, I tried launching Firefox with LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0 firefox and also GTK_OVERLAY_SCROLLING=0 firefox, neither of these worked.

What has worked so far is downgrading to the previous firefox package

apt-get install firefox=45.0.2+build1-0ubuntu1
apt-mark hold firefox

This works perfectly, so it does show that the problem is specific to the new 46.0+build5-0ubuntu0.16.04.2 version of the package. I looked at the Ubuntu package changelog which doesn't say much, but the Firefox 46.0 release notes say "GTK3 integration"; Firefox 46.0 switched from using GTK2 to using GTK3, as Compholio noted in their answer.

This isn't a permanent solution, I don't want to fall behind the latest Firefox release. What can I do to get the vanilla GTK theme in Firefox instead of the Ubuntu theme?

Community
  • 1
Stuart Caie
  • 967

3 Answers3

4

This appears to be a bug with the GTK3 theme, probably Firefox is using the wrong theme information for the pop-ups and the scroll bar.

I partially fixed this for myself by switching the theme for just Firefox:

GTK_THEME=radiance firefox

You can add this "permanently" by editing the launcher file:

sudo gedit /usr/bin/firefox

and adding the line (after #!/bin/sh):

export GTK_THEME=radiance

It'd probably be a good idea to file a bug against this, but now that I've finally gotten rid of the awful dark menus I'm less motivated to find the root cause of the problem ;)

Compholio
  • 408
2

What you could do is to install and use a complete theme for Firefox that includes its own scrollbars etc. This won't look like the old default, but I bet you can find something similar or even nicer.

In the Tools menu, select Add-ons, there go to the Get add-ons tab and scroll down the page. In the lower left corner is a link See all complete themes. This should bring you to Mozilla's Firefox homepage and their complete-theme site. Alternatively, click this link.

Pick one of the available free themes that is compatible with Firefox 46 and pleases your eyes, click on its green + Add to Firefox button and after the download completed, confirm the speech bubble asking for your permission by clicking Install.

Then you will be asked to restart Firefox which you should do, and the new theme will get enabled.

To change the theme again to a different or the default one and to remove no longer wanted themes, open the Tools menu, select Add-ons and navigate to the Appearance tab where you see a list of all installed themes.

PS: My personal favourites are "BlackFox V2" and "NASA Night Launch" (Yes, I love dark themes...)

Byte Commander
  • 110,243
0

Not sure if it will work because I don't have this issue but my firefox is synced with my windows system and that may be why.

If you click on the button in the right top corner (where you would click to get to preferences) then click on Customize in there you should see themes .. maybe try selecting a different theme might set it right.

John Orion
  • 2,871