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How to change Firefox background colour?

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I am running FF 29 on Ubuntu 12.04 with it's <insert swear words here> new desktop Unity. I have imported my profile folder from another installation of 29 but there are annoying differences. I can't tell if <insert swear words here> Unity is to blame. In particular, the background colour for everything except the active viewing area and the address bar is black. But so are the buttons and inactive tabs. I gather from another thread that the tabs are designed this way (down vote), but painting the buttons black against a black background seems <insert more swear words here>. Is there any way to change this? Is <insert swear words here> Unity doing this? It seems like Ubuntu went out of their way to break things with <insert swear words here> Unity, so I would not be surprised.

Speaking of customizations, is the back button actually attached to the address bar now?

I am running FF 29 on Ubuntu 12.04 with it's <insert swear words here> new desktop Unity. I have imported my profile folder from another installation of 29 but there are annoying differences. I can't tell if <insert swear words here> Unity is to blame. In particular, the background colour for everything except the active viewing area and the address bar is black. But so are the buttons and inactive tabs. I gather from another thread that the tabs are designed this way (down vote), but painting the buttons black against a black background seems <insert more swear words here>. Is there any way to change this? Is <insert swear words here> Unity doing this? It seems like Ubuntu went out of their way to break things with <insert swear words here> Unity, so I would not be surprised. Speaking of customizations, is the back button actually attached to the address bar now?

Modified by loondance

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The 29.0.1 update fixed a problem with dark OS themes on Windows, and it might help on Linux, but I haven't researched that. Can you check whether you have 29.0.1 and, if not, whether it helps?

  • "3-bar" menu button > "?" button > About Firefox
  • Help menu > About Firefox

If this doesn't help, I suggest choosing a different theme to color in that area: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/themes/


Regarding the tab bar, I personally found it difficult not to have shapes for the inactive tabs. I posted some custom style rules you could consider to make background tabs more visible: http://userstyles.org/users/2029

The Back button has been attached to the left end of the address bar since Firefox 4, but starting in Firefox 29, there's no built-in way to detach it. There are extensions which supply additional buttons to restore an older look. This article has more details: How to make the new Firefox look like the old Firefox.