We've written about tweaking Firefox appearance for years now. Move the Findbar back up to the top versus its asinine default position.
What if you are using the flatpak version of Firefox? We made the switch to flatpak a while back because certain websites would load very slowly with the Ubuntu default snap installation (beyond just slow browser start-up time). Be warned that flatpak, at the time of writing, still does not support local messaging but the snap version of Firefox does. If you rely heavily on extensions that use local messaging, such as KeePassXC, you might want stay with the snap version (or even the ESR) until flatpak can catch up. File uploads (drag and drop) and a few other areas are also effected by the flatpak sand-boxing. For our use case, speed with routinely and heavily used websites was more critical.
OK, so how to tweak the UI of the flatpak version of Firefox?
First, re-enable the legacy toolkit using the about:config flag in the url bar.
Second, search for: toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheets and set it to true.
If you skip this step, everything else will have no effect. It must be re-enabled for any custom CSS file.
Thirdly, go to: about:profiles and look for your default profiles. There may be multiple reported: 1) for your local user and 2) the default profile used by the flatpak. To make this stupid easy, we just apply the tweak to both profiles types.
You won't be able to open the default profile directly, again because of flatpak's sand-boxing. Open up your default file manager to the location: /home/USERNAME/.var/app/org.mozilla.firefox/.mozilla/firefox/DEFAULT-PROFILE. Be sure to change the "USERNAME" to yours and whatever the generic "DEFAULT-PROFILE" id is.
Fourth, create a folder called chrome, using all lowercase letters. Do not use any other case (it is case sensitive).
Fifth, create a file called userChrome.css within this folder, again, exactly as shown.
Sixth, paste our Firefox tweaks CSS code into the new userChrome.css file. You can find the latest working version here in our original post (opens new tab).
Lastly, reboot your session and enjoy the Findbar back where it belongs, on the top, in flatpak Firefox!
Sometimes the smallest modifications can double or triple the efficiency of a browser and that really does affect your bottom line. Use open-source libre/freedom technology first and hire a competent IT company to use it properly...like Grip Fast Information Services and Technology! Let's get started.
