The default option should be the most simple option for browsing.
But isn't that subjective!?... personally I find this layout more intuative, it just seems to make more sense to me.
Considering both MS and Mozilla have done it with their new browsers, Google's Chrome is already that way, and so is Opera... to name but a few.
I'm pretty sure they'll have done some research into the ergonomics and usability of their browsers, and found that this layout is actually more productive for more people...
my suggestion would be one of them did it, and then the other 2 copied for the sake of it.
Think of it like this. Do most people load up a new website by typing in manually in address bar? my guess is no but I may be wrong. Generally it will either be.
1 - preloaded in tab from last session.
2 - loaded from search engine eg. google.
3 - loaded from favourites list.
The mouse pointer is most likely to be at bottom or middle of screen somewhere, rather than the top so when wanting to change tabs you want that lower down on the screen not at the top, so less to move the mouse. Not to mention is what people are used to.
Regarding the menus, a similiar principle.
The new design shows an empty space to the right of the new button they made, so basically all they have achieved is making a new empty space on the window frame where menu's could have been kept. So instead of eg. having bookmarks have its own menu, one now has to select the main menu, move the mouse down to sub menu, and then navigate from there, obviously if move down too much or not enough its easy to lose the submenu by accident and is a more fiddly and longer process, less productive. For the sake of having so called less clutter. This is my main gripe with these new browsers, they have gone for visual over function.
But at least firefox left the option to be old school which is very important.
Edited by Chrysalis (Wed 23-Mar-11 20:30:08)
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