I usually vacillate between the two (and a few more types of themes). And why not? It’s not’s too much of a pain to choose and install themes from the Firefox Add-ons gallery. Also, now you have personas to choose along with your themes. It’s like having a choice of wallpaper and pain for your house. (If you are confused over the difference between personas and themes, refer to this Mozilla Support page which explains the distinction). Finding and using Firefox themes is a cinch. The only hitch is the choice of plenty. With that, I am in a mood to go retro and all classic with my Firefox browser. I think my sentiments for this post echoes what a theme developer himself says – I suppose that may seem like a strange thing, but my interest is two-fold: I love using a theme that takes me back to 1994-1995 when I was messing around on the early internet, and secondly I think it’s interesting to see how little has actually changed in terms of web-browser design and features in 15 years. So, follow along as I try to pick five that will go with my mood for the day.
Firefox 2
Firefox 2 as it used to be, but now with the power of the latest Firefox engine beneath it.
Orthodox
Orthodox takes you back to the original Netscape 4 look. It still works with older versions of the Firefox browser. A classic in the truest sense of the word.
Foxscape
Foxscape resembles Netscape 4.x, Netscape 6+ Classic theme, Mozilla Suite M18+, and SeaMonkey 1.x Classic. It could be the theme of choice if you love running Netscape related themes.
Nautipolis
The retro look of Nautipolis and the look of the icons are inspired by Gnome Art. Straight out of the box it as support for extensions like StumbleUpon, Chatzilla, Downloadmanager, TabMixPlus, Forecastfox, and more. The theme is neat and functional; meant for daily use.
Phoenix Simple
Phoenix Simple (UPDATE: This tool is not available anymore) as the name says is an uncomplicated take on Mozilla Phoenix, the first iteration of the browser that eventually became Firefox. It is also lightweight as it just replaces the Back, Forward, Stop, Reload and Go buttons and restyles the button surrounds. Well, these five themes have helped to satisfy my interest in the ‘classics’. Call me nostalgic for the old times, but sometimes I just like to turn back the clock and use these themes with today’s power collection of apps and add-ons. What about you? Which is your favorite classic or retro theme?
