There's no doubt that Firefox 3, and 3b4 in particular, is a fantastic improvement over Firefox 2 - addressing just about all the little quirks and annoyances which were getting in my way.

Firefox 3b4 is even faster, and on Mac OS X, beam sync has been disabled, meaning scrolling, resizing, and other UI actions feel much smoother and more comfortable.

There's one problem.

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­I've got no idea what kind of crack the UI designer was smoking. Maybe I'm just the odd web-surfer in a million - but I find that button design absolutely revolting. Not only does it completely clash with the rest of the interface, but it doesn't make much visual sense.

Why is such emphasis given to the back button? What valid reason is there for continuing the history drop-down's button around the forward button?

Thankfully, there's a way to get around this, without building a modified theme. And it's pretty simple too. Very simple.

1. Right Click (or CTRL-Click) on the toolbar, and select Customise from the resultant menu.
   

   

2. Down the bottom, select Use Small Icons and click OK.
   

   

3. Phew! A disaster averted!
   

   

Since the buttons on Minefield for Windows are even more disgusting, gaining an ultra-heavy soylent green shine in addition to the bemusing shape, I'm sure people will be glad to know the procedure works on Windows too.

1. Before:
   

   

2. During:
   

   

3. After! Over 300px of interface bloat lost! (Admittedly, the small buttons on Windows are still pretty awful.)
   

   

Update: