Restore Firefox 32 context menu labels and remove icons

Firefox 32 will be released to the stable channel of the web browser later today. With it comes a change to the browser's main context menu that replaces some text labels with icons.

The commands back, forward, reload, bookmark and stop are no longer displayed as text when you right-click a page in the browser but as icons that are aligned horizontally.

The icons reduce the height of the context menu without modifying its functionality. Critics of the change state that it takes longer to load due to the fact that images take longer to load than textual contents and that an icon row does not fit well in there at all on the desktop.

Firefox is the browser that you can customize the most. It comes therefore not as a surprise that you can go back to the old context menu easily.

There is also an option to get rid of one or multiple of the icons instead, or move them to another location in the menu. This guide looks at both options.

Option 1: Restore labels and remove icons

This is probably the preferred option for many users of the browser who dislike the icon row in the context menu. The Firefox add-on Classic Theme Restorer offers this option.

Note: only working if you run the default theme.

All you need to do is install the add-on in Firefox and open its preferences afterwards. Here you need to select General UI from the sidebar menu and scroll down until you find the option "Replace page context menu icons with labels (back, forward, stop, reload, bookmark page)" and check it.

Once done, Firefox will display a textual context menu again without any icons.

Option 2: Menu Wizard

If you prefer to remove some of the icons in the menu or move them to another location, then you may use an add-on such as Menu Wizard.

To use it install the add-on and restart the browser afterwards. Once you have done so, open about:addons and click on the options button next to it.

Expand the Main Context Menu tree and uncheck the following items to remove them from the context menu:

• context-back
• context-forwrad
• context-reload
• context-bookmarkpage
• context-stop

Each item can be removed individually from the menu. It is alternatively possible to move each icon to a new location in the menu.

Conclusion

As soon as Mozilla makes a change to a core feature of the browser, it is certain that an add-on developer will come up with an option to restore the functionality again.

What's your take on the icons in the context menu? Do you like or dislike them, or are indifferent to the change? Share your thoughts in the comments below.