Comment Wouldn't miss it (Score 1) 1124
I can understand wanting to get rid of the menu bar. I can go several days without touching the menu because essentially everything you really need to use the browser is the address bar with associated buttons. I haven't researched whether there is an option for it or not, but hiding the menu and getting back even that little bit of screen real estate would be nice assuming I can show it again if I need it. Whether or not ribbon is usable doesn't matter as it's unlikely to get used much in the first place, as long as there is some way to access those functions when they're needed. It would be silly to switch to the ribbon as there's very little contextual command changing in a browser. The picture in TFA looks fairly appropriate for a browser, but I don't think even this is needed.
That said, several other commenters asserted that the ribbon is better than menus because it organizes commands by function, but doesn't a menu do the exact same thing? Perhaps the menus just need better names and organization, not a large, expanded, pictograph version taking up more screen space than really necessary. The only real plus is that once you've selected the ribbon you want, you don't have to go back to it like you do with a menu. A menu has the benefit of giving you an easy way to navigate to every available option, even if it makes the common options a little more obscured. A properly design menu can still have the common options readily available while still giving access to the lesser-used options, which is hard to do with the ribbon (unless you add a menu to it). Besides, if it's such a common task, shouldn't it have a keyboard shortcut that you've memorized so you don't have to stray from what you're actually trying to do? If the ribbon is easier for new users it's more likely due to better organization that could also be implemented in a menu system. The ribbon is basically a menu that's always open.
That said, several other commenters asserted that the ribbon is better than menus because it organizes commands by function, but doesn't a menu do the exact same thing? Perhaps the menus just need better names and organization, not a large, expanded, pictograph version taking up more screen space than really necessary. The only real plus is that once you've selected the ribbon you want, you don't have to go back to it like you do with a menu. A menu has the benefit of giving you an easy way to navigate to every available option, even if it makes the common options a little more obscured. A properly design menu can still have the common options readily available while still giving access to the lesser-used options, which is hard to do with the ribbon (unless you add a menu to it). Besides, if it's such a common task, shouldn't it have a keyboard shortcut that you've memorized so you don't have to stray from what you're actually trying to do? If the ribbon is easier for new users it's more likely due to better organization that could also be implemented in a menu system. The ribbon is basically a menu that's always open.
