The general gist is that /too much/ chrome is bad, and a good way to fix it could be to temporarily hide parts of the chrome, as long as it's consistent in how to find it again and that there is a simple and reliable way to re-enable it.
It seems that Mozilla nailed the consistency (in this case, the forward button will always come back when the user goes back), but I'm wary of the "simple and reliable" method of re-enabling it. From what I understand, you technically can't make the forward button show up until you go back, correct? You can't always reliably go "back", especially if you're on the first page when opening a new tab. I'd say that Firefox is violating design guidelines (or whatever you'd want to call the research just put out by Nielsen today).
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/ui-chrome.html
The general gist is that /too much/ chrome is bad, and a good way to fix it could be to temporarily hide parts of the chrome, as long as it's consistent in how to find it again and that there is a simple and reliable way to re-enable it.
It seems that Mozilla nailed the consistency (in this case, the forward button will always come back when the user goes back), but I'm wary of the "simple and reliable" method of re-enabling it. From what I understand, you technically can't make the forward button show up until you go back, correct? You can't always reliably go "back", especially if you're on the first page when opening a new tab. I'd say that Firefox is violating design guidelines (or whatever you'd want to call the research just put out by Nielsen today).