Where is Firefox's menu bar?

Q I have a Windows 7 Home Premium computer on which I run Firefox as my preferred web browser. Recently, though, I have noticed that the File, Edit, View and other menus that used to run along the top are no longer there.

The only things that have changed on the PC have been a few Windows updates and an upgrade to Firefox 4.0. Is this a Firefox or Windows problem? And how can I get those menus back?
Graham Taylor

A The missing menu bar is a Firefox ‘problem’, but it is one of design rather than a fault.

In common with many modern application developers, Mozilla (the creator of Firefox) has decided to ditch the display of the menu bar from the latest version of its browser.

This is part of a trend among software developers to hide the menu bars with which people have become familiar over many years. The logic is to save screen space by not displaying a menu bar that, most of the time, isn’t used.

However, you are just one of the many people we hear from who are confused by the disappearance of menus. People who are used to the convention of the menu bar at the top suddenly find themselves thrown into a jungle of unfamiliar icons and controls, and longing for the consistency of the lost menus.

Fortunately, in most cases the menu bar can be brought back into view either temporarily or permanently.

The temporary method usually involves tapping or holding down the Alt key – and this is true of Firefox 4, too. 

Restoring the menu bar permanently varies from application to application. In Firefox 4, right-click on a blank area to the right of the browser tabs and left-click to tick the Menu Bar on the pop-up menu.