- cross-posted to:
- linux@programming.dev
- cross-posted to:
- linux@programming.dev
Thousands of users wanted it, so Firefox delivered it. Tab Groups are now live to help you declutter and stay organized while browsing.
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Tab groups have always been there. They’re called windows.
Not when window history in only 3 windows long. That deletes 90% of my tabs instantly.
Managing that would be a nightmare too. Good luck alt-tabbing to the one you want.
Good luck alt-tabbing to the one you want.
This is what workspaces are for.
Ah, so now I have 7 workspaces that don’t survive reboots! Wonderful.
Bookmarks would be easier at this point.
Bookmarks were easier from the beginning.
Eww
Not on mobile
I’m sure that when they rolled out tabs in browsers, there were people saying “I just have multiple windows open and Alt-Tab between them. This ‘tabs’ thing is for people who don’t know how to Alt-Tab.”
Yeah, no. I’m not trying to keep track of 15 windows when I can make named groups to actually organize the various things I always end up coming back to
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Why this would be a reason? Librewolf will have tab groups too. They don’t change the main structure, they just harden Firefox.
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Oh, you mean you were waiting for tab groups. Sorry, without enough context I thought you were telling one of those bullshit reasons people use against Firefox. Well then, see you with Librewolf soon.
As a librewolf babe, I’m keeping an eye on this: https://codeberg.org/librewolf/issues/issues/2458
Tab grouping is so useful and something I’ve always had to resort to extensions for. Good for Firefox for this, can’t wait for it to make its way to a browser that doesn’t sell users data.
By now you would’ve expected someone to have pointed out what code is actually collecting that data that’s supposedly sold.
Yeah, it still seems like an overreaction(with good intentions) to a poorly communicated change, which, yes, might mean they’ll do it in the future. But for now, they have the benefit of the doubt from me, and once it starts happening, I’ll move to a fork.
That being said, I don’t know anything about the code, so I have to count on the community to make it known that it’s actually been implemented.
For now, as far as I understand, the only indication that they’re even considering it, is that change in the ToS or whatever. Nothing else to suggest it’s happening.I’d agree that it’s overblown and I suspect this reaction comes from users not understanding the complex legal framework Mozilla operates in globally and regionally, and Mozilla doing what it does best, miscommunication.
IANAL but my interpretation of the situation is that in certain jurisdictions, California for example (where Mozilla is headquartered and where they have a legally binding contract in place with Google), they are and always have been “selling” your data from a LEGAL standpoint. It is a difference between how we users define selling (a literal exchange of data for money) versus how the law defines selling which can be much more broad and include things we wouldn’t define as selling.
As far as the law is concerned, again, in some but not all jurisdictions, a) all data has monetary value to tech companies, and b) with Mozilla & Google in particular there is a monetary exchange (ie. a contract worth millions of dollars) for Google Search being integrated into Firefox as the default.
Therefore, as far as the law is concerned, when you type into the Awesomebar or search box in Firefox, Firefox sends (sells) the data you entered (your data) to Google (because of course it does, that’s how the internet works) and this is a “sale of your data” under the legal definition. This is just one example from one jurisdiction Mozilla operates within, albeit a majorly influential and litigious jurisdiction.
My understanding is they had to make that their terms of use because if they didn’t they’d be liable to get sued into oblivion in jurisdictions where using a web browser to browse the internet constituted a legal sale.
Does this open the door to abuse and the literal sale of our data in the future, absolutely. But it’s on us to trust but verify, and do what we, the community, do best and hold Mozilla to account when they inevitably screw up.
Anyway, this was a much longer comment than I intended to write, but that’s my take as a someone who has not just used Mozilla products for decades but also contributed labour as well.
Hey, you can use tab grouping in Librewolf if you set
browser.tabs.groups.enabledto true in about:configThank you for this!
I’m glad they’ve added it to desktop, but based on my usage it’s more important for me on mobile. Hopefully they bring it to Android soon.
Agreed. But I’m glad it’s native to desktop Firefox now. Grouping tabs in desktop works for me to hide the hundreds of tabs I keep to tens of groups 🤪
As someone who is disgusted by people’s browser tab hygiene on desktop, I will say that I do have this issue on mobile. But it’s really more about how the browser is set up (on Android at least). Every single link I click opens a new tab, and I almost never scroll through existing tabs because, out of sight out of mind.
The problem for me is that I’ll keep things open for reference. Like I might have a few tabs open with info about a game I’m playing, or researching a purchase I’m trying to make. So having those grouped on mobile is super helpful.
A million times this. But now the backend is done, hopefully mobile isn’t that far off.
Ever since i switched to zen browser i hace not thought of coming back for a second.
I tried it -> couldn’t figure out how to get rid off vertical tabs -> uninstalled -> installed Librewolf
Yea Zen is amazing, especially the neat Workspaces feature.
I’m still going back to Firefox because of tab groups.
After everybody else yeah… woopie fkn doo. I say this as a LibreWolf user and using Firefox on alt PC.
So now when I open my mom’s computer, she see 20 tab groups, I’ll know it’s even worse than it looks…
I’ve never understood this. You guys know you can have multiple Firefox windows, right? What’s the point of tab groups when you can just group related tabs in a different window? Between multiple workspaces, multiple monitors, and multiple browser windows, I never feel the need to have more than 5-10 tabs open on any one of them at a time. More than that and I’m clearly doing something wrong and need to clean up anyway.
You underestimate the tab hoarders.
I’m also like you where I barely have more than a few tabs open. But I regularly witness people I know fill the tab bar until you can’t read the first 3 letters of the title anymore.
Switching between windows is far less fluid than switching between tabs.
Then maybe switch to a better OS / Window manager?
It doesn’t matter which one you have.
Oh, here’s the ol’ “I have no use for this feature, and I can’t see why anyone else would have one, either”, so I get to check that off my bingo card.
He’s just asking as in, maybe someone can share their perspective on why there may be an advantage to tab groups over windows. And to that end… isn’t there a certain amount of system resources that are increased more with a whole new window as opposed to just more tabs in groups? I would think it would consume more resources, albeit perhaps not to any severe degree. —?
And to the actual question I think visually tab groups are easier to navigate than swapping back through windows. Task managers don’t really tend to present windows in a fashion where you could refer to them in context of one-another. Maybe some custom views that you can install in Linux but even then, ones I’ve tried still don’t quite give you a quick easy overview that shows enough detail. You pretty much see what program you’re swapping to, but not laid out in ways you can compare and choose on the fly the way you want when it’s the same application but different content. That’s my experience, anyhow.
It’s called the ‘inner platform effect’. They are basically replicating parts of the underlying platform (the OS in this case) inside their own application, until the application turns into a platform itself, one crappier than the one below it. You see this happening with web browsers and ‘web apps’.
Different strokes for different folks. I replied to the guy who replied to you and raised a couple of ideas that I think may distinguish the options to answer your question.
tabing through multiple windows of the same program is annoying, having one window with groups is way easier. plus 1-2 monitors is the norm, so sometimes its just a screen space issue.
tabing through multiple windows of the same program is annoying,
How is it any less annoying than tabbing through multiple browser tabs in the same window?
Well it’s all in the same window and generally easier at least to me.
Mh, I’ll check out how it works but if I don’t like it I can always stick with
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/simple-tab-groups/
(And obviously 👎 for the inclusion of useless AI bs, would be nice if you can turn that off?)
The AI is local, privacy respecting and optional to use,
but I agree a config option to hide the button would be niceEdit: Apparently you can disable the feature
I’m not sure which button you’re talking about, but if it’s the one in the sidebar, click “Customise sidebar”, and then uncheck “AI chatbot”.
You can disable it in about:config
What’s the name of the option?
I’ve been out and about all day, and can’t check my desktop. But when I looked earlier this week, I found it by searching for “group”. AI tab group something or other.
Good news! Weirdly enough, I can’t use tab groups (not able to drag tabs on top of each other, there is no option in right-click dialogue), though I am on FF 138.
Why people like 50 tabs at once. I can’t understand.
Neither can we.
At work I’ll have like 20+ tabs open and I eventually am like F it, close everything and start over. Usually feels good.
to hide thier porn tabs.
They don’t know how bookmarks work.
Bookmarks are great if I remember what I want is there. Usually bookmarking is like putting a piece of paper in cabinet that I will never open… A tab is leaving the paper on my desk for me that I will rediscover.
Use the bookmarks toolbar then.
This is what I do. You can even create folders with no name that take up very little space on the bookmarks toolbar, and fill them with links. You can have sub-folders within those folders… I truly just do not understand the tab hoarding mentality.
You can also just start typing and set up your search bar to automatically search bookmarks (and history too if you’re afraid of losing something)
And don’t forget that you can add tags to your bookmarks to make them easier to find again.
I did forget! Thanks
You can hide the bookmark bar to save vertical space and then it’s just a more organized, forgotten bookmark list. Using a search engine to find the page again is more likely for me than a bookmaker 😅 (if no tab).
I do this too. Folders in the bookmarks toolbar. If I’m not done with a topic I just drag-and-drop these tabs into a folder. If you middle click one of these folders every bookmarks opens in a new tab for quick access.
This person gets it.
Heres a neat easter egg: If you open enough tabs on firefox mobile the number in the tab icon changes to an infinity icon
On Chrome it becomes a smiley face. I use Firefox and my wife still uses Chrome.
I’m constantly trying to keep under that number, lol. It’s a shame Easter egg
Agile and task reprioritization at work.
Too many projects to work on at home.
Games.
agile
Lol sure thing.
You gotta be nimble to navigate through 50+ tabs to find what you are looking for
Hence the groups having the ticket name related to the task I am working on. When the task closes I delete that group once I’ve ensured anything important for future context is documented and then I say goodbye with confidence.
I don’t bookmark things for work tasks, I log them in tickets or commit it to readme/code comments/team docs somewhere.
Edit: I should also note that my workflow uses Simple Tab Groups and not much of this new core feature.
Simple tab groups hides all other tabs and you switch groups via a dropdown. I usually only have 10-12 tabs open at once.
I storing YouTube links that I would watch next time
Text document
“Save to watch later”
Bookmark
There are options
Text document - very lack of quality features Others - just place where I would forget them forever
So youll just leave them where you would forget them forever instead?
What’s the functional difference between a tab bar and bookmark bar for this specific purpose other than the former taking more resources?
Genuine question because I cannot comprehend
I can’t tell if you’re serious or not. A bookmark bar will never be able to easily contain everything you need. It requires manual review (expanding the bar, manually browsing every bookmark and re-opening tabs [and you’re suggesting to bookmark 50+ pages every week… impossible]). So not only are you implying it would be better to add 2 - 3 additional steps to the workflow, but also you are missing the very functional fact that a bookmark bar is a lot less accessible than a scrollable tab bar with an instantly opened window with what you were working on.
Tabs also remember where you are on the page. I read long studies, and implement complex projects. Bookmarks will re-open every tab at the start of the page, not word 600. There are just too many reasons as to why tabs are more functional than bookmarks and saving data to lists. A big part of it is the size of the persons workflow, someone with a smaller workflow may not be able to see how impactful those additional steps in the process are.
You clearly do not have ADHD. Those are where things go to be forgotten forever.
I do, actually
Bookmark bar is basically identical to tabs in screen location and functionality, so I use those like an adult
Sick, infantalizing others because they don’t like to do things the way that works for you. Super cool, man.
Says the guy trying to fuse disability as a reason to insult someone. Grow up
I never intended to insult you, I was merely explaining how my ADHD manifests.
I made the incorrect assumption that you were coming from a more neurotypical perspective, and for that, I sincerely apologize, but nowhere did I insult you. If you took this as an insult, again, my apologies.
Yeah, that is just asking for data to be forgotten. The functional difference is:
You have your browser with let’s say 30 tabs. You can’t forget what you need to, because they are always open. So to catch up, you have to close out your tabs or lose everything.
Compared to adding something to a list, which requires you to manually go back and remember what you needed to do. But if you have 100 things to every week, and those constantly get added on, you will always lose data to return to if you’re not actively tracking it, hence the tabs.
It’s a very simple concept. A lot of people have a lot less time to do all the things they need to during the week. People on their computers all day, or with less of a workload, can’t comprehend this without opening their mind to a different perspective.
I know, because I used to feel the same way about people who had 20+ tabs. But at that point in time, the thought of not having enough time to get to everything and adding 50+ things to do every week (meaning 200 - 400 new tabs every week) was foreign to me, and your suggestion makes it quite literally impossible without extra work involved, if you care to actually complete everything you wanted.
Bookmarks? Or if you’re logged into youtube, they literally have a “watch later” option to keep track of these.
Well, its not only youtube
Close tab button is a lava
I used to feel the same way. But recently, I just don’t have time to ‘finish’ each tab/section. When I was younger with more time, I could.
For example, the first section of my browser is several self hosted apps I’m currently implementing. So, I don’t want to lose the relevant forum posts/documentation.
The second section is some articles I couldn’t finish reading.
The third section is something I’m researching for my work.
Fourth are media tabs, some YouTube videos I haven’t finished, a music tab, etc etc
So basically, if I had time to read the articles, one section closed. Or finished my implementation, etc.
The hard part this is this is every week. Always new projects, work or personal. Always new studies to read. Always new vids. You get the point.
It’s akin to when everything is urgent, nothing is.
At one point, you gotta accept that you can’t do everything and move on. You can always re-find the information if it comes down to it in the future. Or you can use bookmark folders to be able to eventually go back to what you think is important.
If I have more than 6-7 tabs open, I check what I need to absolutely save and add that to a bookmark folder, then I close my browser and start fresh.
Yup, that’s how operate. I went to help a colleague with some stuff and dude had so many tabs and windows open it took him more time to find the tab he wanted me to see than it wouldn’t taken me to search for it. Annoying
adhd. I’m considering making at alert for when my browser uses so much tabs that I’m almost out of RAM
The only way to keep my ADHD at bay when I’m on the computer is to be radical with my tabs. Don’t need it in the next hour? That’s definitely a bookmark, not a tab. I configured my browser to not save tabs between sessions so I always start clean. I’d long be dead otherwise, suffocated by my own browser tabs.
Same here… I need my browser session to be new each time. I’ll get thrown off if I forget that I had my browser open when I rebooted my PC or something, so it “restores” my session… I’m like what the fuck is this mess? Give me my blank page!
Just install the Auto Tab Discard extension. After a certain amount of time it will replace your loaded tab with a (RAM-free) placeholder that reloads when you click it again. Me, my ADHD brain, and my 500 tabs can be at peace now.
When the tabs use too much RAM I just pkill waterfox and restart it, so the tabs are still there but not loaded, I assume it would to the same ?
Now do it on mobile and I’ll happily switch
The lack of groups was the deal breaker for me, so after it rolled out to beta, I finally switched back to Firefox as my primary browser.
Last I tried, I don’t think you could reorder or drag/drop groups and selecting multiple tabs doesn’t result in “group tabs” in the context menu, but it is still decent enough.
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The prototype scans open tabs locally, suggests topical names, and auto-bundles related pages. Because all processing happens on the user’s computer, the company says, neither raw content nor behavioral signals are uploaded to the cloud.
“AI” is just a buzzword, this isn’t chatbot nonsense as far as I can tell.
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If its called smart and uses Ai, then its advanced. We need Ai for renaming groups of tabs.
Maybe add some decent vertical tabs too?
Vertical tabs are working great in FireDragon.
Wait, how do you turn them on?
Go to Settings > Design, and then under Tab Bar Style select “Vertical Tab Bar (experimental)”. I recommend checking the “Collapse Vertical Tab Bar” checkbox, too. That way, the tab bar collapses into icons when your cursor isn’t over it, taking up less window space.
Wow, this is brilliant! Now all I need is proper mouse gestures support and I can migrate full-time!
I have tried Zen and I like it, I will give ForeDragon a spin, thanks 🙏
What’s wrong about it? I really like it.
I’ve started using vertical tabs in Firefox as soon as I got the notification. I never thought I would have liked them so much.
Why are you asking for decent vertical tabs? Are they inferior to some other browser you have in mind?
I’ve been using the tree-style-tabs plugin for the last 4 years, because I like vertical tabs, and nesting it provides.
But now that Firefox actually finally has proper vertical tabs, and tab groups, I can move away from tree-style-tabs (I don’t use any of its other features).
I wanted to like them but I dont know, I think they are more natural at the top still.
I’m going to stick it out for maybe a couple months (past this first ~month period) just to see if maybe they are superior somehow
I like Arc’s user experience with vertical tabs. They are bigger, easier to organize and they are cleaner. Also, the sidebar toggle is hard to work with, ideally I would prefer the ability to toggle with a shortcut or reveal on hover.
Aside Arc, Zen browser has a good vertical tab experience.
Overall, I still main firefox for my personal browser, though it’s UX is still lacking.
There is a keyboard shortcut. It’s CTRL+ALT+Z for me. Unless you mean something else?
As for the “reveal on hover”, iirc there was a dismissable message that said it is coming soon.
If I can share my opinion, they are more than big enough if you toggle the checkbox “optimize for touch screen”. I would have to try Arc or Zen again to understand what you mean.
The only complaint I have is that I need to hover (or expand) to see the title. It becomes annoying when I’m reading documentation and I end up with multiple tabs with the same icon.
EDIT: I can’t seem to find the “optimize for touch screen” checkbox anymore, but I’m sure there is something like that somewhere because I enabled it on one of my devices which has a touch screen.
EDIT 2: the “optimize for touch screen” option can be seen by right clicking the toolbar and choosing “Customize toolbar”. Changing the density to “Touch” (on the bottom) makes these icons bigger.
This is super neat, but I swapped to Floorp awhile back because I like the workspaces feature.
Super happy for folks who wanted this built-in tho.
I really liked Floorp, but it kept breaking on work sites, so I had to switch back to FF. Super glad they are bringing this back.
