- 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.
Why people like 50 tabs at once. I can’t understand.
adhd. I’m considering making at alert for when my browser uses so much tabs that I’m almost out of RAM
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.
I storing YouTube links that I would watch next time
Text document
“Save to watch later”
Bookmark
There are options
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.
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.
whoa. mozilla doing something the people want?? WHAT PARALLEL WORLD IS THIS?
Don’t worry they say they’ll shove AI in it so it’s definitely our world
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’ll never understand you people that need like 50 tabs open at once.
I have a few use cases:
- Many youtube videos that are like 30+ minutes long saved for later
- Documentation on some stuff that I need to go back and forth
- Movies or games that I found, but don’t want to write down and forget
- Going down rabbit holes on wikipedia and saving it for another day
- Everything else that catches my attention and deserves a honorable spot in the tab bar
Basically, I use my browser as a notebook. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
So a shit ton of tabs that never get looked at again? I swear all of you secretly want your tabs to disappear so you have something to complain about.
Yeah those all seem like great uses of bookmarks and save functions.
RIGHT
So why’s it hard to explain why they’re not the same… 🤔
I will do my good deed of the month. You seem like a prime candidate for Tab Stash. Does the same but better than Tab Groups. Check it out. You might like it.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-stash/
Let me know, love it or hate it. Cheers.
Is there some way this could work on android?
Tab Stash is great, yes. That’s the answer.
Nah, just 200 or more
Sometimes I ended up with +50 tabs because I just don’t close them. But when the computer restart and Firefox ask me to restore them or start a new session, I always go for a new session. And I never felt that I lost something.
I closed my tabs with the window automatically
I used to never close tabs and they would accumulate as I kept doing more web searches and other activities. Now when I need to do stuff I usually open a new window instead for different tasks and if I need to free up RAM then I start closing other windows for tasks I’m not doing anymore so it closes all of the related tabs at the same time
I have a colleague who even saves all his tabs using a plugin, just in case he will need them at some point.
I dont know, I never have problems finding what I need so dont need to save anything.
Tab groups are great though, I need them so I can have groups with our aws accounts at work. That way i can just quickly get in to any account.
finally firefox re-added tab groups, after removing them once already in the past >_>
https://venturebeat.com/mobile/mozilla-is-removing-tab-groups-and-complete-themes-from-firefox/
live to help you declutter
Me ready to clutter even more 😈
Hi sorry to bother, how come your name is red in voyager? Tyvm
Hey no bother at all, I think it’s just because I’m an admin in my instance
Ahh makes sense, thank you!
Right??! So instead of clutter of tabs it will be clutter of tab groups… of tabs, lol.
Now that’s my kinda thing!
There is only solace in chaos
A second browser window is the real solution. Or simply accept the chaos.
As if I wasn’t already doing that lol I have 64 gigs of ram and I will use 64 gigs of ram!
No chaos. Only Sidebery.
They added sidebar tabs with this stuff too, doesn’t do a full tree structure and it needs some other work though.
Oh man, thats even more chaos having a new window for a group of tabs.
(Source: thats my daily experience)
Now do it on mobile and I’ll happily switch
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.
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.
Hey, you can use tab grouping in Librewolf if you set
browser.tabs.groups.enabled
to true in about:configThank you for this!
By now you would’ve expected someone to have pointed out what code is actually collecting that data that’s supposedly sold.
Can someone at least help me understand what tabs have that bookmarks don’t?
If i have more then 4 tabs open i get anxious because i can’t intuitively remember what each does. I have folders for categories of bookmarks.
It’s a combination of things… I’m a software developer, so I’ll often end up with 20+ tabs open while resolving a problem.
- I don’t want to bookmark them because I don’t need them when I finish the task.
- I can’t close the tabs until I’m sure everything’s working because Google sucks these days and who knows how hard it’ll be to find the source again.
- Relying on browser history is like finding a needle in a haystack. Tasks can take multiple days and 100 different entries in history.
- I might have “finished” a task that still needs tested and I know it’s a bit shaky; I’ll want to move onto a new task but keep the most useful references until I no longer need them.
- I only bookmark pages that I’ll need long-term or multiple times. It’s already hard enough to keep those organized…
My tab hoarding has only gotten this bad because search engines are terrible now and the amount of AI garbage to sort through makes finding anything useful a pain in the ass the first time; let alone trying to find it a second time.
You need Tab Stash in your life.
I have the same workflow. Usually, I never have more than maybe three tabs open, but when I’m debugging something… oh god. Easily 15 or 20.
I also bookmark extensively, and actually have my address bar set up to only give me suggestions from my bookmarks. Additionally, I use a tiling window manager, which makes managing windows and tabs very easy. I really don’t have a use for tab groups, but, who knows, maybe I’ll learn to use them someday.
Relying on browser history is like finding a needle in a haystack.
Oh sweet Satan, yes. I wish somebody could explain to me why browser history is so awful.
I can’t stay productive with 20 tabs or applications open. I waste time searching. I feel drained if I’m working on a tough job and need something that is hidden. Maybe it’s on another desktop. Maybe it’s open in another instance. Maybe it’s not even open. Not for me.
I feel you, and agree with most of it… buuutttt I think it’s even more frustrating to know you had a good reference that was closed and then spent a stupid amount of time to find again.
Everyone has their own workflow, whatever works.
Maybe a better solution is to stop using Google…?
I have, mostly. The search engine wasn’t the point; they’re all pretty terrible these days with the absurd AI spam everywhere.
if i bookmark something i will never look at it again
I only find my saved bookmarks randomly by typing something in the address bar and the bookmark popping up as the first result.
Isn’t that the best way, though? I’m searching for something, but now I don’t need to do a web search because I’ve saved the link to it already. And I didn’t have to dig through a long list to find it.
Oh yeah, when it comes to bookmarks I gave up trying to organize them into folders a long time ago, and I now try to add a few keywords/tags to the description to hopefully get the bookmark when I type in the address bar now.
You are entitled to this but I don’t understand why it makes a difference if the icon is above or below the url here.
If you have bookmarks hidden, thats an argument for a pretty bookmark manager.
i use bookmarks for sites i access frequently, like a speed dial thing. i’ve set up my bookmarks toolbar to be in-line with the address bar and icon-only, so that it blends in with the rest of the interface. if i’m just going to go back to something one time i leave a tab open until i get time.
I’m the same way, I think it’s just a younger generation thing where they never close tabs and can have 100+ open at once
I keep tabs open for active projects. Once the project is over, I bookmark them for future reference.
If i have more then 4 tabs open i get anxious
You are alone on that one. Virtually everyone I know, I look over and they have 50 tabs open LOL
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.
A million times this. But now the backend is done, hopefully mobile isn’t that far off.
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 🤪
This was the only thing keeping me on chrome at work. Tab groups are so nice for keeping resources related to specific projects together, especially if you’re juggling several features/fixes at the same time.
Maybe add some decent vertical tabs too?
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
What’s wrong about it? I really like it.
Vertical tabs are working great in FireDragon.
Wait, how do you turn them on?
Amg I couldn’t figure out how to collapse. I’m so happy rn. I’ve been containerising everything. It’s so soothing.