Move Firefox Tabs To The Sidebar

Everyone is used to access the tabs in Firefox just below the Firefox header that contains the navigation elements and address bar. While that seems to the the natural placement for now I remember times when tabs where accessible at the bottom of the screen just above the status bar instead.

And the Tab Sidebar add-on for Firefox tries to introduce another possibility by moving the tabs to the sidebar. This might have a positive effect on widescreen monitors that have lots of width. Many websites do not make use of a width wider than 1000 pixels anyway and those that use a dynamic width can adjust to different width anyway.

The main advantage of placing the tabs in the sidebar is the same why some Windows users prefer to move the taskbar from the bottom to the left or right side instead. The vertical alignment provides additional space that can be used to display additional information or more of the same kind. A vertical Windows taskbar for instance can display more folders with better information (folder names) than a horizontal taskbar can.

firefox tabs sidebar

The Tab Sidebar (via Firefox Facts) add-on provides two display modes. The first simply moves the tabs from the horizontal bar into the sidebar where they are displayed below each other. Several icons give access to functions like closing the tab, going back and forward in history and reloading the tab. Those icons can be removed as well to only contain the tabs and an option to close them.

A right-click still gives access to the usual context menu to bookmark tabs, undo closed tabs or reload tabs.

The second display mode is a preview mode that displays a preview thumbnail of the website that is currently open in the tab. This is a handy feature that requires more screen space than text tabs does. It might still appeal to some users who prefer this visual aid.

This sidebar can be moved to any other position on the screen. If you prefer it at the bottom above the status bar you can move it there. It can also be placed on the left, top or right side of the screen.

The user can even chose to keep the original tab bar open while the sidebar displays the tabs as well.