Opinion: I love the tab grouping feature of web browsers

Martin Brinkmann
Jun 3, 2022
Internet
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33

Many desktop web browsers and some mobile browsers support the grouping of tabs. Implementations may differ depending on the browser and platform, but all have in common that they provide users with an option to group tabs in the browser.

chrome tab groups

Many Chromium-based browsers support tab groups by now. You can use Microsoft Edge, Brave or Google Chrome, and use the functionality right away. All that it takes is to right-click on a tab and select the "add tab to new group" option from the context menu.

Add a custom string to describe the group, pick a color and you are all set to start using it. New tabs are added via drag & drop, and once the tab bar reaches a certain threshold, you may click on the name of the tab group to minimize it.

Some Chromium-based browsers have created different solutions. The Vivaldi browser supports a range of tab group related options. Unlike other Chromium-based browsers, Vivaldi users may create tab groups by dragging tabs on top of each other. It is simpler, and the browser comes with options to display tabs of groups in a second tab bar in the interface for improved usability.

Mozilla's Firefox web browser supported tab groups for some time several years ago. Mozilla made the decision to remove tab grouping functionality from Firefox. Firefox users may install add-ons, such as Tiled Tab Groups, Panorama Tab Groups, or Simple Tab Groups, that restore the functionality.

Why I like Tab Groups

vivaldi browser tab groups

When I use a web browser, I tend to have a good amount of tabs open at all times. It happens that I find sites and pages of interest during browsing and research sessions, and I tend to open these in new tabs in the browser and keep these tabs open between sessions.

While I could save the tabs to the browser's bookmarks or use other archiving options, I found that I forget about these then quickly as they are not visible anymore on the screen.

The number of tabs reaches dangerous threshold levels sometimes, so that open tabs are displayed with just a site icon or no icon at all anymore.

The introduction of tab group support in the browser allows me to sort open tabs into multiple groups and to collapse groups that are needed. One group has all the Ghacks research articles that I came across; these consist of new programs that I want to test, articles from other websites, research papers, tips, and anything else that could make an article on the site or be used in one.

Then I have groups for other activities, including entertainment and hobbies, or informational articles on topics of interest that are unrelated to my day job. Tab groups help me focus, as they hide open tabs that I don't need access to at the time.

What is still missing

Tab groups improve how I work significantly. The implementation in Chrome, Edge and most Chromium-based browsers lacks one option, which I would like to see introduced in the future. If a tab group is collapsed, it is not possible to use drag and drop to add a new open tab to it. I have to expand the group to drop another tab into it.

Vivaldi does this better, and it is having the superior tab grouping system in my opinion.

Closing Words

Tab groups are not for all users. If you have one or two tabs open at a time, then you don't need to use tab groups. If you have several dozen or even hundreds of tabs open, you may want to check out the feature to better organize tabs and improve workflows in the process.

Now You: do you use tab groups?

Summary
Opinion: I love the tab grouping feature of web browsers
Article Name
Opinion: I love the tab grouping feature of web browsers
Description
Tab groups are supported by most browsers. Here is why I love tab grouping functionality so much.
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Ghacks Technology News
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Comments

  1. ilev said on August 4, 2012 at 7:53 pm
    Reply

    Doesn’t Windows 8 know that www. or http:// are passe ?

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on August 4, 2012 at 7:57 pm
      Reply

      Well it is a bit difficulty to distinguish between name.com domains and files for instance.

    2. Leonidas Burton said on September 4, 2023 at 4:51 am
      Reply

      I know a service made by google that is similar to Google bookmarks.
      http://www.google.com/saved

  2. VioletMoon said on August 16, 2023 at 5:26 pm
    Reply

    @Ashwin–Thankful you delighted my comment; who knows how many “gamers” would have disagreed!

  3. Karl said on August 17, 2023 at 10:36 pm
    Reply

    @Martin

    The comments section under this very article (3 comments) is identical to the comments section found under the following article:
    https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/15/netflix-is-testing-game-streaming-on-tvs-and-computers/

    Not sure what the issue is, but have seen this issue under some other articles recently but did not report it back then.

  4. Anonymous said on August 25, 2023 at 11:44 am
    Reply

    Omg a badge!!!
    Some tangible reward lmao.

    It sucks that redditors are going to love the fuck out of it too.

  5. Scroogled said on August 25, 2023 at 10:57 pm
    Reply

    With the cloud, there is no such thing as unlimited storage or privacy. Stop relying on these tech scums. Purchase your own hardware and develop your own solutions.

    1. lollmaoeven said on August 27, 2023 at 6:24 am
      Reply

      This is a certified reddit cringe moment. Hilarious how the article’s author tries to dress it up like it’s anything more than a png for doing the reddit corporation’s moderation work for free (or for bribes from companies and political groups)

  6. El Duderino said on August 25, 2023 at 11:14 pm
    Reply

    Almost al unlmited services have a real limit.

    And this comment is written on the dropbox article from August 25, 2023.

  7. John G. said on August 26, 2023 at 1:29 am
    Reply

    First comment > @ilev said on August 4, 2012 at 7:53 pm

    For the God’s sake, fix the comments soon please! :[

  8. Kalmly said on August 26, 2023 at 4:42 pm
    Reply

    Yes. Please. Fix the comments.

  9. Kim Schmidt said on September 3, 2023 at 3:42 pm
    Reply

    With Google Chrome, it’s only been 1,500 for some time now.

    Anyone who wants to force me in such a way into buying something that I can get elsewhere for free will certainly never see a single dime from my side. I don’t even know how stupid their marketing department is to impose these limits on users instead of offering a valuable product to the paying faction. But they don’t. Even if you pay, you get something that is also available for free elsewhere.

    The algorithm has also become less and less savvy in terms of e.g. English/German translations. It used to be that the bot could sort of sense what you were trying to say and put it into different colloquialisms, which was even fun because it was like, “I know what you’re trying to say here, how about…” Now it’s in parts too stupid to translate the simplest sentences correctly, and the suggestions it makes are at times as moronic as those made by Google Translations.

    If this is a deep-learning AI that learns from users’ translations and the phrases they choose most often – which, by the way, is a valuable, moneys worthwhile contribution of every free user to this project: They invest their time and texts, thereby providing the necessary data for the AI to do the thing as nicely as they brag about it in the first place – alas, the more unprofessional users discovered the translator, the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, the greater the aggregate of linguistically illiterate users has become, and the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, as it now learns the drivel of every Tom, Dick and Harry out there, which is why I now get their Mickey Mouse language as suggestions: the inane language of people who can barely spell the alphabet, it seems.

    And as a thank you for our time and effort in helping them and their AI learn, they’ve lowered the limit from what was once 5,000 to now 1,500…? A big “fuck off” from here for that! Not a brass farthing from me for this attitude and behaviour, not in a hundred years.

  10. Anonymous said on September 28, 2023 at 8:19 am
    Reply

    When will you put an end to the mess in the comments?

  11. RIP said on September 28, 2023 at 9:36 am
    Reply

    Ghacks comments have been broken for too long. What article did you see this comment on? Reply below. If we get to 20 different articles we should all stop using the site in protest.

    I posted this on [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/] so please reply if you see it on a different article.

    1. RIP said on September 28, 2023 at 11:01 am
      Reply

      Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to

  12. RIP said on September 28, 2023 at 10:48 am
    Reply

    Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to

  13. Mystique said on September 28, 2023 at 12:13 pm
    Reply

    Article Title: Reddit enforces user activity tracking on site to push advertising revenue
    Article URL: https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/

    No surprises here. This is just the beginning really. I cannot see a valid reason as to why anyone would continue to use the platform anymore when there are enough alternatives fill that void.

  14. justputthispostanywhere said on September 29, 2023 at 3:59 am
    Reply

    I’m not sure if there is a point in commenting given that comments seem to appear under random posts now, but I’ll try… this comment is for https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/

    My temporary “solution”, if you can call it that, is to use a VPN (Mullvad in my case) to sign up for and access Reddit via a European connection. I’m doing that with pretty much everything now, at least until the rest of the world catches up with GDPR. I don’t think GDPR is a magical privacy solution but it’s at least a first step.

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