Firefox Nightly: Mozilla makes it easier to test vertical tabs
The latest Firefox Nightly release makes it easier to test vertical tabs and the browser's new sidebar.
Mozilla launched support for the, much requested, vertical tabs feature in Firefox in June. Back then, it was necessary to flip several configuration switches manually to unlock the functionality.
Today's Nightly update changes this. Now, vertical tabs and sidebar can be enabled in the browser's settings. This exposes the feature to more testers and makes it easier to manage it.
Vertical Tabs arrive in Firefox Nightly's Settings
Here is how that is done:
- Load about:preferences#experimental in the browser's address bar.
- If you prefer to go there manually, go to Home > Settings > Firefox Labs.
- Check Vertical Tabs to enable the feature in Firefox.
Note: while you can enable Sidebar individually, enabling Vertical Tabs will always enable the Sidebar as well. The reason is simple: vertical tabs require the sidebar.
Vertical tabs are enabled automatically at this point. Tabs show up as favicons. You can hover over a tab to display its title and other information. You can use the customize toolbars option to drag the new sidebar icon to the toolbar.
Activation of it toggles between the full display of tabs in the sidebar and the favicon-only display.
The current iteration displays tabs only on the sidebar, but the original horizontal bar remains. There does not seem to be an option to turn this off entirely at this point.
A click on the settings icon displays a few options. You can move tabs and the sidebar to the right, if you prefer that position. Other options include auto-hiding the sidebar and toggling the visibility of Firefox Tools on the sidebar.
The four tools Chatbot, Tabs from other devices, History, and Bookmarks, can be toggled individually.
Some features work already:
- Right-click on a tab to get the full context menu. This gives you all tab-based options, including bookmarking, reloading, closing, muting, and many more.
- Drag & drop tabs to change the order. This works on a single window but also multiple windows.
The basic functionality is there already. The current iteration lacks features that made Tab Mix Plus great. This includes support for displaying different levels, configuring tab opening and merging behavior, and more.
Whether any of that is coming in a future release remains to be seen. For now, I'd be happy with an option to reduce the size of the titlebar when tabs are displayed on the side.
Closing Words
Work on vertical tabs continues. Mozilla has not announced a release date for the feature. Good news is that this feature is completely optional. If you prefer a horizontal placement, you will be able to continue using Firefox as before.
For users who swear on vertical tabs, as they may allow you to squeeze more tabs on the screen with larger titles than horizontal tabs, it is a going to be a welcome feature.
Now You: do you prefer vertical or horizontal tabs? Any specific reason for that? Let us know in the comments below.
Firefox with Sidebery addon installed still does it better than the native one.
I’ve never understood the appeal.
Perhaps to those who open and use a minimal amount of tabs, it would be useful, otherwise, it’s always been counter-intuitive to the long standing default standard used by all browsers.
Vertical tabs have been included in Floorp for quite a while now, but I prefer the horizontal style myself. The menu though is located in Settings –> Design.
Neowin has an article on Floorp which includes vertical tabs: https://www.neowin.net/software/floorp-japans-privacy-centric-firefox-browser/
Download Floorp from here: https://floorp.app/en
Don’t be put off by the Japanese text. Floorp includes a Mozilla addon called Translate Web Pages which is incorporated into the URL bar and your preferred language can be changed by a click on the “Translate this page” button. You only need to do that once.
Floorp isn’t officially supported on any Windows OS below Windows 10, but I’ve been running it successfully on Windows 8.1 for the past 12 months without any issues.
In any event you can run more than one browser on Windows without the need to change your existing browser to Floorp so it’s worth a look at least. The current version which is 11.16.0 was released on August 8 and includes the same all the security fixes applicable to Firefox 115.14.0 ESR.
I saw Edge already has this…. but meh, I rather have tabs on top
“Displays tabs as favicons”…Time ghacks gets one.
Feels more like 78 RPM/ 16? RPM to me.
There seems to have been no changes to this vertical tabs feature since it was introduced months ago. Not sure what they are doing up there at Mozilla…
Collecting telemetry, data diagnostics, marketing data, and conjuring up new useless bells to make you think theyre doing something meaningful with the data theyre slurping while also collecting googles monopoly money and colluding with Meta and other partners.
Nightly and Beta versions collect more telemetry, and forbid you from disabling it more than usual, which is probably why its marketed heavily.
Telemetry on these versions contain data about open tabs, websites visited, crash reports, operating system fingerprints.
So even though theres telemetry in beta and unstable alpha builds (nightly) where it should be in any software, they shove it in the finished product too. Just you cant turn it off here, where they pretend you can in the release versions. Weird.
I prefer panorama tabs.
I just hope that one day Firefox will fix the way to handle certificates and add-ons to use Digital Identity, instead of always having to touch PKCS# and other weird modules. Chrome/Edge/Brave/Vivaldi and the rest of Chromium based browsers work perfectly in this sense without having to do anything else, just inserting the ID card and that’s it folks, as simple as that. Absolutely incomprehensible that at this point of software development they have not made it easier, and I bet that this is one of the worst things they have to deal with. And about the vertical tabs, I dislike them as there was no tomorrow. Thanks for the article! :]
i have been using these feature in Edge long time ago
Interesting, but I hope they improve browser privacy.
As compared to which other browsers (and please don’t tell us Brave) and how exactly is FF not private?
Thumbs up.
He very likely wants his IP being removed from, or randomly spoofed in all IP packets being sent out by his local TCPIP stack for perfect privacy.
This would indeed increase privacy significantly, albeit with some minor side effects. :-)