Firefox

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lightbeam24@lemmy.world

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See you on the flip side (lemm.ee)

submitted 2 days ago by LWD@lemm.ee to c/firefox@lemmy.world

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[–] cloudless@piefed.social 43 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Pretty accurate except for "we must focus on the browser", I've never seen/heard them doing that.

I still remember when they cancelled vertical tabs after successful testing.

[–] LWD@lemm.ee 18 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

From their announcement about ending Pocket and FakeSpot:

we’re looking ahead to focusing on new Firefox features that people need most.

Far be it from me to say they act upon these statements, but I do see them made.

Edit: yay more AI

This shift allows us to shape the next era of the internet – with tools like vertical tabs, smart search and more AI-powered features on the way.

[–] sevon@lemmy.kde.social 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

They did? I still have it enabled and it works. If I get an update that removes this, mozilla can go shit themselves

[–] cloudless@piefed.social 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Many years ago they had an offical extension called "Tab Center", it had been in "labs" for some time. When it finished testing (it worked well), Mozilla decided to drop it instead of deploying it in Firefox. It wasn't even in low priority.

It took them many years and they finally implemented vertical tabs in 2024.

[–] wise_pancake@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I remember using an extension for that in like 2008 or something.

[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

And I remember them disabling the features that extension required to function.

[–] Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

That was the move to Firefox 3.0, wasn't it? Back when major Firefox releases were actually major and not just minor changes to a few tertiary features.

I'm pretty sure that upgrade killed more addons than every update since then combined. It took years for some of them to return.

[–] Rocketpoweredgorilla@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

When was that? I only ask because Firefox has vertical tabs now.

[+] cloudless@piefed.social -7 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Sorry for AI but I couldn't find it by just googling:

Yes, Firefox did have an in-house developed "Tab Center" — it was an experimental feature created by Mozilla as part of their Test Pilot programme around 2016–2017.

🧪 Mozilla's Original "Tab Center" Name: Tab Center

Status: Experimental Test Pilot feature (now discontinued)

Timeframe: Circa 2016–2017

Purpose: To explore the usability of vertical tabs on the left side of the browser, instead of the traditional horizontal layout.

🔍 Key Features Displayed open tabs vertically in a sidebar.

Showed a more spacious, scrollable list of tabs.

Included favicons and tab titles — easier to manage lots of tabs.

Supported mouse gestures like tab pinning and closing.

Looked and felt very similar to Edge’s modern vertical tabs.

[–] LWD@lemm.ee 5 points 2 days ago

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Mozilla+test+pilot+tab+center

[–] Rocketpoweredgorilla@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 days ago

Ah TIL! I think it was finally added as of version 136, fairly recently.