You asked, we built it: Firefox tab groups are here  | The Mozilla Blog
blog.mozilla.org
What happens when 4,500 people ask for the same feature? At Firefox, we build it. Tab groups have long been the most requested idea on Mozilla Connect –
  • HalfSalesman@lemm.eeEnglish
    201·
    18 days ago

    I feel like this feature is a good idea that has come too late for me. I already “group” stuff via windows. That’ll be a hard habit to break.

    • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
      131·
      18 days ago

      Do you use an add-on to prevent that from wiping out all but one window’s worth of tabs when you close them? That’s what originally made me get a tab grouping addon, after losing a ton of tabs when I broke some out into their own window and then later closed the main tab window before the secondary one. Realized immediately what happened but it was already too late to save that entire generation of precious tabs. Who knows what articles I didn’t feel like reading at the time but was totally going to read later I lost forever.

      • Ephera@lemmy.mlEnglish
        2·
        18 days ago

        I close all windows at once via the Quit feature, then it re-opens all of them. You can trigger that from the menubar (press Alt to unhide it) in the “File” menu at the bottom.
        You can also re-open a closed window from the “History” menu in that menubar.

        These might also be available in the hamburger menu. I’ve got that hidden, so can’t check easily…

      • Kwdg@discuss.tchncs.de
        4·
        18 days ago

        I either let the OS close firefox and then it opens all windows when I next start firefox. Or I use ctrl+shift+n to reopen the last closed window

      • Damage@feddit.it
        12·
        18 days ago

        Ctrl+Q terminates the whole program at once and you don’t lose any windows.

        Oh btw, just like Ctrl+shift+t reopens closed tabs, so Ctrl+shift+n reopens whole windows, with all tabs.

        • Flagstaff@programming.devEnglish
          2·
          17 days ago

          Interesting, though you can also just keep pressing Ctrl+Shift+T and it’ll eventually restore entire windows in the reverse order of closure, whether tab or window.

  • GnuLinuxDude@lemmy.ml
    2·
    18 days ago

    I’ve been using them for a few weeks now. Lifesaver as I try to organize stupid bullshit that life forces on me.

  • ☂️-@lemmy.ml
    932·
    18 days ago

    ok, mozilla is at least doing stuff we want along with ai garbage now.

    • pory@lemmy.worldEnglish
      21·
      17 days ago

      Thankfully, the useful changes trickle downstream to Waterfox, LibreWolf, Floorp, etc.

      • Sunsofold@lemmings.worldEnglish
        241·
        17 days ago

        Seems like it creates bills, but also has enough hype behind it to generate investment/donation interest.

        • 8uurg@lemmy.world
          9·
          17 days ago

          At least the AI runs locally, as opposed to sending everything to someone else’s computer for processing. Local translation in Firefox actually works quite well.

    • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
      23·
      17 days ago

      Except right now you lose all of your open tabs if you close the browser with the “X” on pc or if you shut the computer down.

      To make it save your open tabs right now, you have to click the … and then select “exit”.

      • ThePinkUnicorn@lemdro.idEnglish
        1·
        17 days ago

        I think that’s an issue with your install, when I shut down my computer or press the x it restores tabs fine next time I open it.

        • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
          2·
          17 days ago

          If it’s with the install, it’s from a bad/corrupted update. FF has been on there for ages. Are you on windows 10? I’ve seen it’s a known issue because it’s findable if you Google it. Be a strange bit of a corrupt install, being that it’s the only issue and that it works as expected if you select “exit” instead of hitting the “X”. Regardless, if you’re also on 64bit win10 system and it works normally for you, I’ll do a clean install.

          • ThePinkUnicorn@lemdro.idEnglish
            2·
            16 days ago

            Yes this is also on a 64 bit windows 10 install, so in theory yours should be functioning the same. Good luck getting that sorted as if you are like me and frequently use the same tabs that does sound like a pain

          • Robust Mirror@aussie.zone
            1·
            16 days ago

            Do you have “open previous windows and tabs” ticked in settings? I’m also on 64bit win10 without the issue you describe.

            • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
              1·
              16 days ago

              Yes. I’ve also tried un checking it, closing firefox, opening Firefox, re checking it, and it still only remembers my tabs if I “exit” Firefox instead of just hitting the X.

              Since it’s not happening to everyone else with windows 10, I’m going to just do a clean instal and see if that fixes it.

        • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
          2·
          17 days ago

          I’ve clicked history to get some pages back, but haven’t noticed a restore previous session option. Great if it’s there, but still a large bug that’s been present for quite a while.

  • xhduqetz@lemmy.ml
    5·
    18 days ago

    Been using it for a couple of months now at work. It’s good.

    I also appreciate how intuitively it works. I wasn’t aware of this feature when it first landed in developer edition, but after I accidentally created a group with drag and drop, the feature just clicked.

  • arsCynic@beehaw.org
    34·
    17 days ago

    “You asked, we built it” = “Your data is profitable, so we slapped AI on it and feign altruism”.

  • Melody Fwygon@lemmy.oneEnglish
    1·
    16 days ago

    This is mostly useless to me; I already enforce all tabs into unique containers to isolate browsing and website contexts from one another; while still allowing me to make exceptions to the rule and “unbreak” things if that’s causing an issue, but still keeping things isolated from the rest of the browsing.

    As for Tab Management; I use two windows and a plugin; Tab Stash Plus; which collapses tabs I stash into a bookmark.

    Every so often when I reach a critical mass of tabs I personally go through them and play “Keep/Toss” with more odds on Toss. Only useful tabs get stashed and are then searchable from the plugin.

    In general; since this feature now presents a possibility of an extremely UNWANTED AI integration I will be setting the config to off and leaving it off…using a relevant config policy tool or plugin to enforce this to off if needed. I hate AI features that I didn’t ask for and this one definitely doesn’t seem like it’s going to be helpful nor compatible with my current workflow.

  • davel@lemmy.mlEnglish
    47·
    18 days ago

    I had to enable them: about:config -> browser.tabs.groups.enabled -> true

        • SaltSong@startrek.websiteEnglish
          3·
          17 days ago

          Not on my browser they aren’t. They just started offering to make groups one day, and while I want to tear out someone’s tongue for it, it would require far too much effort, and might just be a bit of an overreaction.

  • TheRealCharlesEames@lemm.eeEnglish
    182·
    18 days ago

    Please help me understand how to use tab groups and how to use bookmarks and why they are different things.

    • Scipitie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      381·
      18 days ago

      Tab groups are built for open tabs, bookmarks are built for revisiting things. Their use cases are quite different in my opinion.

      • TheRealCharlesEames@lemm.eeEnglish
        17·
        18 days ago

        Ok but when do you make the decision to invest in organizing open tabs into groups versus bookmarking them or just moving them to a dedicated window. When do you close the tab or tab group – only when the initiative is over? Do you “archive” those tabs as bookmarks?

        And then there’s the profile variable

        • Scipitie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          51·
          18 days ago

          This question is a highly personal one from my perspective. I haven’t used the groups yet but I often toggle between six or seven contexts throughout the day and I’ll give them a shot for that.

          Profiles toggling just didn’t work for me as it was too … Slow for me as in I have to reorientate myself whenever I switched profiles.

        • fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          101·
          18 days ago

          just moving them to a dedicated window.

          That’s the key, it’s like having a separate window, but without the separate window.

          At work I’ll open anywhere between 40 and 100 tabs at a time, but I want to keep them near my existing tabs and not in another window. I have an extension that opens them all in a new tab group. I typically work from the left edge of the group and close out of tabs as I get through them. I can still hop between my non grouped and grouped tabs without having to change windows. And if I want to pause it for a bit then I “minimize” the group like a window.

        • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
          2·
          18 days ago

          Here’s a use case: I often have to open up a bunch of instances of the same website (an internal version of a customer-facing page). They all have the same URL, but because they’re single-page apps, they all have massively different functions. For a few hours, I’ll need to flip back and forth between a few of them at a time, as well as some other websites on different pages, as well as an external program that I’m referencing or modifying. Then I don’t have to do that again for a week or two. So I use a tab group to put all of them in, and then once they’re done, I save and close the tab group to reopen next time.

          Here’s another use case: I can use a single tab inside a “tab group” but use the tab group label to “name” the tab. That way, even though I have a dozen tabs open with the project name I work on at the beginning of the title, I can look at the label and know which one is the Jira ticket for the devops task I’m working on, which one is the Jira ticket for the new feature I’m waiting for QA signoff on, which one is the Jira ticket for the dependency update I need to do, etc. I also use this functionality when I have a bunch of stuff processing and I need to remember which one is on which step; do I need to do step 3 on this one or step 4? The tab group label knows.

          Or here’s another one: I’m currently in the middle of a big accessibility push for our product’s front-end. I have all of the various tabs and resources and Jira tickets and specs open in a tab group, and I can flip between all of them. I open them all every time because it’s rare that I only want one of them (though, if I do, it’s nice that Firefox automatically sleeps all but the active one when I reopen the group). When I’m working on the project, I open that tab group. When I’m done, I save and close it.

          Tab groups were literally the only thing I missed from Chrome when I migrated. I’m so glad to have them back, even though it did take seven five long years. Since it was available as a feature flag, I’ve used it so much.

    • everett@lemmy.ml
      5·
      18 days ago

      I don’t know about groups specifically, but keeping a tab open retains its history, so you can go back (and forward) later.

        • everett@lemmy.ml
          1·
          18 days ago

          Oops, I wasn’t clear… I meant I don’t know what the use-case is for tab groups, but keeping tabs open in any form should save history. (Thank you for letting me know, though!)

          • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
            2·
            18 days ago

            I gave a few of my personal use cases above, but in short: when I need to reference or act on multiple things on different sites at short notice, and will probably need to again later; to label tabs; and when I need multiple tabs of the same website, but because the URL doesn’t update a bookmark is insufficient.

            Edit: You’re welcome!

    • adarza@lemmy.caEnglish
      8·
      18 days ago

      instead of having 12984 tabs open, you can have 345 groups with only a few dozen tabs in each one.

    • entropicshart@sh.itjust.works
      8·
      18 days ago

      Multitasking, preparing for meetings/workshops, not having to make bookmarks that are only relevant for the duration of a project/task.

      There are many valid uses of tab groups that need to be kept open for quick accessibility without waiting for pages to load or finding specific groups of links that will not be relevant in a week

    • emb@lemmy.world
      2·
      18 days ago

      For me, open tabs and bookmarks are different levels of the same thing. I’ll open a bunch of tabs researching some task I want to do, and leave them open because I want to come back to that. Bookmarks do the same thing, but with lower visibility and higher permanence.

      Tab groups let me group a handful of things to reduce the clutter. Similar to the way that folders are useful within the bookmarks manager.

      To use them, just drag one tab on top of another, it’ll make a new group. Give it a name, and you can now expand/collapse. So 10 tabs all related to one task can stay in-sight to remind you, but only take up 1 tab’s worth of space in the bar.

  • unwarlikeExtortion@lemmy.ml
    21·
    18 days ago

    Great. Now do Guest mode. It’s a must-have for places like libraries and internet cafes - if Firefox equalled Chrome in this regard it’d easily gain a percent on the market share scale.

      • unwarlikeExtortion@lemmy.ml
        2·
        17 days ago

        In fact - no, it’s just a reskin of incognito to make it not feel like you’re not watching porn.

        Which might make it feel like a non-issue and a useless thing to add, but flip that around - it’s a low-cost, potentially very high-reward improvement. It really should’ve been implemented ages ago.

        The only things that need to be changed is the new tab page and the toolbar - both design “improvements”.

        • Prox@lemmy.world
          1·
          17 days ago

          Sorry, I’m not totally following here.

          What is Guest mode, exactly? Esp if not just a containerized session that clears all cookies, history, and personal data when closed.

          • unwarlikeExtortion@lemmy.ml
            2·
            17 days ago

            It literally is just Incognito (Private browsing), a little reskinned. Pretty much a temporary container living as long as the Ghest window - just like Incognito.

  • dindonmasker@sh.itjust.works
    1·
    18 days ago

    I’m saving all my tabs on a regular basis for 3 firefox pages. How does grouping tabs impact saving them? Does it create sub folders in the main saved tab folder?