Firefox Finally Did It
linuxiac.com
Thousands of users wanted it, so Firefox delivered it. Tab Groups are now live to help you declutter and stay organized while browsing.

Thousands of users wanted it, so Firefox delivered it. Tab Groups are now live to help you declutter and stay organized while browsing.

    • kazaika@lemmy.world
      151·
      6 days ago

      Heres a neat easter egg: If you open enough tabs on firefox mobile the number in the tab icon changes to an infinity icon

    • Sibyls@lemmy.mlEnglish
      191·
      7 days ago

      I used to feel the same way. But recently, I just don’t have time to ‘finish’ each tab/section. When I was younger with more time, I could.

      For example, the first section of my browser is several self hosted apps I’m currently implementing. So, I don’t want to lose the relevant forum posts/documentation.

      The second section is some articles I couldn’t finish reading.

      The third section is something I’m researching for my work.

      Fourth are media tabs, some YouTube videos I haven’t finished, a music tab, etc etc

      So basically, if I had time to read the articles, one section closed. Or finished my implementation, etc.

      The hard part this is this is every week. Always new projects, work or personal. Always new studies to read. Always new vids. You get the point.

      • Croquette@sh.itjust.works
        3·
        6 days ago

        It’s akin to when everything is urgent, nothing is.

        At one point, you gotta accept that you can’t do everything and move on. You can always re-find the information if it comes down to it in the future. Or you can use bookmark folders to be able to eventually go back to what you think is important.

        If I have more than 6-7 tabs open, I check what I need to absolutely save and add that to a bookmark folder, then I close my browser and start fresh.

        • fishy@lemmy.todayEnglish
          1·
          6 days ago

          Yup, that’s how operate. I went to help a colleague with some stuff and dude had so many tabs and windows open it took him more time to find the tab he wanted me to see than it wouldn’t taken me to search for it. Annoying

          • Routhinator@startrek.websiteEnglish
            3·
            6 days ago

            Hence the groups having the ticket name related to the task I am working on. When the task closes I delete that group once I’ve ensured anything important for future context is documented and then I say goodbye with confidence.

            I don’t bookmark things for work tasks, I log them in tickets or commit it to readme/code comments/team docs somewhere.

            Edit: I should also note that my workflow uses Simple Tab Groups and not much of this new core feature.

            Simple tab groups hides all other tabs and you switch groups via a dropdown. I usually only have 10-12 tabs open at once.

    • tehn00bi@lemmy.world
      8·
      6 days ago

      At work I’ll have like 20+ tabs open and I eventually am like F it, close everything and start over. Usually feels good.

      • tabular@lemmy.worldEnglish
        28·
        6 days ago

        Bookmarks are great if I remember what I want is there. Usually bookmarking is like putting a piece of paper in cabinet that I will never open… A tab is leaving the paper on my desk for me that I will rediscover.

          • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
            51·
            6 days ago

            This is what I do. You can even create folders with no name that take up very little space on the bookmarks toolbar, and fill them with links. You can have sub-folders within those folders… I truly just do not understand the tab hoarding mentality.

            You can also just start typing and set up your search bar to automatically search bookmarks (and history too if you’re afraid of losing something)

            • llii@discuss.tchncs.de
              2·
              5 days ago

              I do this too. Folders in the bookmarks toolbar. If I’m not done with a topic I just drag-and-drop these tabs into a folder. If you middle click one of these folders every bookmarks opens in a new tab for quick access.

            • tabular@lemmy.worldEnglish
              2·
              5 days ago

              You can hide the bookmark bar to save vertical space and then it’s just a more organized, forgotten bookmark list. Using a search engine to find the page again is more likely for me than a bookmaker 😅 (if no tab).

    • phantomwise@lemmy.mlEnglish
      41·
      7 days ago

      adhd. I’m considering making at alert for when my browser uses so much tabs that I’m almost out of RAM

      • uniquethrowagay@feddit.org
        6·
        6 days ago

        The only way to keep my ADHD at bay when I’m on the computer is to be radical with my tabs. Don’t need it in the next hour? That’s definitely a bookmark, not a tab. I configured my browser to not save tabs between sessions so I always start clean. I’d long be dead otherwise, suffocated by my own browser tabs.

        • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          1·
          6 days ago

          Same here… I need my browser session to be new each time. I’ll get thrown off if I forget that I had my browser open when I rebooted my PC or something, so it “restores” my session… I’m like what the fuck is this mess? Give me my blank page!

      • cravl@slrpnk.net
        5·
        6 days ago

        Just install the Auto Tab Discard extension. After a certain amount of time it will replace your loaded tab with a (RAM-free) placeholder that reloads when you click it again. Me, my ADHD brain, and my 500 tabs can be at peace now.

        • phantomwise@lemmy.ml
          1·
          6 days ago

          When the tabs use too much RAM I just pkill waterfox and restart it, so the tabs are still there but not loaded, I assume it would to the same ?

      • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        2·
        6 days ago

        Bookmarks? Or if you’re logged into youtube, they literally have a “watch later” option to keep track of these.

        • Sibyls@lemmy.mlEnglish
          61·
          7 days ago

          Yeah, that is just asking for data to be forgotten. The functional difference is:

          You have your browser with let’s say 30 tabs. You can’t forget what you need to, because they are always open. So to catch up, you have to close out your tabs or lose everything.

          Compared to adding something to a list, which requires you to manually go back and remember what you needed to do. But if you have 100 things to every week, and those constantly get added on, you will always lose data to return to if you’re not actively tracking it, hence the tabs.

          It’s a very simple concept. A lot of people have a lot less time to do all the things they need to during the week. People on their computers all day, or with less of a workload, can’t comprehend this without opening their mind to a different perspective.

          I know, because I used to feel the same way about people who had 20+ tabs. But at that point in time, the thought of not having enough time to get to everything and adding 50+ things to do every week (meaning 200 - 400 new tabs every week) was foreign to me, and your suggestion makes it quite literally impossible without extra work involved, if you care to actually complete everything you wanted.

          • Psychadelligoat@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            43·
            6 days ago

            I do, actually

            Bookmark bar is basically identical to tabs in screen location and functionality, so I use those like an adult

                • NιƙƙιDιɱҽʂ@lemmy.world
                  21·
                  5 days ago

                  I never intended to insult you, I was merely explaining how my ADHD manifests.

                  I made the incorrect assumption that you were coming from a more neurotypical perspective, and for that, I sincerely apologize, but nowhere did I insult you. If you took this as an insult, again, my apologies.

        • oplkill@lemmy.world
          52·
          7 days ago

          Text document - very lack of quality features Others - just place where I would forget them forever

          • Psychadelligoat@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            53·
            7 days ago

            So youll just leave them where you would forget them forever instead?

            What’s the functional difference between a tab bar and bookmark bar for this specific purpose other than the former taking more resources?

            Genuine question because I cannot comprehend

            • Sibyls@lemmy.mlEnglish
              101·
              7 days ago

              I can’t tell if you’re serious or not. A bookmark bar will never be able to easily contain everything you need. It requires manual review (expanding the bar, manually browsing every bookmark and re-opening tabs [and you’re suggesting to bookmark 50+ pages every week… impossible]). So not only are you implying it would be better to add 2 - 3 additional steps to the workflow, but also you are missing the very functional fact that a bookmark bar is a lot less accessible than a scrollable tab bar with an instantly opened window with what you were working on.

              Tabs also remember where you are on the page. I read long studies, and implement complex projects. Bookmarks will re-open every tab at the start of the page, not word 600. There are just too many reasons as to why tabs are more functional than bookmarks and saving data to lists. A big part of it is the size of the persons workflow, someone with a smaller workflow may not be able to see how impactful those additional steps in the process are.

    • phantomwise@lemmy.mlEnglish
      131·
      7 days ago

      Don’t worry they say they’ll shove AI in it so it’s definitely our world

    • some_random_nick@lemmy.world
      283·
      7 days ago

      I have a few use cases:

      1. Many youtube videos that are like 30+ minutes long saved for later
      2. Documentation on some stuff that I need to go back and forth
      3. Movies or games that I found, but don’t want to write down and forget
      4. Going down rabbit holes on wikipedia and saving it for another day
      5. Everything else that catches my attention and deserves a honorable spot in the tab bar

      Basically, I use my browser as a notebook. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

      • Default_Defect@midwest.socialEnglish
        136·
        7 days ago

        So a shit ton of tabs that never get looked at again? I swear all of you secretly want your tabs to disappear so you have something to complain about.

        • some_random_nick@lemmy.world
          51·
          6 days ago

          Not the slightest! I can perfectly fine live without them, but I would be a little bit sad if they were gone. It happened once after my OneTab extension got somehow corrupted.

        • cx40@programming.devEnglish
          1·
          6 days ago

          Do you know if there’s a similar extension that allows you to export/import the tabs in some text format rather than saving to bookmarks? I’m currently using Tab Season Manager, but it takes way too many steps to accomplish this.

          • FriendBesto@lemmy.ml
            1·
            3 days ago

            I did not know that, thanks. The reason I use Tab Stash is because I can use my Nextcloud instance to move the tabs/bookmarks automatically. As for privacy reasons I do not use FF sync.

            Moving a file seems like more work and more moving parts as I use multiple machines and different OS’es on the same machines.

      • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        25·
        6 days ago

        Have you heard of bookmarks? There’s a bookmark toolbar, that could look almost exactly the same if you want. Including folders with sub-folders, etc.

        • biggerbogboy@sh.itjust.works
          21·
          6 days ago

          So you’re saying that pressing 2 on screen buttons, then closing a page is a better solution than creating a group then dragging in and out whatever you need? Sure, I use the bookmarks bar too, but it’s not for stuff I’ll remove after a while, those are perminent, but tab groups are generally for stuff you will eventually close, but wantto sort in the meantime to make it more convenient.

          If you don’t have a use for it, fair enough, I don’t either, but it is a genuinely useful feature for some that can’t be replaced by more clicks.

    • 1984@lemmy.today
      4·
      7 days ago

      I have a colleague who even saves all his tabs using a plugin, just in case he will need them at some point.

      I dont know, I never have problems finding what I need so dont need to save anything.

      Tab groups are great though, I need them so I can have groups with our aws accounts at work. That way i can just quickly get in to any account.

    • Underwire@lemmy.world
      41·
      7 days ago

      Sometimes I ended up with +50 tabs because I just don’t close them. But when the computer restart and Firefox ask me to restore them or start a new session, I always go for a new session. And I never felt that I lost something.

    • sudoer777@lemmy.mlEnglish
      2·
      7 days ago

      I used to never close tabs and they would accumulate as I kept doing more web searches and other activities. Now when I need to do stuff I usually open a new window instead for different tasks and if I need to free up RAM then I start closing other windows for tasks I’m not doing anymore so it closes all of the related tabs at the same time

  • Lukas Murch@thelemmy.clubEnglish
    81·
    7 days ago

    So now when I open my mom’s computer, she see 20 tab groups, I’ll know it’s even worse than it looks…

  • Routhinator@startrek.websiteEnglish
    51·
    6 days ago

    The way they did it though… the tab group name cant be collapsed so it takes a lot of room. I find I’m still using task oriented groups from the Simple Tab Groups extension, and then using the new core groups feature as a way to group subtopics for that task.

    And before you say “you must have a million tabs”… I used to have millions of tabs, but now i average less than 100 when I have a lot of tasks I need to balance, and I know what all of them are open for. So when I complete a task I delete the Simple Tab Group and say bye to all those tabs.

  • AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    6 days ago

    I love it, it was basically the only thing I missed when I switched from Chrome to Firefox. I’ve reorganized all of my tabs and everything is so much cleaner than it was a few days ago.

    Now we just need jxl, webgpu, and better themes!

  • kepix@lemmy.worldEnglish
    715·
    6 days ago

    ive seen this in opera, and instantly ran into the options to disable it. i donno how many tab you guys have in the browser, but may god forgive you all for using the browser wrong.

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      2·
      6 days ago

      I’m not usually one to really care about how others use their tools, but I agree with this completely. Tab hoarding is pathological.

      I get stressed out if I have enough tabs open in one session so that none of them can display any text… But I will still exit them all every time I exit the browser. What am I a maniac?

  • Termight@lemmy.mlEnglish
    77·
    7 days ago

    A second browser window is the real solution. Or simply accept the chaos.

        • AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          5 days ago

          The chrome tab groups were what I missed the most when I switched, so I’m happy with the change. It’s a little jankier feeling as in chrome it’s harder to drag a tab out of the group, while in Firefox if you move a tab to the end it’s hard to get it to stay in the group.

          It would also be nice if any of it was themeable, but themeability in Firefox is a whole other problem.

    • Vincent@feddit.nl
      21·
      7 days ago

      By now you would’ve expected someone to have pointed out what code is actually collecting that data that’s supposedly sold.

      • IncogCyberspaceUser@lemmy.world
        6·
        6 days ago

        Yeah, it still seems like an overreaction(with good intentions) to a poorly communicated change, which, yes, might mean they’ll do it in the future. But for now, they have the benefit of the doubt from me, and once it starts happening, I’ll move to a fork.
        That being said, I don’t know anything about the code, so I have to count on the community to make it known that it’s actually been implemented.
        For now, as far as I understand, the only indication that they’re even considering it, is that change in the ToS or whatever. Nothing else to suggest it’s happening.

        • ashughes@feddit.uk
          2·
          5 days ago

          I’d agree that it’s overblown and I suspect this reaction comes from users not understanding the complex legal framework Mozilla operates in globally and regionally, and Mozilla doing what it does best, miscommunication.

          IANAL but my interpretation of the situation is that in certain jurisdictions, California for example (where Mozilla is headquartered and where they have a legally binding contract in place with Google), they are and always have been “selling” your data from a LEGAL standpoint. It is a difference between how we users define selling (a literal exchange of data for money) versus how the law defines selling which can be much more broad and include things we wouldn’t define as selling.

          As far as the law is concerned, again, in some but not all jurisdictions, a) all data has monetary value to tech companies, and b) with Mozilla & Google in particular there is a monetary exchange (ie. a contract worth millions of dollars) for Google Search being integrated into Firefox as the default.

          Therefore, as far as the law is concerned, when you type into the Awesomebar or search box in Firefox, Firefox sends (sells) the data you entered (your data) to Google (because of course it does, that’s how the internet works) and this is a “sale of your data” under the legal definition. This is just one example from one jurisdiction Mozilla operates within, albeit a majorly influential and litigious jurisdiction.

          My understanding is they had to make that their terms of use because if they didn’t they’d be liable to get sued into oblivion in jurisdictions where using a web browser to browse the internet constituted a legal sale.

          Does this open the door to abuse and the literal sale of our data in the future, absolutely. But it’s on us to trust but verify, and do what we, the community, do best and hold Mozilla to account when they inevitably screw up.

          Anyway, this was a much longer comment than I intended to write, but that’s my take as a someone who has not just used Mozilla products for decades but also contributed labour as well.

  • raptir@mander.xyz
    39·
    7 days ago

    I’m glad they’ve added it to desktop, but based on my usage it’s more important for me on mobile. Hopefully they bring it to Android soon.

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      2·
      6 days ago

      As someone who is disgusted by people’s browser tab hygiene on desktop, I will say that I do have this issue on mobile. But it’s really more about how the browser is set up (on Android at least). Every single link I click opens a new tab, and I almost never scroll through existing tabs because, out of sight out of mind.

      • raptir@mander.xyz
        1·
        6 days ago

        The problem for me is that I’ll keep things open for reference. Like I might have a few tabs open with info about a game I’m playing, or researching a purchase I’m trying to make. So having those grouped on mobile is super helpful.

    • JayGray91@piefed.socialEnglish
      61·
      7 days ago

      Agreed. But I’m glad it’s native to desktop Firefox now. Grouping tabs in desktop works for me to hide the hundreds of tabs I keep to tens of groups 🤪