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Could the future of Firefox be a browser without tabs?
Yeah, I know what you're thinking. Once upon a time Firefox, Internet Explorer, and all the other browsers didn't have tabs. Life has become much simpler since tabs were invented. But developer Oliver Reichenstein says browser tabs worked well back when we'd only have a few web pages open at a time. Now that it's not uncommon for users to have a dozen or more tabs, it's increasingly difficult to tell what's going on in the browser tab bar or find the tab you're looking for.
Reichenstein created a mockup of a version of Firefox that looks a lot like iTunes. Instead of tabs and bookmarks, you could tag web pages to make it easy to sort or search for pages by category. Each time you click on a link it would take you to the page as you last visited it.
Somehow I doubt we'll see Mozilla take this radical a departure from the common browser tab in time for the launch of Firefox 3.5. But perhaps a no-tab interface could be available as an option in future builds.
[via ReadWriteWeb]
Comments
32
Subscribe to commentsGeorgeApr 15th 2009 7:44AM
At work I can have up to a dozen relevant tabs open at a time.
AmmarApr 15th 2009 7:45AM
As what they say in the article, managing more than 10 opened tabs in
your browser might be a difficult task for the user, Firefox might do the
following. Each time the user middle click on a link on one tab the
other newly tab will be associated with the parent tab at a time where
if more than (let us say 5 tabs) have been opened that way, Firefox
will group them in one tab and you can then display them like iTunes.
The Idea behind this is that a lot of times when I log to Facebook i
start opening new tabs. one to write on my friend's wall, one to
check out my friends newly posted album, and one to comment on my
friends status and so on, and I did all that by open new tabs based on
the links on Facebook home page. At the same time I open a new tab
to Google something so i start opening new tags based on my search by
middle clicking on Google search link. suddenly I found like more than
20 tabs are opened at the same time and i can not find what tab is
related to what. so by doing this, all the tabs related to my search
will be grouped under my Google search page, and all the tabs related to
Facebook home page will be grouped under it.
bobbywigsApr 15th 2009 8:37AM
assuming everyone uses a tool just like you do is the root of poor (re)design
master811Apr 15th 2009 12:41PM
As much as certain industry groups would have you believe, not everything on TPB is illegal.
AlExAkEApr 15th 2009 2:02PM
Very ugly! I don't like it! I prefer the FF3 interface WITH tabs!
AlExAkEApr 15th 2009 2:02PM
I hope FF3.5 looks like FF3.0 just way more improved. Some new features but mostly speed and performance! I want it as fast as Chrome at LEAST!
whoiswolfApr 17th 2009 10:55PM
The nightly builds are faster than chrome. ^-^
AlExAkEApr 17th 2009 11:17PM
I'm sorry what do you mean by "nightly builds"... I'm not sure understand...
AchillyseApr 16th 2009 7:54AM
This is just a rip off of the now dead Latitude project started by Sebastiaan de With.
I used to use Firefox but gave up on it as the mac interface is so half arsed, it is slow, and makes such little effort to follow web standards. To be honest, i don't GET the hype about it.
whoiswolfApr 17th 2009 10:55PM
How about alt+tab tab menu. No top row of tabs, and they only display if you press Alt-Tab. Firefox could market itself as the browser with the most 'head room'.
localbusesApr 19th 2009 1:40PM
As someone already said, there are DOZENS of FF Add-ons that already handle most of the real estate concerns (save for hating tabs altogether), provided your using a monitor that's at least 16" wide; I don't recall all specific names, but, as I'm using them right now, I'll describe what they do:
1. Add-on to place tabs on the left (or right, or even bottom) of the browser. Obviously on the left or right you can fit a lot more tabs vertically than top/bottom horizontally. There are other skins/settings in FF that can be used to minimize top real estate to just the toolbar line and address bar if you're REALLY pressed for vertical space.
2. Tree-Style-Tabs Add-on to group pages when, as the example used above, you open multiple instances of Facebook off of the original page. A handy feature also closes an entire tree or even just the tabs above and below a certain point.
3. Mouse-over preview of tabs. Has been around for over a year.
Tabless browsing seems like the kind of got-nothing-better to do return-to-basics idea right up there with click-less browsing (i.e. all keyboard and hovering over links only).
Saint SeminoleApr 21st 2009 11:51PM
I have to agree that this idea is patently ridiculous, UNLESS it's only an option or an add-on (oh, wait, there are already a dozen add-ons for this).
I've never once had more than 10 tabs open at the same time, and I never will. But when I DO have those 10 tabs open, I want tabs. Just that.
It's the reason I switched to Firefox in the first place, and then many other things convinced me to stay. But when the tabs go, I'll go.
(Probably not to Chrome, which really, really doesn't work for me, but maybe I'll try Opera again.)