I hope it won’t end up like Chrome. Suddenly my tabs were opening in different weird groups and I couldn’t find anything.
So Tree Tabs built in? I’ve used them for so long, I don’t know how other manage without them. Yet I know no one else who uses them, even after I show them. Be interesting see how well the new built in ones work.
I tried, but I already use TMP in full page vertical view.
I never got the hang of tree style tab in the sidebar. I think I just don’t like the sidebar.
I tried, but I already use TMP in full page vertical view.
I never got the hang of tree style tab in the sidebar. I think I just don’t like the sidebar.
Can I disable all local AI features? Or better yet not have that functionality installed?
Can I dsable all local AI features
Hopefully
Or better yet not have that functionality installed?
Unlikely. Firefox has long been gone down the way of “everything included”. They started bundling extensions and peripheral features into the core of the browser long ago, and despite backlash kept going that way. We’re already in the “I have to disable a lot of stuff when I install Firefox” territory.
AI BAD!
Awesome news! Really miss the tab groups from Chrome, really the only thing haha
All great changes! I’ve been using Floorp to have vertical tabs, but I’d gladly switch back to Firefox when its implemented. Profiles have always been a great feature, but had a bad user experience, glad to see its being improved.
Really interested in the local AI. Firefox has been doing interesting work with that recently.
Sidebery is a great FF extension that provides vertical tabs, trees, and groups.
I’ve tried a few extensions, but they haven’t felt as integrated as the one’s in Floorp, due to firefox limitations. The main reason I want vertical tabs is to save vertical screen space by removing the horizontal tab bar, which can be done with userchrome.css, but thats inconvenient to do on multiple devices. I appreciate the recommendation though, I haven’t used that one and it looks very powerful.
Tab grouping, nice! Finally back after they removed then years ago…
I wish they’d backpedal on the floating tabs too. I still fucking hate them and they never really used them for anything like they said they would. They’re just as shitty as they always have been.
Eh, I honestly don’t notice it. There’s a very small (like <5px) gap between the tab and the next bar down, and it’s only noticeable when I’m looking at it, which is pretty much never. I’ve attached a screenshot for reference (I use the built-in dark theme, Container Tabs, and shrunk my tabs in about:config).
Aside from the fact that this is way more than just 5 pixels, it’s also not just the bottom but also the top, doubling the wasted space. Followed by another gap before reaching the toolbar at the bottom, and another gap at the top above the tabs.
I use container tabs, which fills the space at the top on most of my tabs. In my screenshot, that is literally the top of my screen, there’s no extra space above it. Here’s a slightly bigger screenshot just above my extensions:
I used a screen measuring tool, and the black gap (the floating part) between the tab and my extensions bar is 2-3px (hard to tell exactly). The tab itself is ~30px (give or take 1-2px). So if Firefox used non-floating tabs, it would save about 2-3px. That’s it.
Chrome doesn’t have floating tabs, and it takes up more space than Firefox, here’s a screenshot comparing the two:
Brave has floating tabs, and is also bigger, here’s a screenshot comparing Brave and Firefox:
This is on my Macbook Pro, so YMMV on Windows, but it looks very similar to what I have on my Linux devices. At least for me, Firefox is plenty compact and more compact than its main competitors.
You’re conveniently ignoring the huge spacing within the floating tab. lol That’s about 8 pixels, plus the 3 outside the tab we’re already at over 10 pixels of empty space, on both sides, making it over 20 pixels in total.
In my FF it is worse though. It’s a total of 16 pixels from the icon to the top, 19 pixels to the address bar (excluding the 1 pixel border of that). It’s like 85 pixels before I reach the website content area. https://i.imgur.com/0MxEcW5.png
No idea why you bring other browser into this when the comparison was with older FF designs. I really don’t give a shit about any chromium browser to be honest.
I showed the other two since they’re popular, and what others would be comparing against. Firefox (on my machines) is more compact than them. So it’s not like Firefox is especially wasteful here. One has worse floating tabs, and the other has worse non-floating tabs. So it could be way worse.
Removing all the space would make it super cramped, and I don’t think it’s worth it for 10-20px. On a typical 1080p screen, that’s like 1-2% of the vertical resolution.
That said, it should be configurable. You can probably get what you want with the userChrome.css or whatever it’s called.
“Others do it just as bad / even worse” is just not a good argument for making your own software worse imo.
Floating?
Hi,
We bring a modernized and differentiated look to tabs since Firefox 89 in order to create a signature Firefox look and experience. This major redesign will help us enable more use cases and features in the future.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1338169
Before this, tabs were clearly separated and were directly connected to the rest of the browser UI, while also using much less space & padding. It was one of the major enshittification updates for Firefox and to this day they have not given us any of those mentioned “use cases and features” that would make use of this redesign.
It was one of the major enshittification updates for Firefox
That’s not what that term means. That term specifically and explicitly means “making a service worse for the user in order to wring more money out of it.” It doesn’t mean “feature or design change I didn’t like.”
Ever since I was an avid Lynx text only browser user, I’ve been asking for a complicated
privacy invasive (if the AI is remote)(hey neat, it’s local!) browser that interacts with me in a nedlessly conversational way. Thank goodness someone is finally cramming AI into my simple web lookups. (/Sarcasm)How do you log into lemmy on lynx? I’ve been trying to find a text browser I can use for lemmy, with no success so far.
I belive there are standalone TUI lemmy clients
Yes, there’s a really great one called Neonmodem Overdrive.
Which currently doesn’t display anything on lemmy. I already opened an issue and the developer is looking into it. But for now, there are no options to read and post on lemmy from the console, and I’ve spent a day researching alternatives.
Browsh doesn’t work cause it doesn’t receive mouse clicks from GPM due to a bug. All the l*nks browsers don’t support whatever Javascript is needed to log in.
If you have another option, I’m all ears.
deleted by creator
If you’re here because of the AI headline, this is important to read.
We’re looking at how we can use local, on-device AI models – i.e., more private – to enhance your browsing experience further. One feature we’re starting with next quarter is AI-generated alt-text for images inserted into PDFs, which makes it more accessible to visually impaired users and people with learning disabilities.
They are implementing AI how it should be. Don’t let all the shitty companies blind you to the fact what we call AI has positive sides.
AI has become truly meaningless term for everything and nothing.
Not to mention all the justified hate it received. It’s probably time to kill it once again and delegate it to the future like usual every 10 years or so starting with Deep Blue
They are implementing AI how it should be.
The term is so overused and abused that I’m not clear what they’re even promising. Are they localizing a LLM? Are they providing some kind of very fancy macroing? Are they linking up with ChatGPT somehow or integrating with Co-pilot? There’s no way to tell from the verbage.
And that’s not even really Mozilla’s fault. It’s just how the term AI can mean anything from “overhyped javascript” to “multi-billion dollar datacenter full of fake Scarlett Johansson voice patterns”.
there are language models that are quite feasible to run locally for easier tasks like this. “local” rules out both ChatGPT and Co-pilot since those models are enormous. AI generally means machine learned neural networks these days, even if a pile of if-else used to pass in the past.
not sure how they’re going to handle low-resource machines, but as far as AI integrations go this one is rather tame
AI generally means machine learned neural networks these days
Right, but a neural network traditionally rules out using a single local machine. Hell, we have entire chip architecture that revolves around neural net optimization. I can’t imagine needing that kind of configuration for my internet browser.
not sure how they’re going to handle low-resource machines
One of the perks of Firefox is its relative thinness. Chrome was a shameless resource hog even in its best days, and IE wasn’t any better. Do I really want Firefox chewing hundreds of MB of memory so it can… what? Simulate a 600 processor cluster doing weird finger art?
I use my local machine for neutral networks just fine
i mean, i’ve worked in neural networks for embedded systems, and it’s definitely possible. i share you skepticism about overhead, but i’ll eat my shoes if it isn’t opt in
I don’t doubt it’s possible. I’m just not sure how it would be useful.
There are a lot of knee jerk reactions in the comments. I hope few of those commenters have read the article or, at the least, your comment.
thats most of the internet, just reacting to headlines.
We’re also using machine learning for the local site translation. The AI buzzword is doing more damage than good PR.
People that wanted vertical tabs must be really excited
I admit, this news has made me add a note to re-download firefox on my work machine…
would be cool if it’s smooth like how arc does it, would instantly switch back to Firefox if they manage that. arc is still buggy on many things or when i use some websites.
Anyone who really cared was already using an extension that did these things.
What’s extra funny is that those extensions are made by Mozilla already
At least tab grouping and vert tabs were last I looked
That’s unnecessarily dismissive. Unfortunately, even the best extensions have their downsides. Some used a browser that suited their preferences better instead, which is a shame for both Firefox and the user, in my opinion.
Mozilla recognizes this and is finally taking action to integrate highly requested features into Firefox. Many “who really care” are glad for this, because it is a good thing.
Anything to fill all that absolute wasted space from every website formatting things to fit phones and not desktops. Ultra wide really sucks ass for a lot of things.
To be honest, it’s not just for phones. The wider the monitor, the more I’d need to move my head if a website uses the whole space, instead of keeping it centered. Obviously it shouldn’t be too slim but you can’t really just fill an entire monitor or align your content to the left of the screen anymore nowadays.
IMO that’s mostly a window-management problem, not an app layout problem. The point of an ultra wide monitor setup (other than flight sims or something) is to be able to view a bunch of different things side-by-side.
Edit: speaking of which, now that we’ve come almost full-circle from no tab support, to multiple tabs in the same process, to one process per tab, it seems to me that tabs themselves ought to be part of the window decoration, not the app. I mean, they’re useful for almost everything you might want to have multiples of (editors, file managers, terminals, etc.) so why force every app maker to implement them over and over again?
Exactly. I have an ultrawide at work, and I just have three things open side-by-side. I have a dual-monitor setup at home, and I have two things on the larger one (27") one and one on the other (24"). My workflow is nearly equivalent between them, the main difference is bezels.
tabs themselves ought to be part of the window decoration, not the app
Well, Windows did try that. It sounds cool as an idea, but it also severely limits what the tabs can do, as most programs don’t need tabs that are as advanced as browsers’, and even browsers’ implementations of tabs vary widely.
I am, specially after seeing how well it was implemented in the nightly version. It can’t be compared to an extension that enables the same capability.
Its honestly the only reason i use brave and edge over Firefox. Can fully commit to FF now.
The TreeStyleTab extension for Firefox has added vertical tabs for a decade
The way tree style tabs worked after they broke it was never very good. Floorp is what to use if you wanted side tabs on Firefox.
That said I still went back to Vivaldi after trying to use Floorp because of stupid little ux issues like pinned tabs not being protected from closing, and broken session saving.
Sidebery is a very good implementation of the vertical tab panel
The issue is that because they broke the UI customization that allowed for it all the extensions are just a kludge to add a panel to the side without actually getting rid of the top tabs.
Yes, but you have to have a custom user.js file or whatever to remove the tabs on top.
Ok, so do that once and you’re done. :)
It should be an option in the UI though.
It removes the close/maximize/minimize buttons though. Not ideal.
This is avoidable with the right CSS.
I’m sure you’re right lol I just don’t know it and its more work than it needs to be.
I remember back in the day (FF 4?) I had the window buttons, tabs, back/forward, URL bar, etc all on one row, which was pretty cool. So it was something like this, from left to right:
- Firefox menu - was
Firefox, but now would be the hamberger menu - back/forward buttons
- extension butons
- URL bar
- tabs
It worked pretty well. It would be nice to do that again.
- Firefox menu - was
I have been running vertical tabs for a while now and it’s broken about 3 times, once every few months. Currently, I’ve had no min/maximise/close buttons for about a week because I can’t be bothered to fix it. Far from “one and done”.
Profile management
Fucking finally!
The fact that you had to use external applications or manually go to an internal Firefox menu to change from one to another sucked!
Finally I can have a personal profile, a work profile, and a porn profile!
-P -no-remote works great for me.
I just bookmarked the settings page for profiles, which made it work pretty well. But it was definitely more janky than something native.
YEAH!
YEAH!
YEAH!
no.
Why the no?
It’s local only, and actually used to improve the product as opposed to being another shitty chatbot.
This is how it should be done.
Yeah, everyone is putting AI into their browsers, to some extent Mozilla needs to do this to compete.
I’m very much in favor of them integrating a local FOSS model rather than to partner with OpenAI like everyone else. Even if you’re against AI, you should understand that this is a way better situation.
Vertical tabs will be neat for my ultra-wide!
Isn’t that
no.the exact attitude a lot of boomers have for technology? Look where that got them.
Local AI, or also, how AI should be. Actually helpful, instead of a spying and data gathering tool for companies
That’s all fine and good but Firefox on Android is currently in a sorry state. No per-site process isolation, buggy, can’t keep tabs open, slow, choppy, drains battery. Had to uninstall it on my brand new Galaxy S24+ and my Pixel 6 Pro because it was draining so much battery. When are you going to finally stop ignoring Firefox Android, Mozilla?
I’ve used it exclusively for a long time and haven’t experienced any of this
Well here’s the drain I was talking about at least. 18% in less than an hour and thirty minutes of use for a web browser isn’t normal. In an hour of use a Chromium browser only drains 6-7 ish % for me. This has been an issue for I guess the past month or so? It drove me crazy so I had to uninstall. And it’s not just me either, there are tons of posts from people with the same problem on Reddit. If you don’t have problems, good for you I guess.That’s not what that means. That means out of all the battery drain you’ve had since the last charge, Firefox was only 18% of that. For example if your phone was fully charged 3 hours ago and you dropped 20% then it would’ve been only 18% of that 20% battery drop. It’s really confusing the way Android shows battery usage now.
Well that was 18% of 90% so still awful drain regardless.
Yeah, same. This is bonkers to me. I have dozens of tabs open on my Pixel 7 and my battery still lasts all day.
Same. I had to uninstall due to the battery drain issues. Pixel 6 Pro. Battery life is not something I am willing to compromise on.
Agreed, there a two years bug still open on Firefox just refusing to load pages.
I have to force quit Firefox multiple tones a day and there are new bugs popping up on the tab picker.
Its hard to go back to chrome and lose addons. I need u block especially on mobile.
Im having a great experience on samsung internet with adguard and blokada 5 (on a pixel 7 if it’s relevant)
slow, choppy, drains battery
Sounds like you don’t have an adblocker.
Nope. He’s right. There are similar threads on reddit too every single week about the mobile version. It’s simply bad.
And just like there, a bunch of people here squinting and saying “huh what are you talking about it works great?”
Maybe some issue with rendering on specific hardware…?
Maybe. It feels slower than it’s open source forks which feel a bit slower than chromium alternatives. And the group tabbing is so bad and no process isolation.
He mentioned a a Pixel, but I’m running it on Pixel with no problems whatsoever.
I’m experiencing a similar issue on my phone and I’m using ublock, it is draining the battery very fast and making the phone hot.
I wonder if there is a good alternative/degoogled chrome for Android?
There is this.
I ran Firefox Android with uBo and AdGuardDNS.
I heavily use Firefox for Android on multiple devices since many years. It HAS annoying bugs. The most annoying for me is the tab view keeps forgetting the last tab you were on, when for example closing a tab from tab view or moving between tabs by swiping the address bar.
I think every person’s bugs depends on how they use the software.
edit: quick word order fix.
I use it on a Pixel 7 Pro. Can’t say I have the same issues.
I also have a notorious problem with too many tabs (I am beyond 99)I’ve been using it for at least a decade now and haven’t encountered any of the issues you mention.
Idk, it seems to work fine on my old, crappy Moto G, and it also seems to work fine so far on my new Pixel 8 (just bought it recently).
Maybe Chrome is a little faster, idk, I don’t use it much, but Firefox is completely fine.
Then again, maybe my standards are lower. I just want it to browse the web, and it does that pretty well. The ad-blocker is an absolutely killer feature which is why I don’t use Chrome, so maybe I’m willing to put up with worse performance. But it seems plenty smooth to me.
This is the big thing for me. Any speed gains I might get from Chrome are entirely wiped out by how much the web browsing experience is dragged to a crawl by ads and spyware.
Building back to that 2005 standard feature set.
None of these features existed in 2005…
Tab grouping, vertical tabs, multiple profiles all did on desktop firefox.
Iphones and Androids had just begun to exist.
