Mozilla could add support for vertical tabs in Firefox
One of the things I like about Microsoft Edge is the option that allows you to access your tabs from the sidebar. It looks like Mozilla could add support for vertical tabs in Firefox.
The option, which was introduced about a year ago in Edge, allows you to hide the tab bar that normally appears at the top of the window. Enabling the feature creates a sidebar with icons for each tab. Clicking on one of the icons switches to the corresponding tab. So you get the same experience but in a more compact interface.
If you expand the side panel, you’ll find that it’s a more efficient way to manage your tabs. Most websites have a lot of white space on both sides of the screen, in my opinion having a vertical tab bar offers a better experience, because it looks cleaner. Users with large screens or an ultra-wide monitor may find vertical tabs a boon.
Ever since Microsoft debuted the feature, Vertical Tabs has been a popularly requested feature by users of other browsers, especially in the Mozilla Firefox community. As far as I know, only one other browser has this feature built in, Vivaldi. To enable the side panel, go to the Settings > Tabs page and set the position of the tab bar to the left. You will need to shrink the panel to its minimum size to get the vertical tabbed experience in Vivaldi.
Mozilla could bring Vertical Tabs to Firefox
Users had voted to request vertical tabs for Firefox in the Mozilla Crowdicity community. The feedback portal, which was slow to pick up the pace, is bustling with activity. A Mozilla Product Community Manager has finally responded to the request with good news. He wrote that since the request came up as a top idea in the community, Mozilla developers reviewed it. They are looking at ways to improve tab management and are looking into adding support for vertical tabs in Firefox. Of course, this doesn’t mean the feature will be added for sure, so I wrote “could” instead of “will”.
We don’t know what Mozilla’s implementation of Vertical Tabs might look like. Hopefully it’s not just an auto-hiding sidebar, we need to hide the tab bar from the top. For now, I think users can be glad the option is being explored and cross their fingers.
Other ways to add vertical tabs in Firefox
Firefox has plenty of customization options, and there are a few add-ons that let you view and manage tabs from a sidebar, the most popular of which is, of course, Tree Style Tab. There are other alternatives like Tab Center Reborn, I personally like Vertigo Tabs for its simplicity.
But none of these extensions have the ability to hide the standard tab bar. Why is that? Because, like other programs of this type, Firefox has APIs that allow the user to modify the interface according to their preferences. The other side of the coin is that these APIs are limited and extensions cannot access or modify certain parts of the GUI due to some restrictions. These rules are in place to protect the user from malicious plugins, which could otherwise wreak havoc or hijack the browser.
Now, these restrictions are limited to plugins, which means there are other ways to modify the browser. Many Firefox users rely on custom CSS code to change their browser theme, new tab page, etc. So yes, you could use one of the scripts to edit the userChrome.css file, to hide the tab bar and use an extension. to access the tabs from a side panel. Here is a user-created script for vertical tabs, and here is a website that has more custom CSS themes for Firefox. Most, if not all, of these scripts are open source. I recommend caution when messing around with scripts, you may want to back up your tabs, sessions and data, in case something goes wrong and you have to restart the browser.
What do you think about vertical lashes?
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