So they’re reintroducing a feature in 2025 that they added to Firefox in 2010 and subsequently removed in 2013. Such progress. Much wow.
“You asked, we built it” --> “People keep shitting on us for our terrible decisions… Quick let’s do something people actually want to compensate ! Wait let’s also slap AI on it, I’m sure everyone will love that” (Mozilla being Mozilla I guess…)
People love to hate on Mozilla without knowing shit. Some of it is literally 4Chan grade manipulation as well.
Like the whole ToS debacle. People just aren’t interested in truth just rage 24/7
ok, mozilla is at least doing stuff we want along with ai garbage now.
AI garbage seemingly pays the bills…
Seems like it creates bills, but also has enough hype behind it to generate investment/donation interest.
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.
Thankfully, the useful changes trickle downstream to Waterfox, LibreWolf, Floorp, etc.
the beauty of foss
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”.
When I click history in the menu after reopening firefox, I have an option to restore previous session.
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.
Can’t you restore them with Ctrl + shift + T or maybe Ctrl + shift + N ?
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.
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.
Do you have “open previous windows and tabs” ticked in settings? I’m also on 64bit win10 without the issue you describe.
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.
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
Not something I’ll ever use, but cool regardless
I already used it three times accidentally while rearranging tabs. Mostly annoying, I haven’t used them yet
Happened to me too, but I really liked it so far
I got a Stroke reading that. You used it 3 times but haven’t used it?
How do you unuse a tab group?
The three times were all accidental. Didn’t use it with intention yet
Now, the team is experimenting with smart tab groups, a new AI-powered feature that suggests names and groups based on the tabs you have open.
Off course, they found a way to integrate more Ai features.
Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the inclusion of some small AI feature is what justified the rest of this work being done. As in, someone got approval for tab groups only because they were smart enough to describe it as “AI powered tab groups“. Just speculation
Because you know it’s really hard naming your group yourself
ffs. Of course they had to slap AI on top of it. Goddammit.
Hoping someone might be able to help me out with this info, I’ve tried looking and can’t find a solid answer.
When you use the “Save and close group” feature of tab groups, do they
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Stay forever, no matter if you close Firefox, restart your pc, not used that group in months etc.
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Allow an unlimited, or at least a high number, of saved and closed tab groups.
I mainly ask because it specifically puts closed and saved tab groups in a section called “recent tab groups” which sounds suspiciously temporary.
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Shit, I remember seeing requests for tab groups for like 20 years under an assortment of names and descriptions. Neat to see. Useless for me, but neat to see.
Next they’ll implement DownThemAll natively. Really putting their finger on the pulse of 2008.
OpenSUSE added parallel downloading to zypper a month ago, so anything is possible.
This is a nice feature when you have a group of multiple sites you need quick access to on the regular. For me, I manage around 12 websites in three environments ; dev, test, and prod. Being able to group the websites by environment keeps things organized and somewhat readily available at two clicks (maybe three if you count collapsing a group before opening another group).
Now, the team is experimenting with smart tab groups, a new AI-powered feature that suggests names and groups based on the tabs you have open.
I bet you one cheap bottle of mineral water they’ll implement this like tomorrow
I had to enable them:
about:config->browser.tabs.groups.enabled->trueThank you for this. Now I know hire to turn them off.
But they’re off by default so I’m not sure what you’re talking about
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.
Same here. They also just went away on their own 😂
smart tab groups, a new AI-powered feature that suggests names and groups based on the tabs you have open.
Yeah sure ok. Did the community ask for this too?
I mean, why not?
They integrated accessibility focused, local, AI pretty well.
Loads of folks bitched about it because they were triggered by “AI”, but it’s essentially invisible, as it should be.
I hate naming things, that’s actually something AI is good at, hell yeah, let it name my shit for me please.
Then again, these communities are always full of Debby downers who hate on everything.
[Dr. Who meme format]
Is AI bad?
It Depends. Large corporate AI hosted at a data centre that consumes a nuclear reactor’s worth of power and a lake’s worth of water for cooling for the purpose of generating slop stolen from Artists and Writers? Yes.
Locally run embedded AI designed for a specific task to automate small processes or enhance the UI experience with little cost to local computing resources because it’s been properly optimised? No.
a datacenter is more efficient than lots of smaller individual computers doing calculations independently. They actually make their stuff as efficient as possible, otherwise it hurts margins. So, if you’re against datacenter AI because of power, then just stop using ai. If everyone ran locally, the efficiency would be significantly worse overall.
I actually hate what llms have become, but efficiency is still not a good way to compare a datacenter to a home computer.
A consumer would use a lower token AI compared to large datacenters. I am sure it does less environmental damage, because the home user doesnt need tap water for cooling.
Yeah for now I remain cautiously optimistic. I have not used their ai stuff once but it was also never shoved down my throat and my browsing experience has not been affected at all, and them finally listening to the community and implementing tabs grouping is just great. If they keep it that way I think we’ll be fine
I don’t care about AI when it’s doing minor things like this it’s when they’re shoving it down our throats and we don’t want it.
AI as a tool? Hell yeah.
AI to replace people? Fuck no.
Real.
For one second I thought Mozilla might have made something that wasn’t anti-feature… But OF COURSE it’s going to need to have AI 😑
I would much rather see Tree Style Tab be integrated.
Waterfox does this with an improved implementation of tree style tabs. Also zero Mozilla Corp telemetry, opt-in or otherwise.
Doesn’t seem to indicate whether groups will work with vertical tabs and unless that’s the case, I’m not switching from TST.
They do work in vertical tabs, but only one level. You can’t have nested tabs as far as I can tell.
I’ve been using tab groups with vertical tabs. No issues here. I’m on stable.
I use sidebery, I find it even better
Please help me understand how to use tab groups and how to use bookmarks and why they are different things.
Tab groups are built for open tabs, bookmarks are built for revisiting things. Their use cases are quite different in my opinion.
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
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.
Why do you have to “get through them” in a specific order, though?
Because I have bees in my head that tell me to get through them in order
I don’t have to. It’s just easier to work left to right with the order of the tabs.
This is work work, not just dorking around at home.
I think you organize tabs into different containergroups based on groups and bookmarks
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
sevenfive long years. Since it was available as a feature flag, I’ve used it so much.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.
Most of what web browsers do is the same feature multiple times just presented differently
Yeah, thought the same with vertical tabs already. It’s extremely cool that it’s there now for folks who want it, but if you have a strategy for putting tabs into multiple windows and then dealing with those windows appropriately, then there’s really no point in making it a vertical list for the handful of tabs per window you’ll likely have…
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.
instead of having 12984 tabs open, you can have 345 groups with only a few dozen tabs in each one.
I don’t know about groups specifically, but keeping a tab open retains its history, so you can go back (and forward) later.
Yes, tab groups maintain history, even across save & reopen operations.
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!)
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!
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
Noooo it has AI garbage, what the hell.
I really need this feature, I have over 500 tabs open right now, I just hope it works well.
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.
I miss Panorama so much!
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.
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.
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.
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…
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
Still waiting for mobile, tab groups missing from Firefox mobile is the only reason I’m still using chrome
welcome Firefox to 2021
