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A screenshot of how it looks would have been helpful. I guess this is in response to Arc browsers design. https://arc.net/ https://arc.net/

gkoberger 2y ago
Maybe (probably?), but back when I worked at Mozilla in ~2010 "Tree Style Tabs" was one of the most popular add-ons. Here's a screenshot of what the feature looks like: https://www.ghacks.net/2024/06/25/you-can-try-vertical-tabs-in-firefox-now/ https://www.ghacks.net/2024/06/25/you-can-try-vertical-tabs-...
- tapoxi 2y ago
  They unfortunately ruined TST with the switch to WebExtensions because it could no longer replace the top tab bar. There were hacks you could do by modifying something in your Firefox profile directory. Bizarre to me that they didn't take TST's popularity as a hint of supporting vertical tabs as a native feature until almost 7 years later.
  - knallfrosch 2y ago
    Compared to pushing and implementing CSS, JS and HTML standards, cryptography, APIs, mobile OS release cycles etc, I've always wondered whether vertical tabs would've been an easy win.
  - gkoberger 2y ago
    Yeah, I remember it being a huge internal argument against WebExtensions at the time. (But, security + easy of building + compatibility + speed of developing Firefox + a bunch of other things made the switch off XUL the right choice)
  - reginald78 2y ago
    I want to say they actually put some work in to allow TST to still work when they transitioned to quantum as it was a popular extension. I got the impression they were eventually going to add back in the horizontal tab bar disable as well but if that was even true they clearly forgot about it. I've been using the userChrome hacks for close to 7 years now.
pantulis 2y ago
It seems they took a cue from Arc for the pinned tabs icons. Now they only need to add tab groups a la Tab Stash, Sideberry or Tree Style Tab, and combine that with Sync. Still a lot of work ahead, but this looks very promising. Kudos to the Firefox team.
- mintplant 2y ago
  Firefox for Android already has "Collections" of tabs. Maybe a starting point?
doix 2y ago
> I guess this is in response to Arc browsers design. https://arc.net/ https://arc.net/ It's funny how we've gone full cycle. Early versions of Firefox get vertical tabs because the plugin system is very rich and you could do whatever you wanted with XUL. Firefox quantum comes around and kills XUL based extensions, vertical tabs are dead. Arc revives an ancient idea as something new and hip, firefox "responds" by reviving the very thing they killed.
- radlad 2y ago
  AFAIK, Tree Style Tab still exists? https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta...
  - rkangel 2y ago
    It does, but you have to have some custom CSS to turn off the normal horizontal tabs, and you have to go and enable some options in about:config to even have custom CSS. I've got something that works reasonably well, but it's really hard to have CSS that always works correctly.
  - Izkata 2y ago
    The original XUL-based vertical tabs actually moved and restyled Firefox's native tabs, instead of creating a lookalike (which is all that's possible now). This meant that unrelated addons that did things like grey-out unloaded tabs, or alter the favicons to have some sort of indicator, still worked on the vertical tabs. The current vertical tabs addons all have to do it themselves or add some sort of API for the other addons to interact with to get the same effect.
- thro1 2y ago
  > the plugin system is very rich - like mplayer or vlc plugins to play every video format independently of browsers licence - right ? > you could do whatever you wanted with XUL - except undoing it (restartless extensions) - but you could do better without it anyway.. (XBL was to powerfull idea ;) .. except since you couldn't hook in early enough to replace some XPCOM pieces before they are cached.. anymore.. RIP Firefox.
Y_Y 2y ago
I use Edge for work and the vertical tabs with grouping works really nicely. On the other hand Arc's website made me throw up in my mouth a little bit. Unfortunately it does indeed seem like that's what Firefox wants to ape.
causal 2y ago
Hadn't heard of Arc, went to download it just now, and...it requires an account to use? Really? Browser UIs have barely evolved in the past decade so I guess I'm excited that Firefox is trying something new.
thisisabore 2y ago
I would imagine a minor browser would be less of an influence than the fact that most browsers have vertical tabs as an option at this point, or even just the slew of add-ons for Firefox itself.
abhinavk 2y ago
Edge and Vivaldi had vertical tabs as native functionality before Arc even existed. Firefox also had it via an extension.
- cywick 2y ago
  ...and Vivaldi had vertical tabs as native functionality before Edge even existed (and about six years before Edge implemented it). The only other browser (to my knowledge) that had native tabs earlier than Vivaldi was the original Opera browser, which was eventually killed, which in turn led to people leaving the company and creating Vivaldi.
  - effdee 2y ago
    I still miss the flexibility of the originals Opera's UI. As well as the built-in email client. https://imgur.com/a/HWaxm0P https://imgur.com/a/HWaxm0P (from 2009)
heraldgeezer 2y ago
>I guess this is in response to Arc browsers design. https://arc.net/ https://arc.net/ What age are you? How long have you been using computers? Sorry to be this blunt, but I am asking as Firefox has had addons for vertical tabs for a long time. Vivaldi, Edge, Brave all have vertical tabs. Opera Presto was first. Why even mention this Arc? I feel like you just jumped on some hype train and you have been using Google Chrome and just recently found out about vertical tabs. Good for you but it is not a new development.

gkoberger 2y ago

Maybe (probably?), but back when I worked at Mozilla in ~2010 "Tree Style Tabs" was one of the most popular add-ons. Here's a screenshot of what the feature looks like: https://www.ghacks.net/2024/06/25/you-can-try-vertical-tabs-in-firefox-now/ https://www.ghacks.net/2024/06/25/you-can-try-vertical-tabs-...

tapoxi 2y ago
They unfortunately ruined TST with the switch to WebExtensions because it could no longer replace the top tab bar. There were hacks you could do by modifying something in your Firefox profile directory. Bizarre to me that they didn't take TST's popularity as a hint of supporting vertical tabs as a native feature until almost 7 years later.
- knallfrosch 2y ago
  Compared to pushing and implementing CSS, JS and HTML standards, cryptography, APIs, mobile OS release cycles etc, I've always wondered whether vertical tabs would've been an easy win.
- gkoberger 2y ago
  Yeah, I remember it being a huge internal argument against WebExtensions at the time. (But, security + easy of building + compatibility + speed of developing Firefox + a bunch of other things made the switch off XUL the right choice)
- reginald78 2y ago
  I want to say they actually put some work in to allow TST to still work when they transitioned to quantum as it was a popular extension. I got the impression they were eventually going to add back in the horizontal tab bar disable as well but if that was even true they clearly forgot about it. I've been using the userChrome hacks for close to 7 years now.

pantulis 2y ago

It seems they took a cue from Arc for the pinned tabs icons. Now they only need to add tab groups a la Tab Stash, Sideberry or Tree Style Tab, and combine that with Sync. Still a lot of work ahead, but this looks very promising. Kudos to the Firefox team.

mintplant 2y ago
Firefox for Android already has "Collections" of tabs. Maybe a starting point?

doix 2y ago

> I guess this is in response to Arc browsers design. https://arc.net/ https://arc.net/ It's funny how we've gone full cycle. Early versions of Firefox get vertical tabs because the plugin system is very rich and you could do whatever you wanted with XUL. Firefox quantum comes around and kills XUL based extensions, vertical tabs are dead. Arc revives an ancient idea as something new and hip, firefox "responds" by reviving the very thing they killed.

radlad 2y ago
AFAIK, Tree Style Tab still exists? https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta...
- rkangel 2y ago
  It does, but you have to have some custom CSS to turn off the normal horizontal tabs, and you have to go and enable some options in about:config to even have custom CSS. I've got something that works reasonably well, but it's really hard to have CSS that always works correctly.
- Izkata 2y ago
  The original XUL-based vertical tabs actually moved and restyled Firefox's native tabs, instead of creating a lookalike (which is all that's possible now). This meant that unrelated addons that did things like grey-out unloaded tabs, or alter the favicons to have some sort of indicator, still worked on the vertical tabs. The current vertical tabs addons all have to do it themselves or add some sort of API for the other addons to interact with to get the same effect.
thro1 2y ago
> the plugin system is very rich - like mplayer or vlc plugins to play every video format independently of browsers licence - right ? > you could do whatever you wanted with XUL - except undoing it (restartless extensions) - but you could do better without it anyway.. (XBL was to powerfull idea ;) .. except since you couldn't hook in early enough to replace some XPCOM pieces before they are cached.. anymore.. RIP Firefox.

Y_Y 2y ago

I use Edge for work and the vertical tabs with grouping works really nicely. On the other hand Arc's website made me throw up in my mouth a little bit. Unfortunately it does indeed seem like that's what Firefox wants to ape.

causal 2y ago

Hadn't heard of Arc, went to download it just now, and...it requires an account to use? Really? Browser UIs have barely evolved in the past decade so I guess I'm excited that Firefox is trying something new.

thisisabore 2y ago

I would imagine a minor browser would be less of an influence than the fact that most browsers have vertical tabs as an option at this point, or even just the slew of add-ons for Firefox itself.

abhinavk 2y ago

Edge and Vivaldi had vertical tabs as native functionality before Arc even existed. Firefox also had it via an extension.

cywick 2y ago
...and Vivaldi had vertical tabs as native functionality before Edge even existed (and about six years before Edge implemented it). The only other browser (to my knowledge) that had native tabs earlier than Vivaldi was the original Opera browser, which was eventually killed, which in turn led to people leaving the company and creating Vivaldi.
- effdee 2y ago
  I still miss the flexibility of the originals Opera's UI. As well as the built-in email client. https://imgur.com/a/HWaxm0P https://imgur.com/a/HWaxm0P (from 2009)

heraldgeezer 2y ago

>I guess this is in response to Arc browsers design. https://arc.net/ https://arc.net/ What age are you? How long have you been using computers? Sorry to be this blunt, but I am asking as Firefox has had addons for vertical tabs for a long time. Vivaldi, Edge, Brave all have vertical tabs. Opera Presto was first. Why even mention this Arc? I feel like you just jumped on some hype train and you have been using Google Chrome and just recently found out about vertical tabs. Good for you but it is not a new development.