If there is one thing that is clear in the field of web browsers, it is that you either update or you die. Google Chrome and Internet Explorer became the most used web browsers in the world not because they were just another browser, but because they knew how to innovate and offer users what they are looking for and need. However, it seems that Google is falling asleep, and little by little its rivals, Edge and Firefox, are closing the gap with it. And one of the functions that is making this happen is the vertical tabs.
Tabs revolutionized the way we use web browsers. Until their birth, by NetCaptor in 1997, and later adoption by the Opera browser, Firefox and Google Chrome, to open several web pages at once you had to open multiple browser windowssomething totally counter-intuitive, very error-prone and with skyrocketing resource consumption.
Tabs have been a standard for browsing since the early 2000s. Nowadays, it’s inconceivable to think of browsing without them again. However, we can’t deny that the concept, which is more than 25 years old, has some shortcomings. The first of these is that they are designed horizontally, which was fine with the monitors of the time, in 4:3. But, nowadays, with 16:9 or 21:9 screens, it takes up valuable space on the vertical side of the screen, especially considering the large amount of empty space on the sides of the screen.
Some browsers have been experimenting with tabs. Vivaldi, for example, is one of the ones that offers the most organization options, even having a second tab bar, very original. Edge, on the other hand, has long had the possibility of using vertical tabs, making it much more comfortable when browsing with it. And now, Firefox has also included this change, although you have to activate it manually.
Enable vertical tabs in Firefox
Mozilla has just released a new version of the most unstable branch of its browser: Firefox NightlyThe company has been talking about vertical tabs for its browser for a while now, but we haven’t seen them until now. If we install the latest development version of Firefox, we can finally see that these have become a reality.
However, if we want to use them, we will have to activate them manually. To do this, we must enter the “Firefox Labs” section by typing “about:preferences#experimental” in the address bar, and activate the first two options: “Sidebar” and “Vertical Tabs”. This new function will be automatically activated and we can start working with it.
Although we can access a panel to customize the operation of these tabs, the different options that appear do not yet work. In addition, the new experimental vertical tab bar has some bugs that cause, for example, the names of the websites not to appear, only the favicon. More than a bug, it should be an option, but, for now, it is not.
Chrome and vertical tabs
All browsers experiment and release new features from time to time to see how they can improve the user experience. All except Google Chrome. The most used web browser is, coincidentally, the one that experiments the least in terms of new tools and features. It is rare to find updates that bring new features. We have seen some aesthetic, internal, and developer changes… but new features very sporadically.
Google hasn’t talked about vertical tabs even once. It has made some tweaks to its regular tabs, allowing you to group them or move them to your reading list, for example, but nothing more. And that’s a shame. Other browsers are overtaking Chrome from the right, and not just because of vertical tabs, but because of other features, such as the ability to Open two websites in split screen in a single browser window which are undoubtedly essential for work.