Firefox users criticized the permanent ‘List All Tabs’ button introduced in version 131.0, leading Mozilla to make it removable.
The button, designed to manage hidden tabs and prevent add-ons from hiding them, received backlash for being unnecessary alongside Firefox View.
Mozilla responded with a fix in version 131.0.3, allowing users to remove the button through toolbar customization.
That never bugged me too much, but I’ll at least be glad it can be disabled for people who really dislike it.
Agreed. Being able to customize all elements of the top bar is one of the great things about Firefox.
I don’t see a reason why it shouldn’t be possible to remove newly added elements. Even the “Open a new tab” button can be removed, as well as the recently added “View recent browsing across windows and devices” button.Customizability, and most importantly portable customizability, is non-existent in most modern software. Even highly configurable FOSS products like Firefox take time, effort, and above average technical skills to mirror configs between not only clients, but identical clients, and even just keeping them in sync. You shouldn’t have to log into their cloud or jump through hoops; just export a config file(s) and import it onto another machine; if versions are identical, the state of the product and its feature-set should be identical (e.g. not temp, session, or 3rd party data; though in the case of Firefox all extension configs should apply too, as they are part of its ecosystem/feature-set).
As a consumer, I often wish that there were a requirement for ALL digital product software and services to export/import their current config, including all “user” data, to open-source compatible, lossless formats — this would be the most effective method to free consumers and businesses alike from vendor lock-in and monopolization — but as a developer I’m aware that would be a nightmare, especially for all pre-existing software.
Holy crap, Firefox actually listened to it’s users? Is Earth out of orbit or something???
kinda funny, though… the functionality has been there for awhile. just flying under the radar with a less-noticeable icon.
the problem is probably actually that it consumed additional space, instead of being kept on the new tab button’s right click menu
It was there and “consumed space”. It was just a less noticeable icon before (dark grey downwards-facing chevron).
I’m just confused why this has annoyed users just NOW since the button has always existed. It was just a down-pointing chevron before it got changed to a new icon so it’s not like it suddenly popped up and took space away
Oh. Thank you, I was trying to figure out which button this was even about.
I assume because Firefox has been a ‘niche’ browser for a long time (pretty much for as long as Chrome as existed?); so the users tend to be a combination of die-hard fans and neurodivergents - two groups who tend to not do well with change of any sort (even cosmetic).
… who the hell are these special users that Firefox apparently pander to, and what mass of people do they constitute to make them so powerful?
More importantly, how do I join this special club?
It’s probably the nature of the change, too.
- It’s easy to add a switch to disable the button.
- It doesn’t cut into their bottom line.
- It’s damn good PR.
Other stuff that people have been complaining about, like the massive backlash against baking in 3rd-party AI, won’t make the cut.
Relatively benign things like tab grouping are challenging, so despite being much more popular, the easier-to-implement AI features were given a fast pass to Release versions of Firefox.
OOTL: I’m confused. What is this? I’ve been using Firefox for years and I have no idea what this button is/was or why people would be annoyed by it.
I’m trying to find it but I don’t see it.
It is something that I always wanted because I’m paranoid of extensions hiding tabs in the background and I’m always trying to avoid it.
Edit: Apparently it is just the old tabs menu near the close button that now is also showing the hidden tabs?
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The annoyance was that it wasn’t easy to disable.
Same
Nice, that always bugged me.
Literally just obsoleted my 2 week old CSS hack haha. Another useless GitHub project on my account. https://github.com/barelyelectric/firefox-csshacks
Hey, the best way to learn / practice is to build tools for yourself. Just think of it as Mozilla gave you a useful coding challenge before they came to their senses.
Why do we want to be able to hide tabs in the first place?
tab management addons is one example, like those that make tab groups. maybe there are other use cases too, but this feature is for the addons, not to be directly used by users
Ok, that makes sense.
I still don’t see why they (Mozilla) felt the feature was needed, since if you’re installing an addon to manage tabs, that’s all on you, the user.
Some tab grouping extensions use it to hide tabs that are not in the currently displayed group.
Just brainstorming, but you can put a js cryptominer in the background, and then leave it open but hidden. Or load ads, but not actually show them to the user. Probably neither of those use-cases are allowed by addons.mozilla.org TOS, but what they don’t find, they can’t moderate.
Sometimes I feel like Firefox wants to be very visible while you’re using it so that you know you’re using Firefox. A great browser should disappear into the background most of the time.
I have no problem with highlighting a new feature by default, but making it impossible to remove doesn’t win you any favors. I feel like there are a lot of tab management things that Firefox is very proud of and wants people to use that are just not that useful. Especially when they haven’t finished implementing vertical tabs yet, which has been a requested feature for a decade.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Firefox, and I think it’s a great browser, but these little bad PR missteps make it really frustrating.
Hmm, I love that button and use it all the time I don’t care what the icon is
It’s the only thing left after I’ve reduced my tab bar to a row of favicons.
I have never understood why these things aren’t removable by default. Especially when it’s something that some users will literally never interact with, not even a single time. Why not make everything optional? I don’t get it.
I removed this button with userchrome.css on day 1, but … I really shouldn’t have to.
Huh, guess i missed the drama with ESR.
I noticed a little folder icon had appeared just recently and that if I clicked it, it… listed all the tabs, so I guess that was the list all tabs button. I actually rather liked it but hadn’t yet trained myself in to the habit of using it. I hadn’t even noticed it’s now gone, but curiously it seems like for me it hasn’t really gone, so much as it’s become a down arrow icon rather than a folder. Sounds like this change is to make it optional, meaning it will otherwise stay there which tracks with my experience, but why has it become a down arrow now?
Now about that extensions button…
People only now notice an icon that has been there since at least Firefox 112
Media literacy is at an all-time low!
