Any way to remove all tabbed browsing references?

Black Sheep · Post by **Black Sheep** » December 3rd, 2003, 1:58 pm

I know, everyone LOVES tabs, but I really dislike them. Is there any way to remove all references and access to tabs? The biggest things I want to get rid of are the "open in tabs" option stuck onto folders in the bookmark folders, and "open link in new tab" from the right/contextual click menu.

Other than that, so far, so good.

sboulema · Post by **sboulema** » December 3rd, 2003, 2:07 pm

put this in your userchrome.css

Code: Select all

#context-openlinkintab {display: none !important;}
menuitem[label="Open in Tabs"] {display: none;}

Black Sheep · Post by **Black Sheep** » December 3rd, 2003, 3:05 pm

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

sboulema · Post by **sboulema** » December 3rd, 2003, 3:16 pm

Glad i could help you. but you realy should try tabs. i couldnt browse without them :S

Black Sheep · Post by **Black Sheep** » December 3rd, 2003, 4:42 pm

I've tried them, I really gave them a shot - But I much prefer just having different instances of the browser itself. I much prefer alt-tab jumping from window to window regardless of whether it's in the same app or not.

Thanks, though.

jrduncans · Post by **jrduncans** » December 3rd, 2003, 6:28 pm

You must have a ton of memory...

At least, with IE, my computer would slow down horribly opening multiple windows; never tried with a tabbed browser, since I love tabbed browsing...

ImNotMe · Post by **ImNotMe** » December 4th, 2003, 7:04 am

Black Sheep wrote:I've tried them, I really gave them a shot - But I much prefer just having different instances of the browser itself. I much prefer alt-tab jumping from window to window regardless of whether it's in the same app or not.

Thanks, though.

I'm not alone? *colapses in joy*

frease · Post by **frease** » December 4th, 2003, 7:28 am

jrduncans wrote:You must have a ton of memory...

At least, with IE, my computer would slow down horribly opening multiple windows; never tried with a tabbed browser, since I love tabbed browsing...

Do tabs use less memory than windows?

CarLBanks · Post by **CarLBanks** » December 4th, 2003, 7:36 am

I can't live without tabs, I'm currently on here and waiting for one of the slow mycroft pages to load.

jrduncans · Post by **jrduncans** » December 4th, 2003, 9:08 am

frease wrote:
jrduncans wrote:You must have a ton of memory...

At least, with IE, my computer would slow down horribly opening multiple windows; never tried with a tabbed browser, since I love tabbed browsing...

Do tabs use less memory than windows?

Well, they almost certainly use less memory than each window of IE. I haven't really seen how much sharing of memory space separate windows of Firebird exhibit. But, I'd imagine that separate windows use significantly more memory unless highly optimized: you have to duplicate both the Firebird menu bar, toolbars, etc. as well as the OS's window container, taskbar representation, etc.

asquithea · Post by **asquithea** » December 4th, 2003, 9:10 am

Dunno about memory, but I do know from experience that it take a hell of a lot longer to create and manipulate windows in comparison to tabs. I'd take tabbed browsing any day.

frease · Post by **frease** » December 4th, 2003, 9:12 am

Thanks for the explanations, jrduncans & asquithea

Black Sheep · Post by **Black Sheep** » December 4th, 2003, 9:34 am

I've never noticed even a slight speed difference tabs vs. new windows, but I haven't tried tabs on a fairly slow computer. Both are created almost instantaneously, and the only delay seems to be loading up the page. The speed issue may also be video card dependent - I have at least a GF2 in all my machines, and after one had some cheap POS, all panning/scanning in CAD programs and text scrolling improved considerably.

I'm using UltraEdit for windows, which is a great editor, but it has a tabbed interface

. It's been driving me nuts. Same reason - I'm jumping between code pages, browser windows, and other programs, and having a consistent method (alt-tab) just makes the most sense to me. The Windows task bar also makes a different window switching paradigm somewhat redundant - as well, I don't see why it would matter if you're switching from browser window to browser window instead of browser window to something else, and require different actions for either.

Kudos to Firebird (and Mozilla) for providing the tabbed browsing functionality but making it OPTIONAL. Even better, no more accidental tabbed browsing for me.

Black Sheep · Post by **Black Sheep** » December 4th, 2003, 9:46 am

OK, just for kicks, I tried it. Not anything terribly rigorous, but anyways: there was some memory difference, but nothing huge. Windows XP, 512M of RAM:

1 Window (tabs enabled or not): 18M
10 Windows (tabs): 26.3M
10 Windows (no tabs): 31.7M

jrduncans · Post by **jrduncans** » December 4th, 2003, 10:08 am

Yeah, if you have a lot of memory, it hardly matters, but on those with less, a 60% increase in memory usage is a big deal.

But speed is a factor too. Again, not noticeable for a fast machine, but for slower ones, the time wasted rendering all the duplicated widgets, etc. is noticeable.

Howver, as always, the fact that it's an option is what keeps everybody happy...

(I think the replication of the features of a taskbar is warranted due to the ineffectiveness of the windows taksbar: I can see a lot more tabs in my tab bar, than I can windows in the task bar).