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How can I disable the new tab grouping features

  • 3 replies
  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by Paul

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I'm on android nightly 94. Some recent changes started grouping tabs in two different way, both of which have degraded my experience in the app.

The first is grouping inactive tabs, I have Firefox set to not automatically close inactive tabs but I'm still kind of paranoid Firefox is going to close them anyway. Even if it won't, then it's just hiding them from view and makes me forget about them. I would rather they got some kind of icon or label instead.

The second is the very new search term labeling. This isn't a bad idea, but in practice it's absolutely miserable. My search terms are full to the brim with typos that google gracefully handles but firefox just leaves as incoherent labels on my tabs that makes no sense. Plus I will frequently reuse an open tab for a new search, meaning the label is completely irrelevant to what's now in the tab. The worst part is that the vast majority of my tabs are in a group labelled "other", meaning this feature just poinlessly segregates a handful of tabs and pulls them all the way to the top of the list. When it does decide a tab gets a label, that also means they're no longer in recently created order, so I have no sense of static positioning in the tab list. Plus it makes the tab list way longer overall.

Attached is a screenshot exhibiting my inability to type accurately on a phone keyboard and the search labels inability to correctly match the contents of a tab.

All in all, I think these features a huge downgrade in terms of usability, I have a short term memory disorder and I know it makes things much harder on me. I would like to be able to disable them somehow, but I can't find any toggles or anything anywhere.

I'm on android nightly 94. Some recent changes started grouping tabs in two different way, both of which have degraded my experience in the app. The first is grouping inactive tabs, I have Firefox set to not automatically close inactive tabs but I'm still kind of paranoid Firefox is going to close them anyway. Even if it won't, then it's just hiding them from view and makes me forget about them. I would rather they got some kind of icon or label instead. The second is the very new search term labeling. This isn't a bad idea, but in practice it's absolutely miserable. My search terms are full to the brim with typos that google gracefully handles but firefox just leaves as incoherent labels on my tabs that makes no sense. Plus I will frequently reuse an open tab for a new search, meaning the label is completely irrelevant to what's now in the tab. The worst part is that the vast majority of my tabs are in a group labelled "other", meaning this feature just poinlessly segregates a handful of tabs and pulls them all the way to the top of the list. When it does decide a tab gets a label, that also means they're no longer in recently created order, so I have no sense of static positioning in the tab list. Plus it makes the tab list way longer overall. Attached is a screenshot exhibiting my inability to type accurately on a phone keyboard and the search labels inability to correctly match the contents of a tab. All in all, I think these features a huge downgrade in terms of usability, I have a short term memory disorder and I know it makes things much harder on me. I would like to be able to disable them somehow, but I can't find any toggles or anything anywhere.
Attached screenshots

All Replies (3)

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Hi

Please appreciate that you are using an early test build of Firefox for Android where features may still be under construction and not finished. You may wish to try Firefox for Android or Firefox for Android Beta while these features are being finished.

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I do understand, and I don't have a problem using a prerelease version. I simply wanted to submit feedback about those features while they're still likely in development. I couldn't find any other way to submit feedback than to post here.

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Hi,

The people who answer questions here, for the most part, are other users volunteering their time (like me), not Mozilla employees or Firefox developers. If you want to leave feedback for Firefox developers, you can go to this link. Your feedback gets collected by a team of people who read it and gather data about the most common issues.