Firefox View is now live in Fx106. Learn about this new feature and tell us what you think!

[rayf]

Hello community!

Ray here, from the Firefox Desktop Product team excited to engage with you :). If you get a chance, we encourage you to check out Firefox View in the Fx106 release version. This brand new feature aims to help you get back to the content that you’ve previously discovered within the browser in a seamless manner. This optimized task continuity flow will surely bring a newfound confidence to anyone that may typically be hesitant to close tabs across devices for fear of losing important information! 

Key functions include: being able to access recently closed tabs, tab pickup from other devices, and personal selection of Colorways. Put simply, it is a space where you can curate and shape your needs. 

If you’re curious to read more about this feature please check out this article!

As we work to make this feature better for you, we’d like to welcome any and all feedback.

• Do you find Firefox View useful for information retrieval? 
• Tell us about your favorite functionality in this feature!
• What additional integrations might you find helpful on this surface?
• Would it be useful to have a more expansive list of synced tabs from other devices?
• Does this surface encourage you to sync new devices to your Firefox Account?

Thank you in advance for your participation! We look forward to hearing from you.

[atimholt]

Firefox doesn't need new features. It's okay for a piece of software to be “done”, excepting bug and security fixes.

But Firefox's customisability is why I love it. I don't even have this new feature, since I've turned off my tab bar (made redundant by Tree Style Tab). Seriously, Firefox's move to a new add-on system a few years ago could almost have killed it for me, if they'd gone too far.

[user_3178]

Useless as a tool for my workflow, too limited.

For example, with "recently closed tabs" I can't restore more than one page at once. I can't open them in a new window, nor in a new tab next to the one I'm at. I can't use the links of closed tabs as normal links in a webpage. Interestingly enough the "tab pickup" section has that functionality. The feature is designed without any regards to consistency in user experience.

In the same way the button opens a new tab, if I don't find what I was looking for in that tab or I change my mind, then the button won't close the tab it opens. I have to close that tab and then it takes me to the last tab on the browser window, not to the tab I was when clicked the "firefox view" button.

This slows down my browsing instead of speeding it up, especially when I'm researching a topic, which usually involves many open tabs. The order of tabs as well as the position of the tab I'm in right now carry important information. A tool that moves me around and does not give me the standard options on what to do with the links it provides, is disrupting. It basically slows down my workflow.

[Progress2000]

The only thing I don't like this feature is it is counted as a "tab" for some reasons. When the "Confirm before closing multiple tabs" option is selected in setting. It would be counted as a second "tab" even only one actual "tab' is opened. Hope Mozilla could fix this issue soon.

[Progress2000]

Sorry, it has been fixed in v107

[zorrohere]

It could be better. I don't like that it is taking space of my first pinned tab, it could easily be a button in toolbar instead of permanent tab. I don't think it has changed anything in terms of workflow, I want option to drag and drop tabs. If you allow drag and drop both on PC and mobile then workflow will improve greatly. I could easily send tabs to mobile, I won't have to search through 30 tabs on mobile.

Mobile also needs improvement because on PC most people have too many open tabs so searching through them in tiny list is not good UX. Also, let's say I want to open multiple tabs then I can't do that, there should be context menu and ability to open multiple tabs.

[atjbramley]

I like it, but I seem to get only 3 'open on other devices' tabs, and a long list of recently closed tabs.

I'd like more options to see the tabs I have open on other devices.  I frequently have 20 tabs open on 4 instances of Firefox, and until recently used 'Send to device' to manage this.  I like the idea of using Firefox View to manage this, but being able to see only 3, arbitrarily selected tabs out of ~80 that are open elsewhere dramatically limits the functionality. 

[atjbramley]

Also - you have 2002 bugeye options as avatars???  ❣️

[Carighan]

One of the best features. This is the central sync/retrieve/reopen page I've always wanted, instead of relying solely on the imperative "send this"-approach (don't get me wrong, I like that).

What I'd like to see is a more explicity, and mostly importantly more cohesive, version of this in the mobile application. That is, the mobile version needs a page that exactly mimics the desktop one, ideally replacing the current from-other-devices tab in the tab overview.

[matthiew]

---

Tell us about your favorite functionality in this feature!

---

My favourite part is that after closing it there doesn't appear to be a way to open it again 😛

Seriously, though, where is it in the Menu? I don't see it.

[john1]

I love it. I could already transfer tabs between devices before, but it was just much more clumsy.

• Do you find Firefox View useful for information retrieval? 

Yes, I find it very useful.

• Tell us about your favorite functionality in this feature!

Transferring tabs between devices + how accessible it is.

• What additional integrations might you find helpful on this surface?

I don't know.

• Would it be useful to have a more expansive list of synced tabs from other devices?

Yes!

• Does this surface encourage you to sync new devices to your Firefox Account?

Yes!

[ghishadow]

it is one best feature, thanks firefox, as a user of multiple device it is pretty helpful, I am expected it to become more awesome with time

[Vasily]

I wanna back empty small square space for dragging window instead of "firefox view" button. I can customize it but "flexible space" is too big

[ScarletSunset]

For the most part, I don't mind this View thing. It's harmless and can be out of the way and useful, and there's room for it to do more stuff.

The deal-breaker however is that it's going to permanently have this progress bar CTA nag telling me to enable a setting I don't want to enable. I cannot remove it, and the expander will open again in every new window. Firefox should respect my decision and *not* be instructing me to switch on sync features I don't want. You're a privacy-focused browser and I shouldn't see bright neon reminders to sync more data to your servers, or any reminder at all. My setup is not 66% complete; it is fully complete and I completed it by opting not to do this thing.

The way my brain works, I need indicators like this to be removed or they will occupy space in my brain and thought processing, and will take work to ignore. I won't be removing it via completing the progress bar, so I will be removing it by not using View.

[BrightShadow]

Just hit the small carrot icon at the top right of your screenshot, to close/hide that information. I don't use the phone app either so mine says the same, but once you hide it, you don't need to think about it any more. 👍

[ScarletSunset]

Unfortunately this isn't the case. As I wrote in my post, the field expands on every new window.

If I collapse the tab pickup then open a new window, the tab pickup is expanded again with the progress bar front and center. If I collapse the tab pickup, close Firefox, and reopen Firefox, it's expanded again. Collapsing the tab pickup is seemingly temporary for just this window & session, not a preference that gets stored anywhere

[Spottedkitty]

Removed it pretty much immediately. In my case it feels like a solution looking for a problem with the functionality in it all elsewhere. I also don't use the syncing process so that's out too and I already heavily alter the browser via the userChrome CSS so I've no need of the colourways, but it would be nice if it could support *actual* themes or userChome, but I doubt that'll ever happen.

[Drew]

Regarding Firefox View, I like the idea of a dashboard as a pinned tab at the top-left, but I don't understand why you included the functionality that you did. It basically shows only 2 things: synced tabs and recently closed. I can access both of these though other means already. I can manually send tabs back and forth between devices, which I already do multiple times a day. Also I have a ton of tabs open on different devices and Tab Pickup only shows like 3. Regarding recently closed tabs, first of all, I closed them because I'm done with them, and second of all, I can just look through my history if I want to re-open one.

I might use FF View if it were customizable. Remember the iGoogle home page from the mid-2000's? You could add widgets and re-arrange them: weather, news, bookmarks, etc. If it were something like that, I might use it.

[bwat47]

Please allow us to see *all* tabs from other devices, similar to the tab sync menu.

View would actually be a better place to show this because it has much more space compared to a cramped toolbar menu!

[Static]

I like it. As for an improvement I would like to see the recently closed tabs to either be available in the sidebar alongside Bookmarks, History, and synced tabs or have it as a filter option under History.

That way this functionality is still readily accessible for those who don't want to use up tab space.

[toasty]

I like it! The only note I have is that I think it would be more useful to focus more on open/synced tabs rather than history. I would probably only look for the last 2 or 3 closed tabs if I needed to reopen one, and go to the dedicated history browser for anything more than that. Having a full list of synced tabs open on other computers/Firefox instances would be more useful.

[olbaze]

After trying it out for a while, here's a few thoughts:

• I think it should be a movable icon, like the Synced Tabs, rather than a permanently pinned tab. It turns out it is in fact a movable icon, just like the Synced Tabs. Not sure they they felt the need to make it into a pinned tab.
• I think it should be available as a New Tab Page, or a section in the New Tab Page.
• I think it needs to be more customizable. Currently, you can only hide some things, but you can't change what is shown, where it is shown, and how much of it is shown.
• I think the information density is too low. As a test, I opened a total of 13 different pages on Reddit on my phone. All of these pages show up in the Synced Tabs section. However, only 3 tabs show up on Firefox View.

[BrightShadow]

Jon, a Mozilla community manager, suggested I share my thoughts about the feature here, so I am copying my Idea post here. Original post url: https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/currently-open-tabs-windows-in-firefox-view/idc-p/16819

I recently took a look at the Firefox View "tab", and I could see the usefulness of a quick history list of closed tabs. However that's all it is since I don't wish to use this alongside my phone. However if this also had a drop-down for my currently open tabs and windows, to more easily visually see what I have open, I could see myself using it much more.

Currently there IS a tabs drop down on the top right-side of the window, however as a dropdown the text and icons are smaller, and you overall have less space to work with. If incorporated into Firefox View, you could remove the drop-down carrot, freeing up some of the space that the Firefox View icon takes up.

-BrightShadow

Pros:

• More streamlined
• Firefox View becomes more useful
• Easier to browse and select open tabs/windows

Cons:

• Adjustment period for older users
• Need to integrate some search function into Firefox View
• Less intuitive for new users if the new tab icon (+) remains on right side

(Surprise Pro: suspect users would learn to really appreciate new tabs forming on the left instead of the right)

[Bachsau]

The only thing I would like to see is a "Do not auto-install new bull**bleep**" setting. Instead I constantly have to go to about:config and search for a variable to disable such things. "Firefox view" = absolutely useless and superfluous waste of memory and screen space. 👎

[FrancisLS]

I do like the idea of using Firefox View as a dedicated tab for opening recently closed & synced tabs, especially the latter since there is more space to see everything compared to using the synced tabs section in the toolbar's Firefox Account button. My only gripe is that Firefox View's Synced Tabs section should be more expansive as you've said, like in the Firefox Account button in the toolbar. Maybe you can have the current layout for the Synced Tabs as the default when you open Firefox View and then have a button to expand it and see all your tabs from other devices?

[ultraviolet]

Love it! 

It's great to see where I was on other devices.

It will be lovely to see how it evolves in the future 

[NutritiousCooki]

I immediately turned it off. Please stop pinning things to my toolbar.

[Ggdivhjkjl]

How can I turn it off please?

[8zu]

You can just right-click and select "Remove from taskbar"

[hoggys2much]

In a new tab type about:config and accept the risks

In the search bar type firefox-view

Where it says browser.tabs.firefox-view double click where it says true to change it to false

There it is now gone forever on Firefox.

[Thrane]

I really like it! As others have pointed out, I don't know why it is separate from Firefox Home.

One thing I wonder, is it/would it be possible to avoid the View icon to have notification dots? I find notification dots to be distracting, and I don't want to be obsessively checking the View tab every-time there's a small light on it.

[Thalyssa]

I gave this a shot but I don't find it incredibly useful.

I don't use FF on mobile which diminishes the viability of this feature for me.  I find the existing Sync button on the taskbar pretty sufficient to look at tabs from my other computer.

Plus, I just use History (which does show recently closed tabs) or Ctrl+Shift+T to retrieve old tabs. View looks nicer (I guess) but it doesn't provide any extra functionality.

IMO, it's just a new coat of paint on existing browser features. I promptly remove it because I don't find it any more useful than the existing browser features.

[JeremiahLee]

Firefox View feels prematurely released. Initial impressions:

• My Recently Closed list is littered with "about:newtab". Those tabs should be ignored.
• I want the ability to remove items visible on View or delete them immediately from my history so they don't keep showing up.
• I want the ability to remotely close tabs on my phone once I have dealt with the open tab on my laptop.

[ANON-DISPOSABLE]

This last feature would be a useful one. Unified cross-device session management (or tab and window management if we're not being fully exciting). Drag and drop tabs across devices and windows (closing/opening across devices) all in one place? Useful (especially if cookies can follow it). This? Not at all.

[NetScaper]

I wonder...does it also copy active logins and data, that are lost by forced updates? 

Because, I do support this: "This optimized task continuity flow will surely bring a newfound confidence to anyone that may typically be hesitant to close tabs across devices for fear of losing important information! "
The thing is that your product is not yet capable to assure task continuity and confidence in the first place.

Now, if this would work, I only need two computers to run Firefox and be assured I never loose active logins, data once FF is forcing an update on me while working.

Gladly hear about the options

[TiberiusJames]

I am not a fan of Firefox View. While I do enjoy access to synced and closed tabs, as others have pointed out those things were already available.  What I DO NOT enjoy is that Firefox View appears to have completely disabled the "recently closed tabs" and more importantly "recently closed windows" in the history and does not include an option to reopen recently closed windows.
I run two monitors and frequently have a Firefox window open in both and have been using the "recently closed windows" history feature to reopen my second window since "open previous windows and tabs" doesn't seem to ever reopen the second window.
I understand that this is an outlier issue that does not effect most users, but as one who IS effected by this needless change who has lost about a dozen open tabs as a result of not being able to reopen a previously closed window, I am not pleased.

[bijm]

In the spirit of making restoring things more accessible, adding some sort of button on there to restore previous session would be nice.

[delobsidian]

I don't have a use for the FF View feature. I think it's important not to create more things just for the sake of creating more things -- which is what this appears to be. I'm not sure if people remember when Google Chrome first came out, users were thrilled because the design was so minimal. You could add features, customize whatever you wanted, but when you first installed it, it was a browser and nothing else added on.

Many users, including me, spend an extraordinary amount of time removing unwanted features from upgraded versions of Firefox. My feedback is instead of creating new stuff and requiring us to remove it all, just give us a beautiful browser with no extra features or products. Just the browser. IMO, It would be the most positive, refreshing thing you could offer your users. Then we can add-on whatever we want, to make it ours.

Think of it as opting in rather than opting out of extra features. Opting in is almost always a better, user-centric experience.

[Ggdivhjkjl]

Abolish the new "Firefox View" tab

Apart from being unnecessary, that tab gets in the way because it's right next to the left tabs arrow which should be on the end so as to make using it easy.

There is nothing in the new "Firefox View" tab which could not be more suitably placed somewhere else.

There is no need to include the history list because there's already a button for that.

Changing the browser's colours should logically be an option under Settings.

As for synchronisation (which is a bad idea for anyone concerned with data protection anyway), again that should be an option under Settings.

Please stop trying to force things like that on us the way Google does.

[barsupi]

I think firefox view is nice depending on it's usage.

- For tablets and people that don't use many hotkeys. is very practical.
- I'm not really sure if it should be part of the "new tab page". but being able to have it there will be nice.
since (menu > history > closed tabs ) required too many clicks.

- We need to be able to remove the sync tabs things. a lot of people will never use it and is wasted space.
- I guess one of the biggest problem of firefox_view was also the location of the icon. Put is as a pinned tab was mistake. most people move it next to the overflow menu or just disable it.  Take tab space way from people is Never ok.

ALSO

===========

- NO MORE, for the love of god PLEASE NO MORE colorways that expire . is FOMO garbage.
(what's next NFTs, Gatcha stuff?)

Please make a proper customization menu for firefox. Just like the wizard prompt you introduced this time.  that would be something original not available in other browsers.

a whole menu:

- merge it with the forgotten firefox colors
- show theme selector and firefox personas (R.i.p.)
- option to have tabs instead of buttons
- vertical tabs
- Density selector.  Restore  the smallest density. (I'm still furious about this.)
- background image for the new tab menu.

Do we need to keep complaining about these things for years.
I bet crowdicity was deleted just to get rid of "bring back the small density" fiasco.

Why everything has to be hidden under about:config and chromeCSS.
how many years people and addon dev has been waiting for "hide tabbar" option.

is so tiresome.

BTW. this should work.

[Santiagoxmoreno]

This feature is amazing, great work 🙂