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.

[8zu]

😀I like it. Since I have Firefox on my desktop, phone, and tablet, I like it is now more convenient to sync tabs from other devices to desktop. Some thoughts:

• ✅ I hope it will become more powerful and perhaps work with extensions in the future.
• ✅ I do think it be useful to have a more expansive list of synced tabs from other devices
• ❓ I haven't found the "Recently closed tab" section very useful. Intuitively, one very rarely needs to reopen a tab that is not immediately closed (and immediately closed tab can be reopened with Ctrl+shift+T). But perhaps it will find its niche for some people.
• ❓One small issue that I encountered was not related to Firefox View per se, but the drag & drop UI. I put it in a separate thread:
  https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/mac-os-drag-amp-drop-ui-a-bit-unintuitive-when-putting-th...

[8zu]

Hi, I love the new Firefox View feature! One thing that confused me a little, however, was when I accidentally Removed it from taskbar. And then I had to lookup how to put it back. Because, as shown in the attached GIF screencaps, the drag & drop UI was not very intuitive.

When the pinned section is empty, when I drag an item to it and hover, there is no indication that the item will land and create the pinned zone. But when I drag a second item to it and hover, it will show some indication that the item will land in the pinned zone.

Context: macOS Monterey 12.6; Firefox 106.0.1 (64-bit).

[akdor1154]

Firefox view page itself is awesome, thankyou!

Its implementation is a bit weird though - as others have noted it seems to have its own magic-kind-of-like-a-tab-but-not-quite behaviour.

Question - I would love to set firefoxview as my default new tab page! Why can't I do this? This would mean I can remove the weird button + behaviour, and still benefit from the great work that's gone into this feature.

I can set about:firefoxview as my New Browser page by entering it in the url, but I can't do it for the New Tab page! 😞

[phtown]

The existence of this new feature doesn't bother me, especially since I realized I could remove the icon from the task bar. But I don't expect I'll use it either. Syncing tabs between devices and opening recently closed tabs are two things I do relatively often but I expect I'll continue to use the previously existing facilities to do those things. And I very rarely change my firefox theming, but when I do I'm happy using the existing methods to accomplish that as well. I don't see any harm in adding new ways to accomplish tasks I already do as long as you don't take away the menus I'm used to using.

[NetScaper]

I never open tabs between machines. Mostly because these machines serve a different purpose. One for work, one for private use. Also...why bother to sync tabs to another machine, when you can simply surf to them again? Maybe I'm over-simplifying. Again...if you can sync/transfer active logins and data...then it would -perhaps- make sense.

And lastly, is this update from a 'we can make this feature, let's push it and try' perspective? Or was is actually based on a USER need? I'm guessing the first. Prove me wrong plz...

[TiberiusJames]

After today's update to 106.0.2 it doesn't seem that much has changed.  The functionality of Firefox view is still pretty limited and provides nothing that wasn't previously available, and "recently closed windows" in the History is still broken.  👎

[kherge]

It does not make sense to have an activity indicator for the Firefox View tab.

1. If I want to pick up a tab from another device, I would already know to look there or use "Send Tab to Device".
2. Activity on the current device is redundant. I know I closed a tab in the browser because I just did it.
3. If any advertisements are eventually displayed in View, I do not care to be notified that a new one is present (and I'll probably just switch browsers).

[CubeOfCheese]

I think it makes sense to add bookmarks and downloads there too.
I like others think it could make a good addition to the new tab page. Honestly I think I'd be more likely to use the sync features from the new tab page than the dedicated firefox view as it exists right now.

The weirdest thing for me is the colorways doesn't seem like it fits with the purpose of the page at all. Like it just doesn't fit logically alongside Sync and History.

I do think this is an improvement to the sync feature though, it was too inaccessible before so I never used it, but I could see myself using it now

[Jon]

This is great feedback. Thanks, @CubeOfCheese!

[nekomancer105]

Only showing the 3 most recent tabs from my synced device kinda nerfs the page's usefulness. Please allow us to customise it to show more information! Maybe even stuff like previous sessions too?

[Jon]

Thanks! More customization and the ability to restore sessions are popular requests in this thread. How many recent tabs would you potentially like to see available?

[5in1k]

Still don't care for it.

[design]

I think I accidentally closed it as I have a lot of pinned tabs and am constantly closing them...I then used about:firefoxview to get it back and so far I like it and look forward to seeing where the UX goes from here...

Tab pickup is soo useful! I often switch between mobile and desktop and this makes it a lot easier to carry on.

Recently closed tabs in this window is also helpful (particularly because it is per window)...but for my habits would need to be extended to be truly worth referring back to regularly:

Context: I keep a lot of tabs open in different windows...each window has a theme like a piece of work or research I've been doing recently. However, the volume of windows and tabs becomes overwhelming and I have to spend a lot of time closing them all then later regretting it and wishing I could get back...as a result I often keep more open than is sensible because I want them as a prompt to come back to...

To solve this in a better way I would hope to be able to do the following with Firefox View:

- Save the Window or group of tabs contents in Firefox View and name it ready to be re-opened later

- Set a reminder against a theme to revisit it (eg snoozed themes rise to the top of the Firefox View page when their reminder deadline arrives)

With these two things I could happily close my windows / tab groups safe in the knowledge I have them safely stored and a prompt to revisit them.

I know there are 3rd-party addons that help with this problem but I trust Mozilla more with my privacy and security and prefer to keep 3rd party code to a minimum.

Thanks to all the volunteers working on this! I think there is a lot of potential in having some kind of 'Desktop' type area like this in Firefox (that isn't the new tab / home) and am excited to see where the UX of it goes from here.

[ANON-DISPOSABLE]

You're looking for something entirely different than Firefox View. you're looking for things like:

• Bookmarks with folders.
• Window Titler extension.
• Vertical tabs with tab grouping.
• OneTab to "offline save" your tabs.

[Charli3]

Got rid of it. The tabs already take up too much space, even when set to compact. Those rounded edges consume so much more pixels than they should.

[ANON-DISPOSABLE]

• Do you find Firefox View useful for information retrieval? 

No, not in the slightest. It's inferior to history button for recently closed history, and Synced Tabs toolbar button and sidebar pane for that. Opening another page (and a rather not-pleasant-to-look-at-one isn't useful and is less functional and cluttered than what exists.

Colorways itself is a pretty offensive feature (really, it is!) so even seeing it there was an immediate turn-off, even aside from the rest. And the page itself has a redundant Firefox logo. I'm not exaggerating when I say "no".

• Tell us about your favorite functionality in this feature!

The colored, useful icon. Unlike the drab, boring, icons that recent Firefox UI redesigns have moved to.  Seriously: Seeing a full icon was useful. Just imagine keeping this icon there, and replacing its functionality with a quick (or temporary) sidebar toggle.

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

Recently closed windows and previous sessions fit with what's here and don't have as good hooks as other things. Of course, I'd rather the effort be spent to expose them in the better places.

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

It currently looks like all of them?

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

No. Not until Firefox Accounts allows multiple sub-profiles in one, so I can have my "work profile bookmark and tab set" and my "non-work profile bookmark and tab set". I don't want my desktop bookmarks on mobile. (Especially since Firefox for Android STILL doesn't work with bookmarks properly since that redesign a couple years back.)

---

So, in short, this was right into the "remove from toolbar" heap for me. Probably should have conducted some user interest stories first before implementing...

[kikdn]

It doesn't work at all. It doesn't recover any tab, and, moreover, now "Ctrl-Shift-T" doesn't work any more.

Sorry, but this is awfully painful. You should bring back the old functionality to recover Tabs with "Ctrl-Shift-T" that worked.

[wanageeska]

I personally don't see the point of the current implementation (or why the same functionality couldn't be incorporated into the home page); however, if this is the genesis of some kind of future, unified, customisable 'dashboard'/homepage enabling a user to choose which set of features they want to foreground (Inoreader's dashboard comes to mind), then I am 100% on board.

[Jon]

It's definitely just the beginning! Feel free to let us know what you think should be added—this helps as we explore future versions of Firefox View.

[dmoz]

I was initially very excited to see Firefox View and "tab pickup", hoping it would finally gain the ability to properly swap tabs between devices... except it isn't.    It's so frustratingly close!

Firstly some criticism then some constructive ideas and use cases I'd like to see!

(And a rant: The "colorways" stuff is stupid and unnecessary... I'm guessing this was someone's pet project?  Open source contribution? Trying to justify hiring a junior designer, someone's kid?  I don't understand what use case they add over themes except they're done in what I'm assuming is supposed to be a 'cutesy' way which comes off condescending and dumb. And then they keep popping up messages, no, go away!)

So my criticism and suggestions has three parts:

• the almost there but not quite ability to view and manage tabs from other devices
• the tab-like but not-like-anything-else and extension incompatible view that View shows, and the button placement and logo
• the prioritisation of 'colorways' and 'closed tabs' over 'tab pickup' and the layout

"tab pickup" is almost something great, but misses my main use case.  Let's assume for a moment the UI is fixed, see below, the use case I am really longing for is:  as a long-time power user of firefox across devices I would like to be able to open links on my phone or work computer then retrieve the list of open tabs on my home desktop when I have time (and more screen real estate) to deal with them properly, then close the tab on the other device.  That would be an absolute killer feature for me.   Currently seeing one tab from each device is basically useless - if by some miracle it's the tab I want I then have to close that tab on the other device later, wasting my time.   It looks like firefox accounts and the back end from those can sync the list across devices (as we could already access tabs from other devices on the menus) so surely having a close command would be pretty easy on top of that.

The view and button:   this goes against the principle of least surprise, it's not like anything else.  Make it a proper tab, or a new tab view, or a sidebar, or something else users are familiar with!  This special view really stands out as unwelcome when using extensions.   I use vertical tabs and  extensions in the sidebar, with the to bars disabled, and I'm definitely not some weirdo outlier here as these are popular extensions, so the default button placement quite frankly sucks as I have to re-enable the disabled bars to move it!  And the logo branding on the button is a bad look, why would the app's logo go to tabs and colours? It's also diluting the logo's brand power associating it with something that has triggered so many negative comments here.  

For me as a long time power user the attractive feature in Firefox View is 'tab pickup', so it's quite annoying to see the screen real estate dedicated to 'colorways' and 'closed tabs' instead.  There are menus for all these things already (tabs on other devices, closed tabs, and themes) so make Firefox View a special view for tabs from other devices, and do it properly!  Consider the uses cases of a user with many devices.   I want to use this on my desktop with lots of screen real estate and see the tabs I opened on other devices.  (in portrait mode 4k, so don't insult me and waste a dozen monitor inches with trendy modern-designy excessive whitespace!)  And definitely don't repeatedly pop up nagging me to change colours, why would you do that?

So into rainbows and unicorns here, a wish list:

- tab pickup without a firefox account, peer to peer or with another backend

- integration with tree style tabs and session managers (or get the session manager extension to work with the firefox account back end to do tab pickup properly)

[Jon]

Thanks for the feedback. Sharing specific use cases is always helpful.

[elliebee323]

Being able to close tabs on one device from another device would be a great feature.

[Jon]

@elliebee323 thanks for bringing that up! That's actually a popular request in the community—you can see a separate idea thread for it here:

Send 'close tab' request to other device via sync / remotely close tabs

Is that a feature you'd like to see in Firefox View as well?

[gttabshttingme]

Please make the "unread" dot go away on the Firefox View tab.  It draws my attention unnecessarily.  It breaks my concentration.  I go to the browser to look something up, and there is a dot, and I instinctively go see what it needs, and it is never anything.  I know this is where I can find a closed tab and what I'm doing on my other machines and devices.  But please turn off that dot.  Please.  Please. 

[elliebee323]

I would like to see all my synced tabs on it, not just my recent ones. The current way to view synced tabs is frustrating and scrolls to the top whenever you open one. I want to see them all at once and select multiple ones to open at once.

[StringEpsilon]

Due to my habits, Firefox View has been an entirely negative experience. I do not mind at all that Mozilla is adding UI/UX features that are not for me - I understand that I'm weird in my UX habits. What I do not like is the browser changing my settings and reminding me again and again and again and again to use the fancy new feature.

I just want to use my browser. Having to deal with constant popups or guided tours is just getting in the way of that.

Again, I totally see why View is an interesting feature for a lot of people. I just want the browser to accept in a single click that no, I do not want this. It does not make sense for how I use Firefox.

In case you are curious as to why I have no interest in the feature:

- I do not keep tabs between sessions.

- I do not keep a browsing history

- I do not use sync, nor do I have a Mozilla account nor have I ever felt any need for either of those.

- I restore tabs (within a session) via ctrl+shift+t. That is faster than going to a special tab or view and clicking on it. Even if I need to pop off 3 tabs of the "stack" to get the desired one.

- I rarely have more than 5 tabs open. And if I do, I just close a bunch when I feel overwhelmed.

*AGAIN*, I know that I am an outlier. I just want the browser to leave me alone and not constantly nag me to use a feature that is completely useless *to me* specifically. Edit to add: I made this comment because I got the "restore tabs with view" popup for the 30th time since the update came out. I disabled Firefox View on all 5 of my relevant devices immediately - Firefox has not respected my settings change.

Edit 2: I mean the popup that says something like "Get recently closed tabs back with Firefox View".

[Jon]

Thanks for this feedback—even the ability to accept or not accept a feature with a single click is helpful! And props to you for having such good tab control...I wish I could limit myself to 5 tabs open or fewer. Sounds like you already have a good system in place.

[alnetloc]

I LOVE how easy it is to hand off tabs from desktop to android or vice versa.  Great system - very easy to use, intuitive, and works!!!

[Jon]

Awesome to hear! Is there anything else you'd like to see added to Firefox View that would improve your overall experience?

[moqr]

it'd be super useful to have synced tabs sorted by device in firefox view. making it easier to pickup work from desk to desk. TIA. another feature would be cool to have is to have VIEW as an option for firefox home with starred/favorite links at the top.

[Jon]

This is very interesting, @moqr! Thanks for sharing.

[kremlinbot]

I tried playing around with UI and here's the concept I made:

Full versionPocket not supported versionUser not logged in version

Key changes:

• All the new widgets are located under current New Tab widgets. The new widgets include:
  • "Other Devices" -- shows (2n-1) recently synced tabs from other devices, pressing the "Show More" button expands it to up to 3n more elements (where n is the amount of rows that can be fitted into the screen, e.g. for the concept art above it will be 3).
  • "Recently Closed" -- shows 3 or 5 recently closed tabs, including their URL. Pressing the "Show More" button expands the lists to up to 10 elements.
  • "Recent Bookmarks" -- shows 3 or 5 recently bookmarked tabs, including their URL. Pressing the "Show More" button expands the lists to up to 10 elements.

• Pocket Recommendations widget is now 1 or 2 columns high, and is scrolled to the right, to make it easier to access the new widgets. UPD: there should probably be circled arrows navigation buttons (these ⧀ ⧁ things) to both show it can be scrolled that direction and allow scrolling by clicking on them.
  
• Every widget now can be collapsed, just life in FF View (not sure about this feature, considering user can disable unneeded widgets in New Tab settings)

What do you think?

[Jon]

This is really cool!

[MintMain21]

Very Nice @kremlinbot

[ansiklopedici]

Hello,

Thank you very much for the feature.

My suggestions:

The big icons in the right column should be replaceable. Example:

• FF Accounts profile photo
• The image chosen by the theme we use*
• The image we choose from the computer

*Also, theme designers should be able to make themes that can change this area. (from FF Color)

[rayf]

Hello all! I just to express how grateful we are as an organization to have such amazing contributors. Your feedback is essential to giving us the ammunition we need to inform meaningful products.

We've learned so much over the course of the last couple of weeks around understanding your user needs, desires, and pain points as it relates to Firefox View. Some of the more common idea suggestions fall into the realm of:

• Searching within History
• Removing the FxAccounts dependency
• Expanded Tab History (more than just the last 3 tabs)
• Tab Grouping
• Setting FxView as the New Tab

I especially want to acknowledge that we also recognize the comments that came in about the "List all tabs" button addition, and are working on a solution to mitigate those concerns.

Although I cannot share any specifics around what we will commit to at this moment, I can assure you that all of your feedback is being considered and discussed with the internal team. We look forward to providing more updates in the future!

Best,

Ray

[kremlinbot]

Hello! Can we get any more information about every of the suggested statements?

Any why

• Setting FxView as the New Tab

Instead of just integrating it in the new tab? It's already a thing in Firefox for Android, and making it the same way on desktop would be more logical and will make New Tab much more productive. It will also make it easier to find the categories for beginner users and allow to remove the separate FF View button, which was heavily criticized by users.

I tried to conceptualize this idea a few days ago and IMO it works pretty good this way, even though it was a pretty brief mockup.

[Jon]

Thanks to all for participating and providing so many valuable insights—this was a very active and productive discussion with over 150 comments  👏

We are closing out this thread but want to encourage you to continue sharing your feedback and ideas about Firefox View (and more) in new posts—we look forward to improving this feature in future versions thanks to your help. Just remember to use the necessary labels and tags, so your posts are easily searched for and discovered.

Also, we are excited to announce that a new discussion hosted by a Firefox Product Manager has just kicked off and can be found here: Importing Autofill Data - Tell us what you think! Please feel free to join and share your feedback there 😀

[Jon]

Thanks to all for participating and providing so many valuable insights—this was a very active and productive discussion with over 150 comments  👏

We are closing out this thread but want to encourage you to continue sharing your feedback and ideas about Firefox View (and more) in new posts—we look forward to improving this feature in future versions thanks to your help. Just remember to use the necessary labels and tags, so your posts are easily searched for and discovered.

Also, we are excited to announce that a new discussion hosted by a Firefox Product Manager has just kicked off and can be found here: Importing Autofill Data - Tell us what you think! Please feel free to join and share your feedback there 😀