On Firefox mobile, make home page links open in current tab

[Obscerno]

Short version: unless the user has selected "New Tab", make home page links open in the same tab. Currently, they open in new tabs inconsistently and accumulate.

Long version:

When you tap on the address bar, the home page pops up when you do. Since the address bar is meant to change the current tab, the links on the home page should open in the same tab, but they don't. Instead, they open in new tabs, which is confusing.

Fixing this is a very common suggestion and there's a constant churn of github issues popping up and being closed related to this. The canonical post is this one. Though it's technically about always associating the home page with a tab, all requests to open home page links in the same tab get closed as duplicates of it. I want to focus on the user experience with homepage links and tabs because I'm afraid that issue is being ignored based on its title.

Progress on this other issue is blocked, pending feedback on this. That issue is specifically about bookmarks on the home page, but I'd like to see this fixed for all home page links.

A similar issue has been tackled before successfully, though in the menu, not on the home page. I hope that the rest of the confusing behaviour can fixed be too! There is a lot of valuable feedback behind these links; I hope they help.

Thanks for your consideration.

Edit - for the reviewers: below I'm sharing use cases from around the web (non-exhaustive). Also, remember that your mobile app has 0.49% global market share, vs. 7.87% for the desktop. So 40 votes in this mixed forum is like 600 or something if you think about it... just sayin'. 🙃

r6squeegee, via rocketsroger on Github:

Spoiler

1. I'm on a web page, and done with it
2. I click on the url field to bring up the home screen so I can see my book marks (1 click on a big bar, adverse to 2 clicks for going to settings (small icon) then bookmarks (on a popup menu))
3. I click on the next bookmark

That use to open the new page in the existing tab, it doesn't anymore. If I go through that routine with 8 bookmarks I end up with 8 tabs.

M-Reimer on Github:

Spoiler

In the "Pre-Fenix" Firefox on Android I used to surf through several news pages by tapping the address bar (which seems to work again since a few days in the Nightly which is at least a start), then selecting the first news site. Now I would open all interesting articles into new tabs and if I'm done with this site, I tap the address bar again and choose the next news site. At least I expect this second news site to now open in the current tab.

The current implementation always opens a new tab. If you tap the address bar and choose the exact same bookmark to open ten times in a row, then you have ten open tabs which all show the same website... Just silly. It should at least be possible to say "open websites from the Home screen in the current ab" in the preferences.

cartr on Github:

Spoiler

Let's say you currently have no tabs open, and you want to visit Wikipedia.

1. Tap the Google top-sites icon. Whoops! That was the wrong one!
2. No worries, happens to the best of us. Press the system back button to return to the new tab page.
3. Tap the Wikipedia top-sites icon.

Expected behavior

You now have one tab open, with Wikipedia.

Actual behavior

You now have two tabs open, one with Google and one with Wikipedia.

hmorcali17 from support.mozilla.org:

Spoiler

Every time I click on my shortcuts, a new tab opens. Opened tabs accumulate during the day and cause the browser to slow down.

bjoli on Github:

Spoiler

If I click the address bar I want to go to a different site in the current tab. Any most visited sites that show up should honour that.

Any action involving the address bar should open in the same tab. Unless I am on a desktop and holding [modifier of choice] when pressing return.

CL-Young on reddit:

Spoiler

I usually switch between a few websites periodically, and they're in my shortcuts. I just realized it's opening a new tab every time I do this, so I end up having to close out of several tabs over time. Any way when. I use the shortcut on Firefox mobile it just loads that page I. The current tab?

Finally, Cheap-Skate has said a lot on the topic, but they summarized their use case on Github:

Spoiler

I hate the current behavior. I think lots of other users do to.

I hate it because

It leads to tab clutter

(nearly) everything opens in a new tab, so I end up with many many new tabs which clutter my tabs tray, mess up my work flow, and waste my precious RAM. Often I want to re-use the current tab for a new URL, eg when I am glancing through a load of news sites. Every other browser allows me to re-use the current tab for a new URL. But Fenix does not.

It differs from all other browsers for no apparent reason

No other browser of which I am aware adopts the "incorrect" paradigm (open everything in a new tab). In particular, Firefox desktop behaves "correctly", everything on the Home screen opens in the current tab unless I request otherwise.

It makes no sense for Firefox Mobile to behave differently to Firefox Desktop (and Chrome, and Samsung Internet, and Brave, and etc etc etc) in this important regard.

It is confusing

Firefox Mobile has a New Tab button which doesn't open a new tab. It takes you to the Home screen. Confusing. It has a Home button which does the same as the New Tab button. Confusing.

Tapping the Home button then typing a URL opens a new tab. Confusing, I tapped Home not New Tab. But tapping the URL then typing a URL does not open a new tab. Even though the Home screen is identical in both cases. There is no a priori way to tell what will happen after taking an action on the Home screen, it depends on how you got there (tapping Home or tapping the URL bar). Confusing.

[Jon]

Thanks for submitting an idea to the Mozilla Connect community! Your idea is now open to votes (aka kudos) and comments.

[pangloss]

Thanks, I completely agree. If I want to open a new tab, I can do it myself. I don't want my browser making that decision for me; no other desktop or mobile browser works this way.

[platinops]

I completely agree, would love to see this fixed!

[Anonymous]

Yeah! I really hope this gets fixed. It's been going on for over a year and deserves proper attention. This is the most anoying "feature" in Firefox right now.

[Sbernecchia]

agree! please fix this!

[Maverick74]

I would also like to vote for this!!!

It's the only big problem with Firefox Mobile for me!

I constantly (in 2, 3 days the most) get the infinity sign on the tabs numbering because i can't reuse old tabs.

As a result i keep closing all tabs but that makes me lose some important ones i planned to get back to later, between the rest of the garbage...

Please fix this asap.

[Jon]

Hey all,

Here with an exciting update…

Your idea has quickly received a great deal of votes (kudos) and support here in the Mozilla Connect community, so we are upgrading the status to “Trending idea.” This means it’s now one step closer to reaching our internal teams for review—learn more about The Idea Journey.

Please keep the conversation going and stay tuned for updates 😃

-The Community Team

[Cheap-skate]

Yes please! The current situation is ridiculous. There is a good reason why *every other browser* adopts this behavior. It makes no sense that Fenix does not.

I originally filed #20012 way back and have been trying to get some traction on this issue but devs don't seem interested. Kudos @Obscerno for getting this far, I hope Mozilla takes notice.

[Obscerno]

Thanks @Cheap-skate for your persistent efforts! I doubt I'd have been able to get this trending without all of the effort you've put in keeping the issue alive.

[Unlogic]

I agree this is a very odd behavior that should be fixed.

[charsi]

I agree with the idea. Initially I thought this was a bug but later realized that this is delliberate. Like others have said above every other browser can open URLs in current tab except current firefox. Due to this behaviour I kept on using Firefox version 68 till few days ago. However more and more websites aren't working on the old version so I decided to use another browser that support addons. I hope someone at Firefox is going to review initial decision and some day I can use Firefox as my main browser again.

[Paulmaez13]

Like to watch Comcast on my TV can you mirror it onto my TV movies

[Jon]

Hi @Paulmaez13, are you referring to casting?

[youri--]

I support this idea as the inconsistency with expected browser behavior – based on all other browsers – is not user-friendly. I've gotten somewhat used to this quirk, but having setup FF on my mother's phone, I have to remind her every now and then that she should probably close the dozens of forgotten tabs.

[Obscerno]

@Jonthank you for marking this as trending and featuring us in the weekly recap!

I wanted to ask: now that we're marked as trending, do we need to promote this post any more? The Idea Journey seems to suggest that as long as it's not closed for failing to meet the community requirements, it should be reviewed eventually... but I just wanted to make sure! Thanks.