Replacing Tabbrowser Extensions in Firefox

Submitted by Patrick on Sun, 10/29/2006 - 9:55pm.

1) It's buggy. Being a work in constant progress, TBE always seems to have bugs that affect performance and functionality.
2) It slows Firefox down. Horrible performance can be expected once TBE gets its claws into your browser.
3) It's too much functionality. This leads to confusing and overlapping issues.

So what's an excited Firefox user going to do if TBE has finally pushed you too far? REPLACE IT.

But before you cry, "Where oh where will I get the functionality," finish reading the article.

There are four features I really needed:

1) Forcing single window mode in Firefox. I want to use one instance of Firefox and I want everything to open in tabs.

2) Move the focus to a tab when I move my mouse to it. I can't tell you what a great productivity gain this is when you have multiple tabs.

3) Graphical X or indicator to close tabs. By default you have to right click to close a tab or use a keyboard command.

4) Undo a closed tab. Egads, how many times can you accidently close a tab to realize you need it back?

A quick jaunt over to Mozilla Update shows the extensions available for Firefox. There are also two other sites that have a list of extensions. The first is Extension Room, which is pretty much a straight list. The second is Texturizer and is a prettier list.

I quickly find Tabbrowser Preferences and fall in love. The first two requirements are met as the extension allows me to force everything into a single window and it also allows you to change the tab focus by hovering your mouse. This is a great extension, but one note: the configuration is located under TOOLS/OPTIONS and not TOOLS/EXTENSIONS.

We now have two of the four requirements down. As we turn our attention to a graphical close indicator we find the Tab X extension. This is a simple, perfectly designed extention with no options.

Three down and one to go. Now to find something that will allow me to undo the accidental closes that happen to us all at the wrong moment.

Bingo! I find the undoclosetab extension. Pretty creative name, eh?

This is a very useful and ingenious extension as the option for undoing is found in the right click menu and also through double clicking on the tab bar. Very smart.

With about two hours worth of work I was able to remove TBE from my Firefox system and improve my performance markedly.