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I dumped Firefox, but these 5 features finally won me back - here's why
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My relationship with Firefox has been as up and down as it has been long. Over the years, I've stopped using it for reasons such as bloat, a lack of features, and even problems I've had with Mozilla as an organization.
However, during the past year, Firefox has slowly started to morph into the exact browser I want and need.
Confused? I know I've been. But over the past week, things have become much clearer. While testing Firefox's Smart Window feature, I found myself wanting to use the browser more and more. Why the sudden change? Honestly, the change wasn't exactly sudden; in fact, it was the slowest of burns, and it involved several features that coalesced over the past year, as well as features currently available only in the pre-alpha "Nightly" build (but will eventually roll out to the regular release).
If you've followed my work at all, you know that I'm pretty keen on aesthetics. In this department, Firefox has severely lagged behind the likes of Opera, Vivaldi, and Zen Browser. However, the Nightly version of Firefox has finally revealed its new theming engine, which may not be as dramatic as Zen Browser's, but it's enough to satisfy finicky users (like me) who want their apps to look as good as they perform.
Also: I tried Opera's new vertical tabs - and it might be the best implementation yet
The Firefox theme engine is subtle. You don't get to control gradients, and you can't even choose custom colors from a color picker. Instead, you get a selection of gradients, but most importantly, the themes now apply to toolbars, menus, and messages (rather than just toolbars, as in previous iterations).
The nice thing about Firefox's approach to themes is that it takes seconds to find and apply an appropriate one (instead of having to adjust color wheels or sliders to get it just right).
Once you've used vertical tabs, you won't want to go back to horizontal.
This feature should bring plenty of users over from other browsers. Vertical tabs are so much more efficient than their horizontal brethren. With a vertical layout, you can have considerably more tabs open, while still being able to see which tab is which. It's also easier to control those tabs; you can move them into any order you want, move them, open them in new windows, or even open them in a specific Firefox container.