// ZDNET — LINUX & OPEN SOURCE
Firefox’s new Mini Window is every multitasker’s dream – Chrome can’t do this
The open-source browser's newest feature lets you pop out a page - or part of a page - into its own mini window. See why this is incredibly cool.
The developers at Mozilla are always hard at work to make Firefox the most useful browser on the market. To that end, they’ve added a new feature (still in beta), called Mini Window. I started using Mini Window as soon as it appeared in Firefox Nightly, and I’ve been very happy with how it performs.
The idea behind the Firefox Mini Window feature is simple: allow users to move a currently open tab (or a section of a tab) into a separate mini window. Think of it as moving a tab from one window to what appears like a web app. Essentially, I can move a page (or section) into what looks like a browser window, minus the browser bits. At first blush, there’s no address bar, controls, scroll bar, or anything else that would normally be associated with Firefox. The Mini Window appears to be a web app, without having to actually create it.
However, when I hover my cursor inside the Mini Window, I do see the address bar, the back/foward/reload buttons, and the window close button– and that’s it. The browser gets out of your way, so the only thing I see is the content.
Also: Firefox and Chrome patch 200+ security flaws combined
On top of that (pun intended), the Mini Window stays on top of other Firefox windows, so I can have that popped-out content always in focus while I work on other things. This feature comes in handy when I’m working with limited display space (say, on a laptop) and need to reference a page while working on another. For multitasking, it comes in very handy.
Using the Firefox Mini Window feature is quite simple, but until the feature comes out of beta, it can only be found in Firefox Nightly. I’ve been using Nightly as my default browser on both Linux and MacOS for some time now and have yet to run into a problem (YMMV).
For those who don’t want to risk using a potentially less-than-stable alpha version of Firefox, know that the Mini Window feature is slated to move to stable on November 10. Update Firefox on that day and can start enjoying the feature without upgrading to Nightly.
Until then, you can test Mini Window by installing Firefox Nightly, which can run alongside the stable Firefox release.
Also: Firefox just fixed my biggest annoyance with web browsers