I recently came across a blog post by Oliver Reichenstein of Mozilla about some possible design changes to the next version Firefox. Specifically, he talks about getting rid of tabs, or minimizing the way in which we currently use tabs to keep track of our different browser windows. Here is a mock-up screen shot of his new vision for Firefox:
Now, this screenshot at first glance appears very similar to what you see in Google Chrome right now. However, Oliver emphasis the point that the new Firefox will not simply offer thumbnail shots of recently viewed pages. Their goal is to structure the browser as a multi-media file system, similar to iTunes.
This new structure would group websites using predefined folders. It could also include “surf lists” for keeping track of websites you plan to visit in the immediate future. Most of us currently handle this task by opening interesting links in new tabs and then working down the tab row until we’ve read through everything. This process works well most of the time, but it also can get out of hand when you have 10+ tabs open and you are trying to keep everything straight in your head as you browse. It can tap out your brain’s RAM in a hurry.
This next version of Firefox would still allow you to create new tabs for cleaning up your immediate browsing, but its main goal would be to provide a better way for you to access your favorite sites and group similar sites automatically.
Mozilla is tossing around quite a few new ideas for the next version of Firefox, as shown in Aza Raskin’s blog (also of Mozilla). I really like his idea of an “auto-hide” feature for the new sidebar containing all of your organizational folders. horizontal real estate is very valuable in a browser window.
For those of you that can’t wait to have a sidebar in Firefox for keeping track of 20+ tabs, check out the Tree Style Tab plugin by Shimoda Hiroshi. This slick plugin organizes all of your tabs with collapsible trees to keep everything organized and easy to find.
As internet browsers handle more and more of our computing tasks, from email to document creation to gaming, their format will constantly evolve to handle the new ways we browse. I always like taking a peak into the develpment process of new technologies. What do you think? What are some features you would like to see in the next version of Firefox?
