Trust me, it's research. June 5, 2012 5:04 PM Subscribe
Anyone viewing MetaFilter at work or at school may want to take note of the release of Firefox 13.0; by default, every newly-created tab now "pins" a thumbnailed history of the sites you've visited. In Win7, the feature's part of the OS's taskbar.
Seems as if it's emulating Chrome here? Because that's what Chrome on my iMac (10.6.8) does.
posted by Lynsey at 5:13 PM on June 5, 2012
posted by Lynsey at 5:13 PM on June 5, 2012
BetaNews has a picture toward the bottom of their article; the webpages appear as tiles within the newly tabbed page. I noticed it when I loaded the update and saw eBay, MetaFilter, YouTube and DuckDuckGo all lined together like bathroom tiles.
posted by Smart Dalek at 5:13 PM on June 5, 2012
posted by Smart Dalek at 5:13 PM on June 5, 2012
I think the wording here is a little confusing because "pinned tabs" are a distinct and separate thing from this new feature, which is basically Speed Dial or whatever it's called in Chromium.
posted by Lorin at 5:23 PM on June 5, 2012
posted by Lorin at 5:23 PM on June 5, 2012
Browsers have reached the stage of software where new features make them worse, not better, haven't they?
posted by thelonius at 5:31 PM on June 5, 2012 [11 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 5:31 PM on June 5, 2012 [11 favorites]
I don't know about FF, but in Chrome there's a little X at the top right of each thumbnail that ensures it won't be shown again.
posted by desjardins at 5:45 PM on June 5, 2012
posted by desjardins at 5:45 PM on June 5, 2012
For those of you annoyed by this, you can turn it off by going to about:config in the URL bar and setting the browser.newtabpage.enabled property to false.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 5:49 PM on June 5, 2012 [9 favorites]
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 5:49 PM on June 5, 2012 [9 favorites]
You can also disable it by clicking the small icon in the top right of the new tab page.
posted by skynxnex at 6:02 PM on June 5, 2012 [4 favorites]
posted by skynxnex at 6:02 PM on June 5, 2012 [4 favorites]
If you want to do it the easy way, sure.
Honestly, I hated it so much that I googled for a way to disable the thing, and that's the first method that came up.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 6:17 PM on June 5, 2012
Honestly, I hated it so much that I googled for a way to disable the thing, and that's the first method that came up.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 6:17 PM on June 5, 2012
Doesn't Safari do this already?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 6:49 PM on June 5, 2012
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 6:49 PM on June 5, 2012
Blazecock Pileon: "Doesn't Safari do this already?"
Yes. They've had a similar feature since 4.0. When you open Safari a grid of your most recently visited webpages appears. There's a nicely organized icon display.
One of the reasons I initially switched to firefox on Mac was that the feature was broken when it was intially launched. It would record websites visited across sessions, even if you were browsing privately. You had to manually empty the cache in order to clear the grid. Apple subsequently fixed the problem. But it was a little disconcerting at first.
posted by zarq at 6:57 PM on June 5, 2012
Yes. They've had a similar feature since 4.0. When you open Safari a grid of your most recently visited webpages appears. There's a nicely organized icon display.
One of the reasons I initially switched to firefox on Mac was that the feature was broken when it was intially launched. It would record websites visited across sessions, even if you were browsing privately. You had to manually empty the cache in order to clear the grid. Apple subsequently fixed the problem. But it was a little disconcerting at first.
posted by zarq at 6:57 PM on June 5, 2012
Also, I believe Opera's desktop browser has offered something similar for a few builds now. Their android browser has definitely offered it for a while.
posted by zarq at 6:58 PM on June 5, 2012
posted by zarq at 6:58 PM on June 5, 2012
IE9 does it too (I have to use it at the office)
posted by birdherder at 7:32 PM on June 5, 2012
posted by birdherder at 7:32 PM on June 5, 2012
That's cool 'cause after a brief stint with Opera, upon returning to FireFox the only thing I wanted back from Opera was SpeedDial and there's a (now redundant, it seems) FF plugin for that. But good to uh, get the word out I suppose.
posted by Edogy at 9:17 PM on June 5, 2012
posted by Edogy at 9:17 PM on June 5, 2012
Opera's Speed Dial is better though, because you can choose which sites appear on it. The "most visited sites" thing in Chrome is really annoying, because it never accurately predicts where I'll go next. Sounds like the new Firefox feature is a combination of both approaches.
posted by Kevin Street at 11:38 PM on June 5, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by Kevin Street at 11:38 PM on June 5, 2012 [1 favorite]
I hate this when I'm sharing my screen with a colleague or client on Skype. MeFi comes up on this handy little grid next to every other mundane site I visit often, and it's not something I'm trying to hide, but I'd rather not have this HUGE panic hoping I didn't recently clear my history so some site I only visited ONCE is now on the grid looking like I visit it every five minutes.
posted by circular at 11:41 PM on June 5, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by circular at 11:41 PM on June 5, 2012 [1 favorite]
I've been using the Fx13 beta for the last 6 weeks and this is the first time I've ever actually seen this newly redesigned "new tab" page. I never understand why people create a new blank tab first and then navigate somewhere. You can configure Firefox so that things typed in the address bar open in a new tab by default, which means you pretty much never see the "new tab" junk.
posted by Rhomboid at 1:50 AM on June 6, 2012
posted by Rhomboid at 1:50 AM on June 6, 2012
Doesn't Safari do this already?
Like many major browser features (tabs, gestures) Opera pioneered Speed Dial or whatever the local variant of "show most recently/most often visited links in thumbnails in a new tab" is called. Personally I don't like it so I have it disabled in all my browsers. (Except Chrome, where I can't seem to find a way to disable it. Goddamn it Google.)
posted by kmz at 5:17 AM on June 6, 2012
Like many major browser features (tabs, gestures) Opera pioneered Speed Dial or whatever the local variant of "show most recently/most often visited links in thumbnails in a new tab" is called. Personally I don't like it so I have it disabled in all my browsers. (Except Chrome, where I can't seem to find a way to disable it. Goddamn it Google.)
posted by kmz at 5:17 AM on June 6, 2012
The whole computer/interwebs thing is now conspiring to force us 40+ off the web so that they can take over the way they want to. grar grar
posted by infini at 7:56 AM on June 6, 2012
posted by infini at 7:56 AM on June 6, 2012
Here's a picture and a description on Mozilla's blog. I've been rocking this in Firefox 13 beta for more than a month now. My biggest problem has been with sites like Facebook with a stuck-to-the-top header: the screenshot is based on the way the page looked the last time you visited. If you were scrolled down, it thinks the header is halfway down the page. Minor.
Yes, there is an "X" in the upper right of each screenshot to remove it from the new tab page. It's probably permanent.
You can also drag and drop sites into place as you like. There is also a "pin" button in the upper left of each screenshot that will keep it in that location on your new tab page permanently (even if you stop visiting MetaFilter, you terrible terrible person).
posted by Plutor at 8:03 AM on June 6, 2012
Yes, there is an "X" in the upper right of each screenshot to remove it from the new tab page. It's probably permanent.
You can also drag and drop sites into place as you like. There is also a "pin" button in the upper left of each screenshot that will keep it in that location on your new tab page permanently (even if you stop visiting MetaFilter, you terrible terrible person).
posted by Plutor at 8:03 AM on June 6, 2012
Also, you can drag a bookmark from your bookmarks toolbar onto your New Tab page if you want to add something that's not there. Neat.
posted by Plutor at 8:04 AM on June 6, 2012
posted by Plutor at 8:04 AM on June 6, 2012
I may be getting old, but didn't a page like this exist in an earlier version of Firefox and then go away?
(I may just be thinking of Chrome, but for some reason, don't think so...)
I have a funny story involving my partner and visited web pages displaying in such a way, but I will not tell it because I'm not the one being embarrassed. (Let's just say if we were another type of couple, with more traditional values, you would have seen an AskMeta question about it.) I just also don't remember him ever using Chrome, which is why I thought it existed already in Firefox.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:22 AM on June 6, 2012
(I may just be thinking of Chrome, but for some reason, don't think so...)
I have a funny story involving my partner and visited web pages displaying in such a way, but I will not tell it because I'm not the one being embarrassed. (Let's just say if we were another type of couple, with more traditional values, you would have seen an AskMeta question about it.) I just also don't remember him ever using Chrome, which is why I thought it existed already in Firefox.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:22 AM on June 6, 2012
I never understand why people create a new blank tab first and then navigate somewhere. You can configure Firefox so that things typed in the address bar open in a new tab by default
Because maybe you don't always want things typed in the address bar to open in a new tab, maybe you don't even want that to happen most of the time, but occasionally you do?
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 12:42 PM on June 6, 2012
Because maybe you don't always want things typed in the address bar to open in a new tab, maybe you don't even want that to happen most of the time, but occasionally you do?
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 12:42 PM on June 6, 2012
I never understand why people create a new blank tab first and then navigate somewhere. You can configure Firefox so that things typed in the address bar open in a new tab by default
Because if I had my Firefox set that way, I would wind up regularly snarling the kind of thing I snarl when websites oh-so-helpfully insist on opening links in new tabs: "DAMMIT, I KNOW HOW TO RIGHT-CLICK. I KNOW HOW TO CTRL-CLICK. IF I WANTED THAT LINK TO OPEN IN A NEW TAB, I WOULD HAVE GODDAMN OPENED IT IN A NEW TAB!!!"
(Similarly, if I've ctrl-clicked to open something in a new tab, dammit, web designers and programmers, do NOT ignore/bypass/intercept that and insist on opening the link in the same tab I'm in. If I wanted it in the same tab, I wouldn't have ctrl-clicked.)
posted by Lexica at 4:20 PM on June 6, 2012 [1 favorite]
Because if I had my Firefox set that way, I would wind up regularly snarling the kind of thing I snarl when websites oh-so-helpfully insist on opening links in new tabs: "DAMMIT, I KNOW HOW TO RIGHT-CLICK. I KNOW HOW TO CTRL-CLICK. IF I WANTED THAT LINK TO OPEN IN A NEW TAB, I WOULD HAVE GODDAMN OPENED IT IN A NEW TAB!!!"
(Similarly, if I've ctrl-clicked to open something in a new tab, dammit, web designers and programmers, do NOT ignore/bypass/intercept that and insist on opening the link in the same tab I'm in. If I wanted it in the same tab, I wouldn't have ctrl-clicked.)
posted by Lexica at 4:20 PM on June 6, 2012 [1 favorite]
Man, first uTorrent goes all fancy-weird, and now this fucking shit. You'd think having Save History disabled would prevent this, but I assume that only clears it when the browser's closed?
Fancy-weird fucking shit.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 7:57 AM on June 8, 2012
Fancy-weird fucking shit.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 7:57 AM on June 8, 2012
Alvy Ampersand: "You'd think having Save History disabled would prevent this"
1. In the address bar, type "about:config" and hit enter
2. If you get a warning, click on "I'll be careful, I promise!"
3. In the search bar, type "browser.newtab.url"
4. Double click on the preference with that name and set it to "about:blank"
posted by Plutor at 11:01 AM on June 8, 2012
1. In the address bar, type "about:config" and hit enter
2. If you get a warning, click on "I'll be careful, I promise!"
3. In the search bar, type "browser.newtab.url"
4. Double click on the preference with that name and set it to "about:blank"
posted by Plutor at 11:01 AM on June 8, 2012
Yeah, I did it already, it's just that I'm lazy and it seems to me that if a user has a 'Do not save web history' preference enabled, it would automatically disable what is basically a 'Saved web history' feature. Also, the update to FF13 switched my AutoScroll to SmoothScroll. Easy to change it back, but still, WTF?
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:24 AM on June 8, 2012
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:24 AM on June 8, 2012
You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments
posted by mathowie (staff) at 5:08 PM on June 5, 2012