TechnoPhillia!!

Many experienced Windows users have moved the Windows Taskbar from the bottom to the side. This offers several advantages like displaying more tabs at the same time without grouping them or saving horizontal screen estate. These users on the other hand rarely think about moving the tabs of the web browser to the side which is strange as this offers the same advantages. This is especially true for widescreen computer systems and systems with large computer monitors that run on a resolution that almost no websites make use of completely.

One of the Firefox add-ons that can move the tabs from the top to the side is the excellent Tree Style Tab add-on which comes with dozens of configuration settings. The add-on will automatically move all open tabs to the left side of the web browser by default with the option to move it to the right, bottom or top as well. The add-on comes with several visual themes to change the appearance of the tabs in the sidebar.

More important than that are the advanced configuration settings. Child pages of a website already open in a tab will be opened beneath that tab with the option to hide them if the main page is not selected.

The Tab Operations tab can be used to fine tune how and where new tabs are created and how tabs are opened in the web browser. It is for example possible to add new tabs as a child of the active tab even if the domain names do not match.

It is basically possible to configure the add-on to work exactly as wanted. Hiding tabs is for example a very useful feature for users who work with dozens of tabs. Users who rarely open more than ten tabs on the other hand might not find it as advantageous.

Tree Style Tab offers an interesting alternative by allowing users to move tabs from the top to the side of the web browser.