Firefox to Get Tab Groups, Vertical Tabs, AI Features and More

Mozilla team has announced that the Firefox web browser is going to receive many new features such as vertical tabs, native tab grouping, built-in profile manager and AI integration over the next year. In this article, we’ll discuss all the new upcoming Firefox features in details.

Jon (community manager) at Mozilla Connect website made an official announcement about the upcoming and interesting features of Firefox web browser. According to the official announcement, many Firefox users were requesting for these features since many years and finally Mozilla team has decided to implement those missing features in Firefox web browser.

Most of these upcoming features are already available in other web browsers such as Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Opera and Vivaldi. Firefox users will also be able to enjoy these features in coming months.

Here are the upcoming features which will be a part of Firefox future versions:

• Tab grouping
• Vertical tabs
• New profile manager
• Customizable wallpapers for the new tab page (NTP)
• Built-in AI features which will be private and local (offline)
• Sidebar improvements
• Improved privacy settings
• Improvements to speed, performance and compatibility
• Reorganized menus and options
• UI changes

Let’s discuss all the new features in details!

Tab Groups in Mozilla Firefox

Tab grouping is an essential feature which allows users to create groups or collections and organize tabs according to their requirements. Other web browsers already provide tab grouping feature but Firefox is still missing this feature.

Related: Tab Groups in Microsoft Edge | Tab Groups in Google Chrome

Tab grouping feature will help Firefox users in arranging their tabs in separate groups so that they can access the desired tabs quickly and easily.

Vertical Tabs in Mozilla Firefox

Microsoft Edge web browser provide this feature since long time and now Firefox team has also decided to bring this feature to the web browser. Vertical tabs feature will move the tab bar from top to left or right-side of the web browser.

Related: [Tip] How to Enable or Disable Vertical Tabs in Microsoft Edge

Firefox users who have widescreen monitors or use high screen resolution, will prefer vertical tab bar over the horizontal tab bar as it’ll utilize the empty area on screen sides and will free up space to read the web pages.

Mozilla recently started testing the Vertical tabs feature in nightly builds of Firefox.

UPDATE: The new vertical tabs feature can be enabled and tested using a secret preference as mentioned in following article:

[Review] The Upcoming Vertical Tabs Feature in Mozilla Firefox

Native Profile Management System in Mozilla Firefox

Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge provide a built-in profile manager tool to create and manager different browser profiles. On the other hand, Firefox lacks a good profile management system. Advanced users are using ‘-P‘ command-line parameter since many years to manage profiles.

Related: Profile Manager in Google Chrome | Profile Manager in Microsoft Edge

Although Firefox comes with a built-in profile management page which can be accessed using about:profiles URL in the address bar but it’s very basic and doesn’t provide advanced features to users.

The upcoming profile manager will be accessible directly from the toolbar and will provide all essential features to create and organize separate profiles for different requirements such as home, office, school, etc.

UPDATE: The new profile manager feature can be enabled and tested using a secret preference as mentioned in following article:

Enable Upcoming Profile Manager Feature in Mozilla Firefox

Background Wallpaper Feature for New Tab Page (NTP)

Firefox will allow users to apply different wallpapers as the background image of the new tab page. Other web browsers also allow users to customize the background appearance of the new tab page.

Related: New Tab Page in Microsoft Edge | New Tab Page in Google Chrome

Firefox will provide some stock wallpapers to choose as the new tab page background. Users will also be able to apply their own wallpapers as background.

UPDATE: The new background wallpaper feature can be enabled and tested using a secret preference as mentioned in following article:

Enable New Tab Page Background Wallpaper Feature in Firefox

People who like to tweak and customize user interface in software programs, will definitely like this new customization feature.

AI Features and Tools Integration in Mozilla Firefox

Many Firefox users were requesting Mozilla team to add AI (Artificial Intelligence) features to the web browser. Other web browsers have already started providing AI features to their users.

Related: AI in Google Chrome | Copilot AI in Microsoft Edge | Aria AI in Opera

Mozilla team will add AI features which will respect user’s privacy and store the data offline i.e. user’s local hard disk. Mozilla will use a local, on-device AI model to make it more private.

The first AI feature will be AI-generated alt-text information for images inserted into PDFs. It’ll help visually impaired users and people with learning disabilities. The alt text information will be processed on user’s device and will be saved locally instead of cloud servers.

Other Improvements Coming to Mozilla Firefox

The future versions of Mozilla Firefox will also come with lots of improvements to speed, performance, stability and privacy. Users will experience faster and smoother browsing, quicker page loads and startup times.

Firefox will also come with power saving improvements to save more of user’s device battery life.

Mozilla team is also going to reorganize menus and options in Firefox to reduce visual clutter and provide most accessed features easily and quickly.

The built-in sidebar in Firefox will also provide more features and services to select without leaving the webpage.

UPDATE: The new redesigned sidebar feature can be enabled and tested using a secret preference as mentioned in following article:

Enable Upcoming Redesigned Sidebar Feature in Mozilla Firefox

How to Early Test Drive All Upcoming Features in Firefox?

Mozilla team will first add and test the above mentioned features in testing versions of Firefox. It’ll help the team in fixing bugs and issues and improve the feature. Once the feature is ready for public use, Mozilla team will implement and release it in Firefox stable version to all.

If you want to test drive these features as early as possible, you can download and install Firefox Nightly build in your computer from following link:

Mozilla Firefox Nightly Updates

Keep in mind that Nightly builds are released for testing purposes and might contain bugs and issues.

Also Check:

Firefox Featuregate: Hidden Secret Key to Turn On/Off New Features

[Tip] How to Run Mozilla Firefox Portable Edition Side-by-Side with Regular Version