I am familiar with it, and I can open a saved site in a new tab by right clicking, but I have trouble opening in a new browser tab when I am surfing.

I use the tabs feature, but only on a basic basis. I am interested in seeing if anyone has any uses or hints on the best use. Anyone?

I generally have at least three Firefox windows open at any given time. When I click links on a page, I usually open tehm in a new tab. So, for example, I might have a window open for GW, one for a news site and one for my email. Each thread on the GW forum gets opened in a tab in the GW window, news articles get opened in tabs in the news site window and emails get opened in tabs in the email window.

One thing I've found is that I had to stop using the keyboard shortcuts when switching between tabs. I had to put my thumb in an awkward position to hit CTL-TAB and doing so repeatedly over a period of months ended up causing soreness in my thumb.

I only have one instance of firefox open but have many tabs open, I have found it is not good to have multiple instances of firefox itself open and running, the best is to have only one open firefox program running and instead have multiple tabs open. Having mulitple instances of firefox open can cause conflicts and crashes.

I can not even imagine not having tabs I use them extensively daily, I use my bookmarks toolbar which has folders on it, inside the folder I have several sites related to that topic, for instance the forum folder has all of my forums sites in it, I can simply click on that fold and select open all in tabs and in one move every forum I visit is open in tabs ready to visit, I have one folder named tools for all the security programs I have to suggest to people daily I just have to go to that folder click on it and right click the specific program I want and select open in new tab, there it is.
I have another for email in it are all my email sites I simply right click the folder and select open all in tabs, all my email is ready to visit.

Tabs are simply a lifesaver and a huge timesaver.
I would never consider using any other browser that did not offer tabs.
I have tweaked my chrome on my firefox so that I only have 2 bars but have all of my needed items, this makes it take up less of my window space.

Raven, I didn't know there was a difference. I can see I need to look further into this.

yes having more than one instance of firefox open is the same exact thing as having 2 of the same program running on your pc, it can cause conflicts. If you click on the firefox icon on your desktop it opens firefox, if you click on the icon again it opens another instance of firefox, etc. I run linux most often and linux has the option of multiple desktops which is really nice and I was keeping firefox open in the various desktops but I started having conflicts and crashes and a friend told me it was due to having too many firefox open, if you look at your task manager and see more than one running in processes that is not good plus it is using up a lot of resources to have multiples open.
Multiple tabs is fine some people run with an amazing number open at a time with no problems. I have had probably 20 or more open at a time.

Interesting as I usually have a few FF windows open at work. I use multiple tabs also. I play XM radio with its own window and then open another FF window and begin using tabs. I've never had a problem. Actually I open 3 windows as I keep my emails open in its separate window. I'm always amazed at the end of the day how many windows and tabs are open on my computer when I start closing all the tabs and windows.

I open all links in new tabs. I also open bookmarks in new tabs. I have trouble going to a new address and making a tab. Not sure how to do that so I open a new window.

Couldn't work without the tabs.

Jane

"I have trouble going to a new address and making a tab. Not sure how to do that so I open a new window. "

CTL-T opens a new tab, and so does File/New Tab.

simply right click on the tab bar and open new tab or you can customize your firefox toolbar and add the icon for new tab then just click that. View >Toolbars> customize> drag the new tab icon on to the navigation bar at the top. Or click file> new tab. Right clicking on any link allows you to select open in new tab also.

Thanks for the tip on opening a new tab. R click the tab, easy enough. Love Firefox, such a easy browser.

I was in Lowes tonight and asked a salesman for help. He went on their computer to look up the item and I noticed their computers have Firefox as their default browser.

Thanks again,
Jane

I use mulitple tabs in IE7. I have dialup internet, and I like to open several threads at once. I can read one while the rest load.

I just use my middle scroll wheel and click down on it to open a thread and it automatically opens a new tab.

When I used AOL or IE, I used to have multiple windows. Then I moved to Firefox this summer - and following Ravencajun's advice, I started using multiple tabs. It really is great. (I also got the firefox addon of colorful tabs - so each tab is in a color and just easier to find). Another useful addon is firefox showcase - you can click on one small down triangle on the right of the tab bar - and it shows little screen pictures of all the tabs you have open - in case you don't recognize the name, you can see the page).

I have yet to attempt organizing my bookmarks in folders. It's been on my to-do list - but Ravencajun's use of putting all the forums in one folder so they can all get simultaneously opened sounds extremely useful. I don't necessarily need all my forums opened - since some are rarely visited - but I could put all my daily-visited sites in one folder - to open with one click (this forum, email, perhaps some cooking forums, craigslist or ebay). The possibilities sound great.

The one question I have is that I've so far just bookmarked nearly 100 sites - in no order at all. Is there a way to get them into folders after the fact?

Under the Bookmarks tab, go to Organize Bookmarks and you can create folders and move your bookmarks in any folder you want.

sure Lynn just go to bookmarks and organize bookmarks and create your individual folders there then while in the organize bookmarks area at the top is the move option just click that and move your individual bookmarks in to the folders you want them to be in.
Creating folders on your bookmark toolbar is also easy just right click the toolbar and select new folder, name it and when you go to a site you want to put in a folder just either drag the icon on the url bar to the folder or right click on the folder it self and select to add the bookmark to that folder.

clicking the middle mouse wheel on a link in firefox will also open it in a new tab.

Here's how you can get them in folders. Go to Bookmarks > Organize Bookmarks. Click on 'Bookmarks Menu' and you will see your bookmarks on the right side and folders on the left. Click on 'Organize' then 'New Folder'. Name your new folder and then you can drag your bookmarks from the right side into the new folder. If you want to you can make all your folders and then go down the list of bookmarks dragging them all into the appropriate folder. From then on when you bookmark a page you can select the folder you want the bookmark in.

Thanks everyone. Organizing the bookmarks should be quite easy. The hardest part will be deciding which folders - how to organize them (I do realize I can always change this later if the folders I set up aren't the way I want to keep them).

I have never caught on to using tabs and instead click on the icon and open firefox up again.

I hate how the bookmarks changed with the last version of firefox. I'm finding bookmarking pages a real PITA now.

"buyorsell888"
You could install the Google toolbar and use Google Bookmarks if you don't like the Firefox Bookmarks. Setting up a free Google user account then allows you to see your Bookmarks on any computer. Or Yahoo toolbar if you don't like Google. I like Gooble's bookmarks better than Yahoo, but both are easy to use and makes it very easy to change computers without worrying about losing your bookmarks.

I love Firefox because of the tabs. I did the "colorful tabs" add- on that allows you to keep track of tabs more easily since they open in different colors. Just today, I learned that you can double click in the tabs row to open a new tab. Firefox is terrific.

buyorsell- I never used Firefox until this latest version 3. I've only been using it since August and never used bookmarks anywhere else before. All this is to say that I'm not sure if what I'm going to say will help or not

but I just discovered that I can bookmark a page with one simple click - by clicking on the star at the right end of the address bar. One click and it just bookmarks it. Double-click and it brings up the bookmarks menu - in case you want to designate with folder - or add any tags. Until this weekend, I was annoyed with the several steps it took to bookmark a page - and then discovered that little star I could click just once.

HTH.
Lynn.

Lynn, I did not ask the question, but am glad I saw your answer, I didn't know about the star. I have never liked Foxfire's bookmarking system.

there is an add on that you can get that is just invaluable to me it is called bookmark here there are now 2 versions one is new for firefox 3
Add Bookmark Here
Add Bookmark Here ²

and yes using the star is the new easy way to do bookmarks with firefox 3.

Thank you. I do like to have them sorted into folders, I didn't know about the star and I'll check out those add ons.

the star gives me the same problem as I had before, all of the folders don't show without extra steps. It is annoying and didn't used to be this way.

I added the add on and it IS an improvement over the Firefox system of bookmarking.

I hate IE but it bookmarks a lot better than Firefox.

I don't know how I did it but I somehow have created a folder in the bar right below the address and I can drag and drop into that folder with FF 3.x. Then I sort into meaningfully named folders at my leisure. I can drag and drop down from the address or up from anywhere on the screen.

This seemed very different and awkward for about a day and a half and then it became so natural I can bookmark without thinking.

Cool Albert...I just dragged and dropped this post into a folder I have on me Toolbar...named (by me)Open All. It contains 7 sites/forums that I check into each time I open it, which is quite often. This thread has now been added to that folder. Whoo-hoo...something worked for me today finally.

s

that bar is called the bookmark toolbar you can create folders there and drag any website from the url bar into that folder or you can simply drag the website onto the actual bar and have a link right on the bar for that website, if you right click on it you can choose to rename it or make other changes to how it appears. I use the bookmarks toolbar daily it is a huge time saver.

@pfmastin, where did you get the color tab add on pls?

Yes, I use Firefox/tabs and it's only when I have Itunes AND Photoshop open also that I crash if I have more than 7 or so tabs open. Fortunately FF does recreate when it reopens.

Colorful Tabs link below. HTH.

Terry

Here is a link that might be useful: Firefox - Colorful Tabs

another awesome add on with a ton of features for tabs is Tabs Mix Plus.

It lets you have double rows of tabs open instead of the tabs not showing and having to click on the chevron on the end to see the unshown tabs. Older versions of firefox allowed many more tabs than the versions now.
It has many features that are useful.Tab Mix Plus 0.3.7.3

Thanks...I had just installed another color tabbing and Colorful Tabs looks a lot better. Thank both of you.

Is there a way to put the tabs at the bottom?
I mostly use windows instead because I can see and access them at the bottom of the monitor.

buyorsell888,

Tab Mix Plus that ravencajun posted the link to above has the option to move tabs to the bottom among many other options.
HTH.

Terry

I installed both tab extensions and they are both helpful. Thank you.