Sometimes, when you are a user of Firefox, Chrome-envy can kick in. A standard aspect of Chrome that is unavailable in Firefox can become an object of desire and a craving can surface. In my Internet travels, Chrome’s Pin Tab feature is often a sought after addition to Firefox’s browsing experience. Lucky for you, there are a couple Firefox extensions that can add similar features to your beloved Firefox browser.
What are these extensions?
The two extensions that we will focus on are FaviconizeTab and PermaTabs Mod. Note: Both extensions are incompatible with Firefox 4 Beta, but will run perfectly on 3.6. PermaTabs Mod enable “permanent” tabs that can be chosen by the user and will open automatically every time that you open up Firefox. The only change in size that will occur is the omission of the “x” used to close the tab. It will also turn yellow (or a different color of your choosing) to signify that it has been made permanent. FaviconizeTab reduces the horizontal space that is taken up by a specified tab, using only its favicon to save some room in the often crowded tab area of your browser. I prefer to use both extensions because FaviconizeTab offers the space-saving of Google’s Pin Tab feature, but you need the permanence of PermaTabs Mod to complete the package. With both, you can have a compact and permanent tab that will open with your browser every time.
First up, FaviconizeTab
Step 1: Go to the FaviconizeTab extension page to download and install the file. It’s a simple and fast process.
Step 2: Once the extension is installed, its actual use is refreshingly easy. A simple right-click to any open tab will give you the option to Faviconize it, making it narrower. FaviconizeTab will then only display the favicon for the chosen website, similar to the screenshot below.
Then, PermaTabs
Step 1: Open up the link to the PermaTabs Mod extension page to download and install the file.
Step 2: When the installation has finished, PermaTabs Mod will be activated automatically. It works in the same way as FaviconizeTab, by adding a Permanent Tab button to the right-click menu of an open tab. Once you select Permanent Tab it will change color and become an automatic addition to each successive browsing session. Right-click again to remove the feature. And when you combine both the above extensions, you get something like what you see below. See how much you can save in screen real-estate in Firefox? It helps to reduce a good bit of tab clutter for sure. Try it out and let us know how it worked.
