by vee-kay | 2025-10-16 22:24:39+00:00
> Firefox invented tab grouping a decade before it existed in Chrome, and sustained an extension ecosystem with full access to browser UI, such that tab grouping extensions long were possible in Firefox that were not possible in Chrome. It's never been gone, and adding a new natively supported iteration is a good thing, not a bad thing.

First and foremost, Mozilla didn't invent Tab Grouping, nor did it invent or pioneer Tabs for that matter.

James Newton Gunn (1867–1927) invented Tabs (patented in 1897) as a new way to access the contents of a set of index cards, separating them with other cards distinguished by projections marked with letters of the alphabet, dates, or other information.

In 1982, Wordvision for DOS was perhaps the first commercially available product with a tabbed interface. In 1992 Borland's Quattro Pro popularized tabs for spreadsheets; Microsoft Word in 1993 used them to simplify submenus. In 1994, BookLink Technologies featured tabbed windows in its InternetWorks (most likely the first internet browser to feature tabs). That same year, the text editor UltraEdit also appeared with a modern multi-row tabbed interface. The tabbed interface approach was then followed by the Internet Explorer shell SimulBrowse in 1997, which was later renamed to NetCaptor. Opera was one of the earliest browsers with tabbed browsing and private browsing.

In fact, the company that pioneered Tabs for Internet Browser was BookLink Technologies for its browser InternetWorks in 1994 (BookLink's technology was later licensed by Microsoft to bring Internet capabilities to MS Word).

And no, neither did Mozilla nor Chrome invent or pioneer Extensions either.

Browser extensions predate even tabbed browsing! Ironically, it was Microsoft that introduced extensions with Internet Explorer 5 in 1999.

And three years before Google popularized private browsing with Incognito Mode, Safari already had a feature for temporary suspension of cookies and cache. Even Opera had private browsing long before Firefox and Chrome got the feature.

So Tabs, Extensions and Private/Incognito Browsing -- which people tend to think were pioneered by Firefox and Chrome -- were actually invented/pioneered years earlier by other companies for other browsers/editors. Firefox and Chrome simply adopted these nice ideas and made them popular because of their huge user base.

If we want to argue that Firefox's support for Tab Grouping through some extensions was a pioneering act, then that's incorrect roo. It is like saying Microsoft invented Antivirus because it allowed the first Antivirus software to run on its OSes.

Sure, Tab Groups were allowed to be created via Extensions supported by Firefox and Chrome, but the Tabbed Grouping feature was adopted in these browsers as native feature only years later.

I recall that MyIE2 (an IE shell browser in 2002) (MyIE2 later got sold and renamed as Maxthon), featured tabbed browsing, ad blocking, support for Internet Explorer plugins, skins/themes, forms autofilling, customizable toolbar, whois queries, variable keyword searching from address bar (very useful for intranet sites), translation and a highly customizable user interface.

Tab Groups and Sync Tab Groups are probably the Extensions you remember that gave the Tab Grouping feature as add-ons to Firefox. But these extensions (like thousands of other extensions) were created and maintained just by one person or a handful of volunteers.

As you can see, Mozilla Firefox (even with half a billion dollars as annual revenue (thanks to Google) and thousands of staff & volunteers) has not been giving basic features that even old browsers and one-person/one-small-team driven browser extensions have done so admirably for a long time.

Do you really think the average internet user is bothered more about WebAssembly, WebRTC, DNS over HTTPs, limiting cookies, profile sandboxing? Or would the average user be more interested in tabs, tab grouping, themes, customizations, private browsing and other user friendly features in a browser?

But you are right..

> there's the monopoly issue, which is that if we lost Firefox, every active browser engine would be owned by two trillion dollar platform companies, Google and Apple, who could write the rules of the internet on their own. Which includes, among other things, trying to dismantle ad blockers and lock you into their ecosystems.

That is precisely my point. Why is Google in total control of its third biggest rival in the browser market? How is that beneficial for end users?

Do you know why Chrome and Firefox typically ace any latest web standards tests? It's because Google will think forward on proposed web standards, and choose whichever of those ideas it likes and it will implement them in its own ways as new features in dev builds of Chrome and then release them as stable releases later. So by the time these proposed web standards (WebRTC, etc.) even come up for any solid discussions by W3C and other partners of the industry, it is already a moot point, because Google has already interpreted and implemented it in some particular way which is already in vogue (popular use) across many millions of Chrome (and Chromium forked browsers) users across the world. Invariably then, it is Google's interpretation and implemented approach that then becomes the agreed web standard specification. And sooner, rather than later, Firefox also follows suit with almost the same thing, because it is Google pulling the strings of Mozilla behind the scenes. And usually Apple & Safari are not far behind doing the same, because it is already a lost battle when Google's way of that web standard is what the industry is forced to adopt.

So yeah, the internet is already monopoly, thanks to Google, and its far-reaching, far-thinking clout and sheer tenacity to do whatever it wants.

Case in point? Google and Apple have been hit with antitrust lawsuits in EU and USA, accused of monopoly of their products (especially all store) and advertising services on the internet and Android & iOS ecosystem. Google and Apple have been fined several millions or few billions in several such lawsuits, but that's merely a slap on the revenue wrist of these tech giants.

And that arrogance can have profound impacts, as Google can use its clout for more sinister reasons:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/07/googles-web-integrit...

https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2016-06-22/google-is...