Plugins are terrible though. If I truly want vertical tabs Edge allows me to use them. Firefox? Need a third party plugin that adds the vertical tabs but cannot remove the horizontal ones on top, creating an ugly and wasteful freak.

Also I didn't say I should write in the browser, I said the browser should let me collect information from the internet in such a way to make my job easier

Just in case you do not know, or you are interested, the Firefox's UI is mere CSS, one can customize it through "chrome/userChrome.css" in the profile folder of the user. I put for example my tabs under the bookmarks, just above the page content (As FF used to be at past), with the template from the CustomCSSforFx[1] project, and modified some colors and icons.

Firefox have also the "Browser Toolbox"[2], homologous to the web development tools, that one can use for to explore the css of the UI, select elements, etc, and modify them for to see how would look the modifications before to put them within the userChrome.css

The tabs I think that are under the id=TabsToolbar, so an #TabsToolbar{ display: none !important; } or similar should work, in addition to correct with other css params the space that it leaves.

Note: What happens is they change things from time to time, and after an update one have to correct the css again, I warn.

[1] https://github.com/Aris-t2/CustomCSSforFx

[2] https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/devtools-user/browse...

Firefox also doesn’t let you hide the gigantic sidebar header without usercss hacks.

How can Firefox possibly improve if every solution gets labeled a hack?

I’m not sure I follow? The clear improvement here is to add a checkbox representing a supported option to hide that header.

Hiding it in usercss isn’t supported and is liable to disappear at any point (say, the developers decide they’re tired of maintaining some part of the code that makes the custom usercss flag work). It serves the purpose for now, but cannot be relied upon in the long term and as such is a hack.

Not a Firefox user, but this feels like a culture gap. I use multiple applications where configurability through user-code is part of the SLA, and dropping support would be as utterly unacceptable as, say, dropping the toolbar. Considering the contrast Mozilla is trying to make with Chrome's more restrictive and non-user-conscious nature I see no reason they wouldn't share that same philosophy.

Unless there's something I'm missing re: Mozilla's history/market-positioning?

In the past they’ve not hesitated to reduce customizability when doing so is perceived to bring some benefit to ease of development.

Aside from that I just think it’s a good idea to push for implementation of basic functionality like hiding bars that don’t pair nicely with popular vertical tab extensions. I shouldn’t need to resort to usercss mods to do something that simple.

> Browsers imo should just be browsers and leave the end user applications to the web app developers, plugin developers, etc.

The problem here, though, is that the core browser becomes the lowest common denominator. When I set up a computer, I don't want to have to spend all day getting my browser into a usable state. I don't want to have to recommend Firefox with the asterisk that you need half a dozen plugins to make it good. I don't want to wake up and find that the tab management plugin I like has been bought out by a sketchy company that's now using my browser as a proxy server for scrapers.

And having a browser that's not minimalist is known to work. We have tabs today, for instance, because of the fine folks at Opera pushing the boundaries of what the browser can be. Not every browser needs every feature, but some things are just good quality of life improvements that plugins should be able to disable (versus requiring plugins to add all nonessential features).

> When I set up a computer, I don't want to have to spend all day getting my browser into a usable state. I don't want to have to recommend Firefox with the asterisk that you need half a dozen plugins to make it good.

You want a browser that can preload plugins on install with a config.

No, I don't. I don't want my browser to be cobbled together from plugins that may or may not work well together. I've played enough modded video games to know that this is hell. I want it to work because it was created and tested by a single person and not a dozen independent people stepping on each other's toes.

Well I guess you have to write your own browser then, because I'm quite certain that the configurations that you like are not the same as mine.

It's also funny how you bring up innovation. The thing is plugins enable much more innovation because a plugin can be made by a single person with a great idea and relatively little knowledge. Just imagine everyone who wanted to try out some innovative new feature would have to build their own browser first.