“Tabs on Top” option Removed in Firefox 15 & Here is how to Bring Tabs on Bottom Again

by Venkat eswarlu on July 19, 2012

in Firefox,tips and tricks

What’s the tab position in your Firefox? are “Tabs on Top” or on bottom? by default from Firefox 4 onwards Mozilla puts Tabs on Top and they offered the option on Options submenu where user can uncheck and put tabs on bottom again, we don’t know about others we always prefer tabs position on bottom and that’s why we found that option quite useful after installing Firefox, but now what happened! Mozilla removed Tabs on Top option in Firefox 16 15 Beta, Mozilla might get some criticism for this minor change which  can be similar to some what happened in case of http:// protocol, fortunately they’ve offered the preference in about:config to put the tabs on bottom again.

Disable Tabs on Top in Firefox 15 Beta or bring tabs on bottom

1. Type about:config in browser, agree to the warning

2. Find and toggle the preference “browser.tabs.onTop”value to false and restart Firefox for the changes to take effect.

3. Now you can see Tabs on bottom and Tabs on Top option also back.

Tabs on Top option timeline comparison between Firefox 14 and 15 thumb “Tabs on Top” option Removed in Firefox 15 & Here is how to Bring Tabs on Bottom Again

Let me tell you don’t lose this option if you upgrade from Firefox 14 to Firefox 15 you can still spot it if you reset Firefox 15, but users who perform clean installation of Firefox 15 Beta will know this straight away.

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{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }

Wim August 22, 2012 at 8:16 pm

You’re a live saver! This also applies to version 14

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Venkat August 23, 2012 at 6:30 am

You’re welcome and the change introduced in Firefox 15 not in !4.

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LordYoshi August 31, 2012 at 8:51 am

Thank you! This is a very stupid change. I hate them on top.

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Venkat August 31, 2012 at 7:08 pm

You’re welcome, we also prefer tabs on bottom.

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koorlie September 3, 2012 at 7:55 am

Thank you thank you thank you…

It’s NOT CORRECT to have tabs on top.

And the guys at Firefox even had the obnoxious guts to put up a page to explain why it’s better to have the tabs on top.

NO. When the tabs are on top, everything below it belongs to the current tab. No, no! May I say stupid.

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Bobo September 4, 2012 at 8:26 pm

Thanks for the guide. I’m getting increasingly annoyed at having to go into about:config more and more often because each new release makes irritating little changes like this. If Mozilla continues on this route, they alienating casual users who aren’t comfortable editing Config preferences.

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Kline September 4, 2012 at 10:43 pm

Thanks Venkat for this solution. It worked perfect with my Firefox 15.0

Now I have the tabs on bottom where I prefer them :)

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Keym September 9, 2012 at 9:27 pm

You rock dude .. having the option to have tabs on bottom was one of the main reasons I switched from IE .. always hated the look and feel of IE9..

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Venkat September 10, 2012 at 5:54 am

Welcome to Techdows.

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Sweety September 13, 2012 at 2:33 am

Even if you had it in 13, 14, and then 15; and once on 15 you start FF in safe mode – you will lose the option and need to edit the about:config as stated above to get it back. TY for letting us know about this.

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phillip September 14, 2012 at 4:20 pm

Remove the good features, introduce the stupid ones.

That seems to be the Mozilla credo.

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juver September 20, 2012 at 1:25 pm

thank you thank you thank you
i have been looking for an hour and now i fixed it and it was easy and everything went smoothly

thank you

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Venkat September 20, 2012 at 2:42 pm

You’re welcome here.

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Hans October 6, 2012 at 1:01 am

Thanks! I wasted precious time looking for a solution for this annoyance. Your tip did the trick.

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JW October 17, 2012 at 4:22 am

Thanks, having tabs on the bottom is a lot of the reason why I use firefox (the rest of which is being able to separate stop and refresh, and to make the forward buttom permanently visible).

If Firefox removes the ability to put the tabs on the bottom completely, I would be tempted to not update or look for another browser; it’s sad that this trend of copying other browsers (safari?) has somehow threatened Firefox’s once very impressive amount of customizeability, which is extremely important to me, and why I never enjoyed using browsers like Chrome or the newer IEs for extended periods of time.

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eYe October 20, 2012 at 6:51 pm

Thx a lot, it also works for FF 16 :)

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Venkat October 20, 2012 at 7:23 pm

Works for all future versions too.

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dan October 23, 2012 at 6:06 pm

i thank you, my wife thanks you an so do all our kiddies :P
when developers dont listen to the users, this is what happens.
keep it up, an i will switch to chrome

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Venkat October 23, 2012 at 6:45 pm

Glad your whole family found my post useful and you guys are welcome. We’re here to offer information that makes general users happy.

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javtom October 30, 2012 at 2:14 am

working. thx

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Venkat October 30, 2012 at 6:30 am

Welcome.

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James November 7, 2012 at 11:06 pm

Many thanks for this work-around. Whatever happened to the internet being for everyone? Mozilla staff may think they know best, but they have chosen to ignore the above internet principle. I am physically disabled and use a switch system in-place of a mouse and Dragon Dictate instead of a keyboard. To use these systems I need to be able to tailor functions and I found that the switch could not locate the tabs on top in Firefox 15 as it was set to use tabs below the toolbars. Sure, I could reset the switch system, but have always preferred to reset the applications individually. Mozilla MUST listen to users and allow us to tailor software to individual need.

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Wouter November 21, 2012 at 11:47 pm

Hooray for James’ reply! Never thought of it that way, being non-disabled, glad you shared! And it also work perfectly for me too. I reset my pc & had to reinstall firefox. I just didn’t feel at home behind my computer with those tabs on top!

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