The Old and the New of Tabs and Bookmarks

Well, if there is one thing that we can count on in this day and age, it is change.  Rapid change.  Always something better, newer, easier to use.  So, it appears that the very next working day after I wrote about the Enhanced Bookmark tool for iGoogle customization, I find something new and different.

I just downloaded the update to Firefox--4.0--and reviewed a few of its new features.  They have created a way for us to create tab groups for ease of use.  So, now all my British Research bookmarks that I frequent can be open and grouped together, while at the same time all of my Slovak Research bookmarks can be open and grouped together, and all at the same time that my personal tabs are grouped and open.  You can create as many "groups" as you want, name them what you want, and easily navigate from one to another.  It literally is as quick as drag and drop to the group, and click to name the group.

At first this seemed like a simple solution that could easily replace my enhanced bookmarks list, especially when I want to keep those bookmarks open, readily usable, and still not have my tabs all cluttered up.   However, the bottom line is that they are only in that group until you close them.  So, "groups" is not a permanent place to store bookmarks, just a great way to eliminate tab clutter if you tend to have 25 tabs open at a time.  

Another neat tool that Firefox 4.0 offers is to create an App Tab.  This works for something that you want accessible all the time, like your web mail, your blog, or your favorite research sites.  Right click on the open tab and drag to the left of the tabs and drop.  You should end up with an icon from that website that you can click on to open.  I just put my three most commonly used research sites there in a flash.


I would consider these new tools in Firefox 4.0 to be a great new solution to my research clutter, but apparently not a replacement for the enhanced bookmarks grouping solution I just wrote about.

To learn from a video, go to http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/central/ and click on "Meet Your Browser".

Peg