# Firefox browser without tabs?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-browser-without-tabs/452167>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [June 7, 2008, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-browser-without-tabs/452167 "2008-06-07T19:53:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\
**Post date:** [June 7, 2008, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-browser-without-tabs/452167/1 "2008-06-07T19:53:32Z")

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Can Firefox operate without tabs? I’ve turned off tabbed browsing in IE because it’s such a pain. I really like being able to click on the Start Bar and seeing all the websites (usually 15+, often 25+) I have open, and with tabbed browsing, I’ll have 3-4 instances of IE and have to shuffle between them finding the correct instance and the correct tab.

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**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\
**Post date:** [June 7, 2008, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-browser-without-tabs/452167/2 "2008-06-07T19:58:00Z")

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Sure, that’s how I use FF–I hate tabs. Go to Tools \> Options \> Tabs and select “New pages should open in a new window.” If you want to open a particular link in a tab instead, you can still right-click and select that option.

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**Author:** ![KlondikeGeoff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3e96dc/32.png) [@KlondikeGeoff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KlondikeGeoff)\
**Post date:** [June 7, 2008, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-browser-without-tabs/452167/3 "2008-06-07T20:27:29Z")

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[QUOTE=Q.E.D.]  
Sure, that’s how I use FF–I hate tabs. Go to Tools \> Options \> Tabs and select “New pages should open in a new window.” If you want to open a particular link in a tab instead, you can still right-click and select that option.  
[/QUOTE]  
I did that a long time ago, but tabs still open automatically. Any other way?

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**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\
**Post date:** [June 7, 2008, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-browser-without-tabs/452167/4 "2008-06-07T20:32:33Z")

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I also have “Always show the tab bar” unchecked.

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**Author:** ![KlondikeGeoff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3e96dc/32.png) [@KlondikeGeoff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KlondikeGeoff)\
**Post date:** [June 7, 2008, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/firefox-browser-without-tabs/452167/5 "2008-06-07T21:00:04Z")

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[QUOTE=Q.E.D.]  
I also have “Always show the tab bar” unchecked.  
[/QUOTE]

Mine was unchecked, but what I had not noticed was that “When I open a link in a new tab, switch to it immediately” **was** checked.

Unchecking that, for some reason, fixed the problem, and I am now delighted not to have the damned tabs there so often.

Thanks for the fix.