Talk:Firefox/Feature Brainstorming

Built-in SSH Proxies

It is very common for users of firefox to encrypt/tunnel their traffic using SSH proxies. I think a great feature for future versions of firefox would be a built-in SSH engine for connecting to SSH proxies. For example, here's my current setup:

1) Run "ssh -D [port] u...@host.com" 2) Enter password 3) Open up the firefox options, and switch to use SOCKS on the port specified in (1). 4) Browse securely 5) Close the ssh connection 6) Re-adjust the firefox options for normal internet connection

With a built in firefox SSH mechanism, it could work like this:

1) Click a "Tunnel Traffic ON" button in firefox. (SSH accounts and passwords would be pre-setup) 2) Browse securely 3) Click "Tunnel Traffic OFF"

That would be so nice! Any thoughts?

Opening a tab as a web page

How about including a feature that allows users to drag the tab into the start bar or something to open that tab in a new window.

Another tab feature I wish FIrefox had-its in IE. It allows you to click on a button and thumbnail images of all of your tabs that are open show up on one page. Or have a feature like in iTunes 7 where you can scroll through you album artwork-except with tabs. Why not both?

Strong support for an intelligent page-scroll!

Under "Text readability improvements", topic 2 (in the article of this Feature Brainstorming page) there is described a feature, I have missed for decades in all HTML-displaying software, including Firefox...

You all do know this: Reading a page over more than one screen leads to a last one, which contains any text-tail, not filling the screen completely. But here, whenever you page-down to this last screen, the end of the text is placed at the bottom of the screen, and therefore at the top there is more or less of text, displayed again. From there, you've lost the last line! From there, you always have to scan for this line, first...

This behavior is different from any other scrolling, and it's a drag in an ergonomical sense for the reader. I've never understood, why users didn't critize this, why programers didn't change this!

So, this feature in the way proposed seems to me overdue, really: "the previously visible area should be delimited by a frame/line for a certain period of time, after which the frame disappears or fades out, so it's easier to find the last read line." Or, similarily: simply show the last line of the previous screen at the top (for recognition, like an editor does), followed by the rest - and show an empty part beneath.

My suspicion is, that in the stone age, somebody had decided "Never screens with empty places at the bottom! Does no look good!", and from there on, all were imitating this - till nowadays. Imagine this crazy solution with a printed book: at the end of every chapter, the last page starts repeating text from the page before... maybe, pretty much lines (on average clearly half a page!), just to end with a last line, always exactly at the bottom place!

voodooyou

Downloading

I recently downloaded Firefox 2.0 and tried to download something. The "Open file with... isn't there and I have to save it first. I would like that option back.

i want to agree with that. you sould know it's passible to reactivate this feture by editing a config file, there are instractions on mozillazine fourms

Agree and Dissagree Byzantine Dragon 06:55, 16 September 2007 (PDT)

Firefox has an inherent limitation, that is certain links cannot be downloaded. For example in certain website when I wish to download a podcast (standard mp3) in IE6 I would right click and select 'save target as' however in Firefox 'save link as' would save a large html style file that cannot be opened.

As far as download management goes, it should be an option to be able to pause a download and resume after exiting and re-opening firefox. MOST IMPORTANTLY because certain websites prevent direct linking, a feature to add an updated link (simple copy and past operation) into the download manager

An certainly, positively, absolutely no bitorrent downloading features are necessary. Bitorrent clients need constant updating and thus it is better to use an existing client. Byzantine Dragon 06:55, 16 September 2007 (PDT)

Open

In IE it was wery good function: when you click on exe file you can open it witchout saving! IE sucks but it's have this! Why Firefox haven't got is?

Reintroduction of a Necessary feature

I don't know where to put this so I hope its ok that I put it here!

1. why can't you use Alt-Enter to access the properties of a bookmark?
2. I really like Firefox but I find that it is missing one key feature for me to transition from Mozilla 1.7.12 to Firefox 1.5.0.4, that is the lack of the same Mozilla "Bookmark This Group of Tabs" feature in Firefox. Now I know that Firefox has a "Bookmark All Tabs..." option but unlike Mozilla it creates a folder just like any other and has an option to "open in tabs" at the bottom of the folder. I can see why they did this and it would be nice to be able to enter a bookmark group to access only one tab... Yet it is something that is really rarely needed and could be done by hovering over the tab group for a short while. Now this might seam like a minor gripe considering all the other positives Firefox has over Mozilla, Yet I am truly addicted to the bookmark group in Mozilla and there are a few main reasons behind this:
   • it looks different than the other folders and is easy to distinguish
   • one simple click on the bookmark group to open it
   • The "Bookmark This Group of Tabs" defaults to show you the file tree (for lack of a better term) giving you a quicker way to save the bookmark group.
   Now I have been unable to find any extention that would allow me to use the same Mozilla bookmark group functions inside of Firefox. Is it possable that this could be included? Pretty please!

I REALLY would LOVE a solution to this Please help.... Thanks! -- UKPhoenix79 00:32, 3 November 2006 (PST)

When?

I know that the release of Firefox 2.0 has just happened but I can't wait to see the new advantages of Firefox 3.0 so when can we expect it? And by the way When and how will you tell us what features made the cut down? Carutsu 22:20, 4 November 2006 (PST)

They are planning on a release in late 2007.

Colors

Perhaps one could be able to change colors of the default theme without installing a new theme, and one could color code certain websites to a color to be displayed on a tab. Jimmy 15:22, 7 November 2006 (PST)

You could realize it by making the themes half-transparent and building in a feature to change the background color. Then you could even define different areas (for example one area for each button) and give to the users the possibility to change the color of every element of the theme. --Photon 00:45, 10 December 2006 (PST)

I think Firefox should use the features of the new Windows Aero graphics in Vista to make the browser transparent in some areas, that the user could choose, so say you could see your MS Word document and see the browser somewhat at the same time.

Identity management at browser level with OpenID

Current foreseen enhancements to identity management are only small tweaks. A real step ahead would be to include openID management at the browser level, as suggested in the comments here.

This would simply revolutionize everyone's identity online, since what all web sites are waiting for is just some sort of support similar to what Mozilla/Firefox could bring. Everyone's waiting for that, but just not doing it because of this lack of support.

It would really make life easier to both site owners and visitors.

Of course users should be able to switch identities from within the browser. Ultimately, that could mean not signing in anymore to any compatible web site as you would just do it once at the browser level.

NatC

Print what you see

I would like to see the feature print what you see in the print properties. How can I make that the new firefox has it? More info about my idea: http://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox:Printing_what_you_see

Master Password and password security

Dear Firefox developers et al.,

I enjoy saving passwords, it makes my life a little less complicated, however I hate having them easily exposed by someone going to my preferences and being able to view them with relative ease.

It has come to my attention that the master password feature is ultimately useless, I presume that many people use a same or similar password for most of their user accounts and that the master password STILL requires a password to be entered simply to allow someone to have it inputed automatically.

My suggestion is to have a security center password which is required to view/delete/add saved passwords. Passwords that are saved are accessible without the need for entering a master one when viewing such a page. The saved passwords function as they would without a master password, the only change being as far as viewing them, adding them, and deleting them.

The master password idea is good but for now I cannot save passwords because either the security risk is too great or the hassle (because I still need to enter a pw) is too great.

This site is also somewhat difficult to come by, my apologies in advance for posting in the wrong location.

Please return the spirit of the saved password to its rightful place so I may once again browse 100% happy.

Extensions Resource Tracking - enhancing comment

I'm new here. Hopefully this is OK. This is an addition of a point already present in the list

I propose to track both resources usage (memory, cache, time) and healthy statistics per-extension basis, for tuning purposes. Something like the Task Manager but for extensions, so if my FF is poorly responsive, I can track down the culprit extension.

Additionally, I'd like to know: a) wheather a crash (latest) was caused by an extension (and which one), enabling a crash-counter, and b) track installation date for every extension (more extension data: installation date, latest enabling and disabling, etc).

Finally, IMHO, a health-checker for extensions would be very useful, for example monitoring errors (as shown in the console). I would like to track what changes I see in my FF that were caused by each extension. Too much? Ok, then, I would like to know what changes an extension is about to do during installation, and optionally enable/disable the 'priviledges' of extensions, so I don't get surprises when installing extensions.

Hope these comments are useful! Daniel.

Mac resize thing should be transparent

On the mac version, the thing below the scrollbar that lets you resize the window should be transparent as it is in Safari. There should at least be an option to do this.

The Addressbar

The addressbar is the absolute heart* of the user's experience of a browser. It is also the most complicated, diverse and unpredictable, because of the richness of URLs and the necessity of a keyboard to adjust them. Of all the buttons, menus, extensions and other features, surely the addressbar is the one that it here to stay, however many Web 2.0-10.0 we get through? We are not yet at the point where we can navigate without it.

So I am amazed how little it has changed over the years. Then the excellent Locationbar^2 came along (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4014). What a creative idea! Locationbar simply must be incorporated into Firefox - it is a way that Firefox can once again set the agenda on the web.

Sadly I am devoid of ideas, but I want to ask the question, what else can we do to the addressbar to take advantage of it? A parser, to interpret segments and offer alternatives (from a look-up) to load? Right-clicking reveals a helpful context menu: download all media from this level; correct the spelling and reload, all in one; execute/download/give help on e.g. a php script?

(*apart from the content itself)

Close Button on the Right

I really miss in firefox 2.0.x the old close button to close your current tab that was located in firefox 1.5.x on the right. I find it really usefull and confortable because you don't have to change each time the area you click with your mouse to close your current tab.

Thank you for hearing my suggestion! What do you thing about?

• Although I like FF2's way of closing tabs, it does have its downsides, and many people do like the previous versions' way of closing tabs. I think users should have the freedom to close browsers both ways, if they please. --Armaetin 22:28, 9 April 2007 (PDT)
  • I thing it's a very good idea, that anybody could choose between the two interfaces, although i thing it would increase performance anyway just adding the close button on the right. It would be like an hybrid between the two previous firefox versions, if we keep the actual close buttons of each tab like firefox 2.0.x and we just add the close button on the right like like firefox 1.5.x. What do you thing about this idea? --Borgg 11:39, 10 April 2007
    • Here's a similar suggestion that some people might like. --Armaetin 10:17, 10 April 2007 (PDT)

Allow Multiple Restore Sessions

The restore session is very handy for bringing up your usual web pages. It should be further enhanced by allowing a choice of several sessions that you have saved. If you don't know what I'm talking about -- its under "startup" in Firefox's preferences.

(ripped from missingparts.org) http://www.missingparts.org/request/show_full_request/14

Browser enhancement to queue links that you want to follow

Someone should write a plugin for Firefox or other browser(s) that lets you queue up links you want to follow from search results. For example, say you have results from a craigslist query and you want to follow several of them. Instead of opening each link in a new tab or window, you would be able to control click (or some other key combination) that would place the link to follow on a list. Then the browser would have a special icon to load up the next link when you are ready.

(ripped from missingparts.org) http://www.missingparts.org/request/show_full_request/13

Smart browser caching

There should be some web code technology that tells a browser which links are followed most often (based on statistics) for a certain page in order for the browser to load those pages in the background. To the vistor, they'd see a great performance increase and it'd all be behind the scenes.

For example for index.html, there are ten links: link1, link2, link3, etc. If the site gathered statistics on each of the links and found that most often vistors click link3 the most for index.html, then there might be a bit of code to let the browser know to load the page link3 refers to in the background in anticipation of the click. Something like <rating tag> link3 <end rating tag> (ripped from missingparts.org) http://www.missingparts.org/request/show_full_request/24

Updating Feature Requests

Shouldn't we keep all feature request pages updated? What i mean is, isn't it a good idea to delete requests that have been implemented since they were initially posted? That way we can keep all the pages up to date and imo, render them more useful for developers who check them etc... ChaoticMind 06:28, 28 April 2007 (PDT)

• You could help do that. I clean up pages of its obsolete ideas sometimes because the admins/moderators do not appear to do that for us. --Armaetin 16:49, 28 April 2007 (PDT)
• It may be helpful to strike through implemented suggestions so people won't suggest them again. --TastyWheat (talk - contribs) 01:35, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Great things other browsers use (Opera)

I'm drawing from my experience with other browsers such as Opera.

Firefox 3 needs a solid base on which to work on (which is being done) but it need a few more things, such as:

The ability to store/save and restore loaded pages like in Opera after re-opening the browser (last viewed pages are there - no need to download again)

Some king of speed-dial feature like in Opera (this would work great in FIrefox)

Ability to resume downloads after closing Firefox and change download links (mentioned above) - simple download properties box

Perhaps incorporation of Widgets

No need to go overboard with torrent clients and other shenanigans that just clutter the browser. Only simple, helpful and powerful features to increase browsing efficiency.

MHT READ WRITE SUPPORT IS ESSENTIAL WITHOUT IT OPERA OR INTERNET EXPLORER BECOMES CRUCIAL

Addressbar's "Paste and Go" feature like in Opera would be VERY useful

"Go to address", "Search in >" for the selected text in the right click menu, not only "Search in Google"

Unresponsive script dialog

When an unresponsive script is detected, firefox should immediately pause execution (instead of letting it run while giving you an option to stop it) to prevent a page from locking up the browser.

There's no need to keep scripts running once they're unresponsive.

How about making the Stop button work more often?

I know, it's not exactly a feature maybe, but their are _lot_ of posts on various sites about FF being 'unresponsive' under a variety of conditions

(This includes but is not limited to server not responding, while downloading large files such as podcasts, if a script becomes unresponsive, .. )

If the Stop button worked in more cases, many of these situations would be recoverable - many problems solved (or at least recovered from) with one improvment.

Blink taskbar

Firefox could blink taskbar like messenger does. There are a lot of web messengers on the web begging for this feature. The users would appreciate it. I missed a lot of messages because I didn't see there was a new message. The feature could be used by a lot of applications, not only messengers.

This feature could be implemented in javascript function.

User Profiles

Firefox will startup and ask if you want to login to a profile or continue with default, if you choose default, the normal Firefox starts but with a user name, the person will have a seperate bookmarks and history and things.

The information is encrypted and kept locally so internet speed isnt slowed down..

Report abuse button

I want to propose a new addition to Firefox. I was watching a program about child safety online. One of the things that I found interesting was that the CEO of CEOP website was praising Microsoft's Instant Messenger Service because there was a "Report Abuse" button that linked to the appropriate enforcement agencies.

Is it possible to add a similar button to the actual web browser? I know that this will require much more thought about how to engage with agencies, where to place such a button (Navgiation toolbar?), etc.

I thought I would put the idea out there to see if this is possible. Khandes3 15:47, 23 March 2008 (PDT)

Add "always on top" option for open window(s)

This would make it possible to watch Hulu in the pop-out player, and have it always visible.

GetURL for TinyURL and similar addresses

I would love to see a feature that would let users mouse over a shortened link (like one provided by TinyURL or such) and would display the full web address of the re-direct. TheUncleBob 16:55, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Tab Locking

The idea of tab locking is a good idea. However I don't think it should be limited to only to the domain as the original creator suggested in the Brainstorming section. My reasoning behind this has to deal with watching video. If I am watching a video that happens to be a bit long, I generally do some other browsing in other tabs. Sometimes I accidentally navigate off of my movie page.

I believe a tab locking feature that would prevent me from navigating away to any other page would be best. Or even as was originally suggested, forced an "open in new tab" for the locked page.

Also it should prevent me from being able to drag the tab into a new browser window, or at least have the option to prevent this. When I am on a page with a flash movie playing, sometimes i click on the tab and accidentally move it just slightly and it opens a browser window with that page and the flash video resets.

User-specified Java runtime

I suggest to implement a way (e.g. config parameter, command-line option, ...) to instruct FireFox not to use the Java runtime found automatically (e.g. by scanning Windows registry), but instead a different one specified by the user. For instance, when using Portable Firefox off a USB stick, it would be very useful to be able to run a Java applet via a Java runtime installed on the same removable storage.

Advanced tab loading control

I don't generally use bookmarks because I'm too busy to ever look back at them anyway. Instead, when I find a Web page that interests me, whether I've already read through it or intend to at a later date, I leave the tab open and let the session manager save it.

This works awesome and allows me to stumble upon Web sites or topics that I had forgotten about. As a computer programmer, I'm often trying to learn about multiple subjects at the same time and this allows me to keep useful material available for me to find later when I have time to work through it.

Unfortunately, this leads me to have sessions with 50 or 60 or more tabs open. It isn't a problem for most of the day, but everyday when I first start Firefox (and occasionally throughout the day as some OSes force me to restart the computer) I have to wait a LONG time for Firefox to become responsive because it's busy loading all of those tabs, many of them from very expensive sites. Additionally, the session often includes multiple tabs from YouTube or the like, which all start playing as soon as they've loaded; not only wasting resources, but forcing me to search through the mess of tabs to pause the playback.

I was pleased to find that somebody had already suggested a solution[1]. Loading the session, but refraining from actually loading every tab until requested. In practice, I probably have between 3 and 10 tabs that I use regularly, while the rest are just there for me to rediscover when I have time for them. It would be nice if those X tabs that I regularly use would load when the session is loaded, but the remainder would just load empty or placeholder tabs that are waiting for user interaction before loading. Firefox could also [optionally?] load these other tabs incrementally over time as it finds itself running idly.

This would greatly improve the user experience of Firefox for myself (and many others I've heard do this).

Disable Backspace

Firefox/Feature Brainstorming:User Interface#Disable Backspace Navigation A very good suggestion. But perhaps instead, make hotkeys modifiable.

Performance

As many guys have already said: Firefox is too slow in terms of its start-up time. This is also the main reason why other people choose a different browser (for marketing aspects ;) )
I list a few thoughts about how to shorten the start-up time (Could be alreay implemented though). In general, it is a good idea to start particular things delayed after FF has already been started (see superfetch at Windows Vista/7).

• Do not instantiate views of the menu at start-up (I think this is partly implemented).
• Do not build the full bookmark list. Use lazy displaying of invisible nodes of folders.
• Do not load all plugins at start-up. Surely, some plugins really need to start at once, but some do not. Add a bool-value for plugin developers to enable/disable start-up at once.

Feel free to add other ideas!

Tab Focus Stack

This is a pretty simple feature to implement, but I think it would be very useful. Currently when a tab is closed, the tab to the right of it in the window is brought to focus by default. This is usually not a helpful behavior. If Firefox implements a stack of Tab-IDs so that whenever a tab is detached, closed, crashes, etc... it is popped off the stack and the focus returns the next tab at the top of the stack, we can save numerous keystrokes for us multitaskers.

EXAMPLE:

Right now, you have 5 tabs open in the current window. You are focused on the right-most tab of the window. But you want to pop the left-most tab into another/(or its own) window (imagine you are playing a game in one window and reading a guide in the other, or writing code and following a doc page, or sending out event invitations while looking at the address/telephone/amenities of the venue). Right now, if you simply drag the left-most tab to detach it, focus is brought to the new left-most tab of your original window, rather than the tab you most recently had focus on.

What I would like to happen is that once I detach the leftmost tab, the rightmost tab (on which I was most recently focused) would be the tab that pops back into focus.

Implementation issues: We don't want to slow down the browser by maintaining a potentially very deep list of focus. So what we can do is create a fixed-depth stack that only stores (at most) the N most recent tabs with focus. There are many acceptable ways to implement this, but the most lightweight would probably be to use an array with an index that is incremented/modulo-N. When we pop off an tab id, we can set the slot in the array corresponding to the current index to a null or -1 and then decrement our index.

Realistically, however, even a very deep stack of integers will not be a bottleneck.

Android Brainstorming

I searched through the Wiki but couldn't find a proper section about mobile (smartphone and tablet) brainstorming. As Android is the most important platform (until Firefox OS is successfully enough) and Firefox 15 Beta is much better than the previous versions, I would propose a dedicated section "Android (smartphone/tablet)" to gather ideas.

I suppose that Android users are even less technical than desktop users, so a Firefox/Feature Brainstorming wiki section should attract more ideas than bugzilla tickets.

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Ubuntu for Android

Now that the biggest online games company Valve is embracing Linux and Ubuntu is integrating webapps into the desktop, I would suggest improving Ubuntu for Android is the most important Linux project besides Firefox OS.

Please help to generalize the Unity Web API into a freedesktop standard and build a Firefox version optimized for low-cost Linux (ARM) devices (especially while Microsoft bans Firefox on ARM-based Windows).

Pakistan provides 500,000 free Ubuntu laptops to students