The new Firefox 3.5 release brought a lot of great features, but one annoyance sent reader Mark looking for a solution: When you close the last tab, the browser closes instead of opening a blank tab.
Changing the behaviour back to the way it used to work is very simple: just type about:config into the address bar and find the browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab entry in the list—using the filter makes it easy. Once you’ve found that key, double-click on it to change the value from true to false, and Firefox should no longer close when you close the last tab.
For more, check out the top 10 Firefox 3.5 features, learn how to install it on Ubuntu with a single command, or get your extensions working even if they haven’t been upgraded yet. Thanks, Mark!
We’ve already talked about all the great new features, but does anything in the latest release annoy you? Tell us in the comments, and maybe one of your fellow readers will have a solution.
James
Friday, July 3, 2009 at 11:34 AMBy default you can’t close the last tab without using the Ctrl+W shortcut since there is no X on the tab.
However, what is more annoying is the fact that tab bar is always visible even if you’re only viewing one tab, especially on netbooks with limited screen real estate.
To fix this, again navigate to about:config in your address bar then head to browser.tabs.autoHide and double click the value to change it to true.
stu
Friday, July 3, 2009 at 12:17 PM@ James: There is an option in the preferences, under tabs.
Is there a way to remove the new tab button?
Wobble
Friday, July 3, 2009 at 12:52 PMThanks stu for the tip. Saves me some screen real estate.
Dom
Sunday, July 5, 2009 at 5:52 PMIf it’s relevant… There are instructions on removing the new tab button and adding a close button to the last tab at http://exploringtech.com/2009/07/firefox-35-two-problems/
scott
Saturday, July 18, 2009 at 5:11 AMawesome.! that really was annoying especially with mouse gestures
AleX
Saturday, December 12, 2009 at 1:00 PMThe last tab doesn’t have a close button. Use middle mouse button to close it.