I use it all the time and have for years. Just seems like a weird feature to lock behind about.config and say it’s not supported while they still support things like Pocket.
It is essentially just extra maintenance of a feature in Firefox that (statistically) not many people use
As such, it’s marked as “unsupported” to make clear that if any issues arise, Mozilla won’t help you with those issues.
Not many people use it because it is hidden away and not default.
Firefox in compact mode is about as compact as Chromium, so no issue here.
I think I have it enabled too and just forgot about it. It really should be a checkbox next to themes or something.
it used to be visible as an option in ‘customize toolbar’. it was deprecated and deemed ‘unsupported’ way back around v89, but at least they kept it available as a ‘hidden’ setting.
i use it on every pc i have firefox installed on (which is, well, all of them that aren’t ‘terminal only’).
True, a lot of things are too inaccessible so that people even think they dont exist. Like the task manager or profiles.
It’s hidden away behind a flag now because it hasn’t been actively used for years on end.
Not the other way around.
Hm, yes but active usage doesnt mean it was not used?
I never thought of doing that and for sure didnt see that button in the bottom left.
Thats like removing profiles because nobody used them, while they are hidden away behind an about:. The solution is add a button, see if it is used and then decide.
Especially as the compact mode saves a lot of screen space and is likely no maintenance effort at all.
The people who make it their business to go through Firefox looking for features to remove almost got it, but the public outcry against its complete removal seems to have deterred them for now.
I remember when compact was hidden - apparently this was a change driven by telemetry. It was possible that there’s an overlap between those who use compact and those who turned off telemetry. I wouldn’t be surprised if something similar also occurs with Pocket being left on too.
If compact breaks in a future update, it’ll probably be removed altogether. At that point, best option would be userchrome customisation.
IIRC, this change was made ahead of the impending UI overhaul. This combined with the Windows 11 getting bigger touch-friendly UI elements understandably didn’t sit well with many people.
It may break a future update…maybe 🤷♂️
In about:config look up userChrome.CompactContextMenu-Enabled and set it to true to enable the setting. When enable Compact (not supported) under Density option in Customize Toolbar panel.
Try following:
- Find the directory of your Firefox profile folder in the filesystem.
- In there, create a directory “chrome”, if its not already.
- In that “chrome” directory, create a file “userChrome.css”, if its not already.
- Add following code to the “userChrome.css” file:
.tabbrowser-tab {
max-height: var(--tab-min-height) !important;
}
- Restart Firefox and look if its better for you.
