Configure Close Tab button in Firefox to fit your need
All modern day browsers support multiple tabs and it is certainly a big convenience. But there is an annoyance that comes with it as well. The Close Tab button. The Close Tab button is visible on all tabs to, obviously, close those tabs when not needed. The placement of this Close Tab button is such awkward that it gets hit accidentally when you try to switch between tabs with your mouse.
If you are using Firefox then you can customize the Close Tab button so that you can either completely hide it to not display on any tabs, or to display on only the active tab, or to display at the corner of the tab strip.
Follow these simple steps to configure the behavior of the Close Tab button on Firefox,
Step-1: Firefox Configuration
Launch Firefox and type-in “about:config” on the address bar (without the quotes, of course).
Step-2: Voiding the Warranty
Firefox will threaten you with a warranty message. Just click on the “I’ll be careful, I promise!” button.
Step-3: Browser.Tabs.CloseButtons item
Type-in “browser.tabs.closebuttons” (without the quotes) at the Filter box and Firefox will filter the long list down to browser.tabs.closebuttons item. You should be able to see a default value of “1”.
Double click the entry to change to one of these values,
- 0 – display close button only on the active tab
- 1 – display close button on all the tabs – default
- 2 – don’t display any close buttons
- 3 – display a single close button at the end of the tab strip
Display Close Tab button only on the active tab
Setting the value to 0 and restarting the browser will make the Close Tab button to only appear on the Active Tab.
Display Close Tab button on all tabs
Setting the value to 1 and restarting the browser will make the Close Tab button to appear on all the tabs. This is the default behavior.
Display Close Tab button at the corner of the tab strip
Setting the value to 2 and restarting the browser will make the Close Tab button to only appear on the corner of the Tab Strip.
Don’t display the Close Tab button at all
Setting the value to 3 and restarting the browser will make the Close Tab button to not appear on any of the tabs. You have to use the right-click menu on the tab to close the tabs.
I hope you find this trick helpful to customize the Close Tab button behavior to your convenience. If you have any questions/comments regarding this please let us know in comments.
January 27th, 2009 at 12:23 am
Thanks! I love “geeky” things I never would have dreamed of scouting out for myself. And I absolutely love it when someone gives me lots of pictures and step by steps to get something done. Great post, loving your blog
June 15th, 2009 at 5:36 am
You mixed up the order and pictures of options two (2) and three (3). The list above is exactly correct, though.
June 15th, 2009 at 5:42 am
Oh! Also, restarting the browser is not necessary for these particular changes.
Granted, these comments will look silly once you've fixed the article. (-:
June 15th, 2009 at 5:50 am
Paul – I truly appreciate you taking the time to correct when it's wrong. Sorry I messed up on the order when I put the screenshots. I'll try to correct it sometimes.
Restarting the browser, I think it depends on the operating system you've installed Firefox…to me I had to restart the browser to get these changes on Windows Vista SP1 (months back). On Windows 7 RC that's not the case…please correct me if I'm wrong.
Looks silly…of course, it might, but I'll give appropriate credit when I update and so things might make sense at that time
Thanks again, Paul.
April 30th, 2011 at 10:22 am
Can someone help me?
I'm looking for the opposite thing if I can say it this way. I'm looking for a way or extra, ad on, theme etc that can make the close buttons bigger a lot bigger. I can't understand why the web is getting so much worse in terms of accessibility. There's a lot of unused space where it could be used for clicking like the tab close button for example.
Also the hyperlinks are getting smaller to click. You waste so many time in aiming the mouse cursor over a tiny link where there could be a bigger button – yes button surrounding the clickable text (with an hyperlink). I wish they could be like the buttons in this page (top) where one can read "home" windows" "mac" "etc.
I feel so alone with this that everyday I use less and less the internet just because of that and i'm an internet user for 11 years now.
Btw I switched to 1024×768 in an 19" monitor and I use firefox zoom a lot. I want to read with eye comfort damn! Why should I adapt to the machine when the other way could be done?
Now the google adopted the "new 2010 2011 style" and went to an almost white search box. Just to look pretty? I don't know but I don't like this new internet looks…
Cheers