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[SOLVED] How to get a browser to forget open tabs

OsakaWebbie

Newbie
Mar 30, 2017
44
15
I want my browser app to start fresh when I open it, with no tabs open (or just one blank one). I am almost never interested in what I was doing the last time I had the browser open, so having all my previous tabs download their content again is annoying and slow. The conventional solution is to always remember to close one's tabs before closing the browser app, but that also seems like unnecessary work (and I often forget to do it and then groan the next time I open it). On my PC, both Firefox and Chrome can be set to start with only a blank page, not the tabs from last time - I want that same behavior on my phone.

I'm not picky about what browser I use on my phone. Since Android is Google, I figured that Chrome would be most likely to integrate smoothly with the OS, but it doesn't appear to have a way to configure it to not keep its tabs when closed. Firefox is my favorite PC browser, so it's also a logical choice for me, and I thought I was in luck when I saw that it has a setting called "Tab Queue" that says, "Save links until the next time you open Firefox". But even with that setting off, the tabs are still preserved - is that a bug, or something I don't understand? I thought, "Hmm, perhaps closing the app in the list of apps doesn't really close it," but rebooting the phone didn't even solve it - the tabs still came back! (If it matters, I have Android 7.0 on a Moto G4.)

Does anyone know how I can get my wish?
 
I've just tested Firefox on my phone and the "restore tabs" setting (in Advanced) works as expected. I'm actually running the beta version, but as far as I recall it's always worked so that shouldn't matter. You do have to explicitly close it, so swiping away from the recent apps list works, but just backing out using the back button or switching to another app doesn't close Firefox and hence doesn't close the tabs.

If you go into the overview of open tabs and press the 3-dot button there is an option to close all tabs, but you shouldn't need to do that.
 
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Ah, that was the clue! The setting I was looking at is "Tab Queue" in the General section, whose verbage sounds like the right thing but apparently isn't. I wonder what that one really does... Anyway, yeah, turning off "Restore Tabs" did exactly what I want. Once again, Firefox earns my loyalty. And you, Hadron, earn my gratitude. :thumbsupdroid:
 
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Are you asking about the PC versions or Android? As I said in my first post, I didn't really have a preference on Android (until now - the ability to turn off "Restore Tabs" makes it my new fav on Android, too!). But 99% of my browser use is on my PC, so I'll speak to that. (Sorry if this is off-topic for AndroidForums, but I'm just answering Bobby's question.) A subjective reason is that I'm more used to Firefox and have trouble navigating Chrome's interface. But more concretely, my biggest three gripes about Chrome are: (1) the way it scrolls, (2) the complete lack of a menu bar, and (3) combining the address bar and search field.

(1) When I roll my scroll wheel, Firefox just works - nice and smooth. Chrome is jarringly jerky - mysteriously, it's even worse with the experimental feature "Smooth Scrolling" than without it!

(2) Maybe I'm just too old-school, but I don't want to search for everything three layers deep under that little triple-dot icon. Firefox will let me have a real menu bar, and allow a number of other customizations to the visual layout.

(3) In Chrome, you search in the same place you put a URL, but in Firefox the search field is separate from the address field. Why does it matter? Well, sometimes I want to search for references to a domain name without actually going to its website (especially if its safety is suspect) - to do that in Chrome you have to actually go to Google's search engine page first and then search. And after searching, the content in Firefox's search field stays there, which can be handy later in other browser tabs or just for additional searches. You can also add alternate search choices directly to Firefox's search field - in my case I've added 7 of them: I chose regular Google as my default, but with one additional click I can send whatever I type there directly to Wikipedia, YouTube, Amazon, Google Maps, Google Images, IMDB, or StackOverflow.

Finally, I like Mozilla in other ways - I use Thunderbird for email, and it appeals to me that it's completely non-profit and open-source.
 
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I recently switched from Firefox to Firefox Focus:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.focus&hl=en
https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/lightweight-browser-focus-does-less-which-is-much-more/
Firefox Focus has a very minimal interface so there's no bookmarks menu and it only has very limited tab support. I like it's 'cleaner' user interface more than the Firefox app and while missed things like syncing with my desktop Firefox it didn't take long to realize how rarely I actually relied on the feature. The integral ad and tracker blocking feature in Focus is a plus but what I like the most is, by default, it wipes your current browsing session clean each time you quit the app, it's basically always running in 'Private window' mode.
Anyway, just a suggestion.
 
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That's very appealing. The one feature they took out of Focus that I would want in some cases is stored passwords (I access my own databases for quick reference of some semi-private-but-not-security-critical information, and typing my login every time on that tiny touch keyboard would be a nuisance), but perhaps I can just use Chrome for those things (or standard Firefox, if both can coexist on the same device). Focus sounds great for general-purpose browsing. Thanks for the tip.
 
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