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Comment by PufPufPuf | Hacker News Reader

Zen looks like Arc Browser, but Firefox-based and open-source. Exactly what I'm looking for!

The UX pattern for tabs in Arc is amazing. No, it's not just "vertical tabs". It's an innovative blend of the concepts of bookmarks and open tabs. Sort of like files: they can be open or closed, and live in a folder hierarchy.

But the development of Arc stopped half a year ago (except security Chromium updates), with a well-working Mac version, but Windows version which is barely usable and no Linux support. The creators decided to focus on some sort of "AI agent" browser.

So I came looking for alternatives that would be cross-platform, have working adblockers, and preferably be open-source. There are some "Firefox transformation" projects like ArcFox, but they are clumsy to set up and usually only copy the general look, not the actually useful features like nested folders. There are extensions like "Tree style tabs" but they work a different way than Arc.

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I've been using Zen for a few months now and love it. There are some rough edges (the article mentions how customizing it is confusing because multiple mechanisms affect different parts of the app). However, it's getting regular updates, and once it's set up, it's really a pleasure to use.

Apart from the elegant, minimalist user interface, I particularly like how it implements workspaces. It makes it super easy to switch between personal and work contexts.

I highly recommend it.

Same here. My main gripe has been address in the latest update - the icon! The old stylised 'Z' just didn't look a like a browser icon when alt-tabbing, and I had to think about where my browser is, rather than instinctively going straight to it. At this point my brain only seems to accept that browser icons are circle-based.

The vertical tabs and side-by-side tabs are fantastic

Try Sidebery extension. It has nested tabs, workspaces and much much more.

I tried Sidebery for a couple of months off the back of multiple recommendations and while it has some decent features, I found it surprisingly lacking in terms of basic features like "close multiple tabs". I also found it regularly would semi-regularly prevent me from clicking on tabs which was frustrating until I restarted the extension or Firefox.

In the end I found good old Tree Style Tabs was better. I just wish it had an easier UX for creating named tab groups.

I use Sidebery a lot and I'd like to know what exactly you mean by "close multiple tabs"? I currently drag with right click in Sidebery and then click close tabs in the popup menu, however I don't really like doing this way. How is it done in Tree Style Tabs?

Oh! As another Sideberry user thanks for sharing this. I usually Ctrl+click or Shift+click tabs before middle mouse clicking to delete all selected.

I have TST set up thus: closing a tab will close all its child tabs, if that branch is collapsed. Pretty sure Sidebery can be configured the same way.

In Tree Style Tab, you can shift-click to select a contiguous range of tabs and then use the right-click menu to close them all.

> In the end I found good old Tree Style Tabs was better. I just wish it had an easier UX for creating named tab groups.

Try Simple Tab Groups. Been using it in conjunction with Tree Style Tab for a long time.

Tab Mix Plus is the OG GOAT of tab management. Its claim to fame is that it’s still the only add-in that gives you multiple tab rows.

Have you compared the experience to using Sidebery? Every FF alternative I've tried comes up short to the power of what Sidebery can do with tree style tabs.

Honestly, Zen should be upstreamed. It would be a great way to introduce FOMO.

Actually, some of the Zen features are lesser-known native features of Firefox: including the collapsible vertical tabs.

Ironic to provide compact interface leaving bighugefat spacing intact.

The Zen fork should be based on the Mullvad browser, which is itself a fork of Firefox, or the Tor Browser, same thing I guess. Or they should collaborate. It would be nice to have the UI improvements on an already more privacy focused fork.

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