Classic Opera Brings Opera Tab Features to Firefox

I use all browsers, but my primary browser is Opera. Whenever I’m required to use another one like Firefox, the inability to perform some basic actions that has become almost my second nature when browsing with Opera constantly pokes at my brain’s annoyance center. Today I’m going to fix a handful of those issues, at least the ones related to tab behavior, with the Classic Opera add-on.

Here is what Classic Opera brings to Firefox 4 and above.

• It adds the ability to close all tabs without closing Firefox. Closing the last tab will leave an empty tab bar like shown below. Previously, the browser used to exit upon close of the last tab. This is an old Opera functionality. Newer versions exit when the last tab is closed.



• Click on the current tab selects the previously selected tab: Frankly, I’m not sure what this means. Anybody care to explain?
• Shift-click on a tab closes it: This is self explanatory. No need to click on the close ‘x’.
• Closing a tab will bring your focus to the previously selected tab, not the next opened tab.
• Now you can search from the address bar by prefixing your keyword with letters that refer to the search engine. For example "g firefox” to search for “firefox” on Google. This is possibly one of the best and classic Opera feature.
• Move the address bar underneath the tab bar: Well, this is default in Firefox 4, so I’m not sure why this is there.
• Move the bookmarks toolbar above the tab bar.

  

• Keyboard shortcuts 'z' moves the page backward in history, in other words – the back button, and 'x' moves it forward.
• Adds "open link in background tab" to open link context menu. This allows you to open links in new tab without the new tab stealing focus.

  

• It also enables you to open links in background tab by pressing the Shift+Ctrl key while clicking on the link. Shift-click opens link in new focused tab.
• Reduces the size of the tabs in the tab bar.

That’s the summary of changes installing Classic Opera will make to Firefox. Pretty handy set of functions, useful for anybody who is trying to cope with Firefox after coming from Opera.