Why Tabs are on Top in Firefox 4

“In the Firefox 4 nightly builds, and in Firefox 4 Beta 1, we
are changing the default tab position so that tabs are on top. This
is a preference that users can change by right clicking on any of
their toolbars. Moving the default tab position is obviously a
significant and to some extent controversial change to the Firefox
UI, which is why we made the video above to help explain our
rationale.

“Contributors who are active in the Mozilla community will know
that this debate literally goes back for years. So in some respects
this video will serve as quick summary of all of the different
arguments both for an against the change. But the more interesting
part isn’t about looking back, it’s about looking forward. Recently
modern browsers have been transitioning to placing tops on top, and
that decision isn’t arbitrary, it isn’t about fashion. The change
to placing tabs on top isn’t about one browser versus another
browser, it’s about the evolution of the Web as a platform.”

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