Ever since the Nova redesign officially landed on Firefox, we’ve spotted a lot of complaints from users about the vertical tabs feature, specifically when using Compact mode.

Firefox Nova vertical tab spacing.

Compact mode is a feature that shrinks the size of browser tabs, toolbars, etc to free up more screen space for web pages. If you use vertical tabs while having Compact mode enabled, you could run into spacing issues. We have attached some screenshots of the complaints below.

Nova redesign vertical tabs spacing issue.

Spacing issue on Vertical tabs.

People claim that group titles take up a lot of space, and if using Compact mode doesn’t help in actually saving screen space, that makes the feature less helpful. The amount of vertical space that it ends up saving has reduced drastically since the Nova redesign, since the padding around tabs is almost identical to the standard view.

Some comments online were demanding customizable padding entirely, so that the user can set their own preference, which isn’t a bad idea. Ideas suggested using custom CSS code or third-party extensions. However, a Mozilla employee has directly responded to the complaint on Reddit and also filed a Bugzilla report about the issue.

Official response.

Bugzilla report.

The employee also clarified that there’s an obvious spacing difference for the Bookmarks bar when comparing Compact mode on and off. It appears that people are comparing the pre-Nova UI of Compact mode on Firefox to the latest UI, which will obviously have some differences in the spacing.

So, what’s the bug exactly? It’s that each vertical tab isn’t as tall in Compact mode. However, they still don’t take up less space because each one is in a fixed-height container. Once this is resolved, the tabs should appear more compact, so you’ll be able to see more of the webpage on the screen.

Description of the bug.

You can view the Bugzilla report here.

In other Firefox news, Mozilla recently highlighted the built-in protections in Firefox (since it’s cybersecurity month). More on that here. Furthermore, the latest v157.0.1 update fixes sidebar glitches and other bugs. We covered that here.

 
✦
PiunikaWeb’s Take

While I personally enjoy the Nova redesign since it brings more rounded corners and a pleasing modern design, those who use the combination of Compact mode and vertical tabs can find it troublesome. Compact mode itself was officially removed from Firefox for a while and required flags to enable it. Even though they’ve technically brought it back now, it isn’t as good as the previous design in terms of pure functionality because of the spacing.

Either way, the response from the employee means that the size of vertical tabs will behave as it should in a future update. Since the Nova redesign is now here to stay, as Mozilla confirmed, users can try to turn it off in about:config if they dislike it that much, or switch to a Firefox spin-off browser that doesn’t use the Nova design.

We stand out from the tech-media crowd because we break news stories; we mainly bring you stuff that you won’t find anywhere in the mainstream tech media. Our stories have been picked up by some of the world’s most popular websites and media outlets—more info is available here.
user-profile user-profile

Sudhanshu K
315 Posts

I have been a consumer technology enthusiast for over 5 years. Thanks to my experience in software beta testing and product reviews, I've understood and learnt a lot about what bugs and issues bother people, and I spend time trying to simplify their solutions. I cover smartphones, software, social media, apps, AI, and most consumer tech gadgets. Actively pursuing a Computer Science bachelor’s degree. I'm mostly active on Twitter/X (@TechWhirlUlt), drop a DM or tag me if you want to share info or connect!