As someone has already pointed out, customized home page really should not be an app tab. It is distractive, takes up more resource, and a user may not want it open all the time.

At the same time, I also disagree with the big distinction between the home tab and the new tab that you’re preluding to. I think you’re not exactly thinking like an average user and overthought the whole thing. Not everyone opens a new tab with Ctrl+T and start typing the address right away. An average user who knows of tab browsing will most likely hit the + button, not Ctrl+T. In that case, it’s very mouse-centric. In addition, after using Chrome’s new tab page for the first time, I must say that the speed dial seems so much more natural to me (and I would say I’m a power user). In reality, opening up the window for the first time (arriving at the home tab) is not that much different than opening a new tab at all. I think this will especially be the case for people who opens and closes the browser all the time. The two tasks are virtually very similar — the new tab page should be like the home page in that it is sending the user to a new place. Most of the time, these new places are usually your frequently visited places too (emails, facebook, favorite blogs). Very rarely does one think “Oh. I have to go to this website I haven’t gone to in ages. I should just open a new tab and type in the name/url of the place right away”. It’s mostly “I should check my email. Let’s start a new tab so that my current tab remains. Click new tab. Click email.” Also, I really do not see any harm in using the blank space as a launcher instead. That space is unused. If you worry about distraction so much, then maybe make the launcher and stuff faded until the user focuses away from the URL bar by using a mouse or something?

I quite like the idea of a home tab as an app tab though. It really is an elegant solution to get more people to use tab browsing. If power users don’t like it occupying space, it should be very easy to get rid off too. I’m just saying that the new tab should behave very similarly. As for the unintrusive notification thing, I’ve barely ever gotten any notification for the whole browser itself…?

You look like a competitor engineer who doesn’t like to see Mozilla innovating. Typical. :)

To those who say this isn’t good for users because of this, that, and the other, one thing I almost always see in Firefox UI changes is that those users who have the technical ability to decide how they use Firefox can continue using the browser how they want (occasionally a preference might need to be flipped on or off) and those who simply do things because that’s the way they’ve always done them are guided by the changes to a better way.

To be frank, those who are still using an antiquated workflow like Home>Search>Email>Home>Search>eBay>Home>Search>ESPN need something to change and force them to rethink what they’re doing. It could be quite frustrating for a few minutes, but change is never easy. Was I frustrated trying to learn an entire different mindset of managing windows/applications when I switched to Mac after using Windows for a decade? Yes. My mind wanted to think the way Windows wants me to think. Once I gave into working differently and the benefits became overwhelmingly clear, Windows became a prison that I could never return to. Ultimately, if the user is informed, Firefox gives them the power to use it however they desire. However if the user is uninformed they should not be given enough rope to hang themselves with – the best default workflow should be decided for them.

Having new tab with a speed dial on Chrome is pretty awesome, I use it everyday at work and it faster than accessing bookmarks with right click choose open in new tab, since I want open a new tab, I hit that, see the speed dial and click, since I use have at least 3 web pages I need open or to reopen frequently. If Chrome had an additional take to my home page button I wouldn’t even use it in this scenario.

For work, I also use IE8 and Firefox for all my work. I use Firefox not for my administrative tasks like I do with Chrome but for actually using web apps and web pages lookups. For that, I load a custom html in a tab as my home page, so I visually stay organized and don’t have to sift through bookmark folders, etc to find the right link and that is why I think Chrome’s new tab/home page works great for this scenario since I hit on average about 20-30 different links with mostly all the same URLs, so I need to describe bookmarks and organize them for easy retrieval.

For the Home tab, I’m more interested in hearing about whats going to go in that tab and whats going to go in the new tab, i want to see concept designs and ui layout ideas.

With piped homepages, they are nice but since the personal bookmark bar came out and session restore, I don’t use multiple home pages like I used to, even though I go to the same pages a lot at home and work. Though I would like to see how you can list the multiple home pages as links across the top of the page in the home tab page.

About your concerns that users may not know how to use tabs:
1. What does the Test Pilot data show?
2. How is the ‘Home tab’ concept better than simply having the ‘Home’ toolbar button open a new tab *by default*?

The home tab sounds like a solution in search of a problem. Where is the demand for a home tab?

Two questions: you say that a Home application will be available on some platforms that do not allow Firefox. To what platforms specifically are you referring, and what is the use of seeing your browsing data if you can’t actually do anything with it on that platform?

Also, what about the new tab page? I’ve heard talk of that for some time now. Thanks!

Matt