How in the Tech

Duplicate Firefox Tab with it’s Complete History

By Adam Myers ⋅ September 22, 2008 ⋅ Tags: Firefox

Tabbed browsing is available in every major browser and it’s changed the way we all use the Internet. While Firefox wasn’t the first with tabs, that distinction goes to the Opera browser, it’s the browser everyone associates with taking tabs to the forefront. By now, most of us are aware that a middle-click on a link opens the page in a new tab. I use this so frequently that it’s become embedded in my subconscious; from Digg to Google News, quickly skimming a meta page and opening links in the background for further reading is the most efficient way to browse.

But what about the scenario where you are four or five clicks into your clicktrail on a single tab and you come across a page you’d rather not lose? You probably do one of two things:

• Backtrack one page and then use the middle-click to open the link in a new tab, or
• Highlight and copy the URL of the interesting page, open a new tab via CTRL+T, and paste the URL in the resulting new tab

Both methods achieve the desired effect over multiple steps, but I’ve stumbled across a method that does it in one. In Firefox 3, hold CTRL and drag and drop the current tab to a new location on the tab bar. This duplicates the existing tab and has the side benefit of keeping it’s current browsing history – you are still able to backtrack on your click trail, even though it is a new tab.