I tried Zen for a while (1-2 months). It certainly has some cool features. But in the end, I returned to Vanilla FF and installed Sideberry [0] with custom userChrome.css [1]. It gets me 99% of what I used with Zen (tree tabs, workspaces), but without annoyances/anti-features (inconvenient url bar for editing, frequent UI changes, cute animations that ignore prefer-reduced-motion, performance, security worries etc.).
I’m relatively happy with my setup [2] now, what I miss most from Zen would be the 2-level pinned tabs (pinned per workspace, and globally pinned), and the design of globals pins (instead of a line on the side as in [2], it’s a grid at the top for Zen), but not even close to enough that I’d want to return.
[0]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sidebery/
[1]: https://github.com/mbnuqw/sidebery/wiki/Firefox-Styles
mbnuqw
sidebery
TypeScript2020–2025
mbnuqw / sidebery
sidebery
Firefox extension for managing tabs and bookmarks in sidebar.
28Distinct people
28Mentions
1Explicit recommenders
4.8KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Firefox extension for managing tabs and bookmarks in sidebar.
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
Just a shout out to https://github.com/mbnuqw/sidebery. My favorite productivity extension. I'm a tab hoarder, this makes my life manageable and gives my Firefox all the screen…
alunchbox used a recommendation phrase. One indexed comment matches. This is a phrase match, not a verdict.
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This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:56:07 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year28 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2020-06-30 14:24:30 UTC to 2025-08-19 14:43:06 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 6 | 1 | 5 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 8 | 3 | 5 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 8 | 0 | 8 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
From the project README
An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.
Read the project’s introduction
Firefox extension for managing tabs and bookmarks in sidebar.
Install
Stable:
Release page |
Addon page (reviewed by Mozilla)
Nightly (v5.6.1.6):
Install
NoteNightly release is a signed build created via github actions. It supports auto-updates and is designed for testing new features. A few previous nightly releases can be found in the Assets section of the latest release notes.
If you're manually updating an already installed Sidebery version you also need to open the Add-ons Manager (about:addon) and click on the 'Update Now' button in the Sidebery card or restart the browser.
About
Sidebery is a highly configurable sidebar with panels of different types. Some of the key features:
Vertical tabs panels with tree or flat layout
Bookmarks panels
History panel
Search in panels
Customizable context menu
Customizable styles
Snapshots (saved windows/panels/tabs)
...and more
Incompatibility with other addons
Sidebery may conflict with addons that handle position of new tabs (e.g. Tree Style Tabs) or addons that move/sort tabs, which may result in unexpected behavior or broken tabs state at initialization. To avoid potential issues, please, disable such addons in Add-ons Manager page (about:addons).
How to hide native tabs?
Option 1 (Activating native vertical tabs)
Enable native vertical tabs. This can be done in one of the following ways:
Right-click on the free space of the toolbar or tab-bar and click on the "Turn on Vertical Tabs".
Open about:config and enable these settings: sidebar.revamp, sidebar.verticalTabs.
Then resize the native sidebar (with the vertical tabs) to its minimum.
Optionally, you can round the corner of the web page area by enabling sidebar.revamp.round-content-area in about:config.
This will save vertical space, but the native tabs will still be showed and Firefox's sidebar header will take some space from Sidebery.
You can also try to hide vertical native tabs and sidebar: Right-click on the free space of the native sidebar, then in the "Sidebar settings" section enable "Vertical tabs" and "Hide tabs and sidebar" settings, then open Sidebery. But due to a Firefox bug this setting might be ignored on the next browser start or on the opening a new window.
Option 2 (Using userChrome.css)
Learn how to comment/uncomment parts of your CSS.
Enable toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheets in about:config.
In 'Profile Directory' (Firefox Menu > Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Directory)
create folder chrome with file userChrome.css.
Paste, edit (to your needs) and save this code in userChrome.css file:
/**
* Hide sidebar-panel-header (sidebar.revamp: true)
*/
#sidebar-panel-header {
display: none;
}
/**
* Dynamic styles
*
* Choose when styles below will be activated (comment/uncomment line)
* - When Sidebery set title preface "."
* - When Sidebery sidebar is active
*/
#main-window[titlepreface="."] {
/* #main-window:has(#sidebar-box[sidebarcommand="_3c078156-979c-498b-8990-85f7987dd929_-sidebar-action"][checked="true"]) { */
/* Hide horizontal native tabs toolbar */
#TabsToolbar > * {
display: none !important;
}
/* Hide top window border */
#nav-bar {
border-color: transparent !important;
}
/* Hide new Firefox sidebar, restyle addon's sidebar */
#sidebar-main, #sidebar-container, #sidebar-launcher-splitter {
display: none !important;
}
#sidebar-box {
padding: 0 !important;
border-radius: 0 !important;
border: none !important;
}
#sidebar-box #sidebar {
box-shadow: none !important;
border: none !important;
outline: none !important;
border-radius: 0 !important;
}
#sidebar-splitter {
--splitter-width: 3px !important;
min-width: var(--splitter-width) !important;
width: var(--splitter-width) !important;
padding: 0 !important;
margin: 0 calc(-1*var(--splitter-width) + 1px) 0 0 !important;
border: 0 !important;
opacity: 0 !important;
}
/* Update background color of the #browser area (it's visible near the
rounded corner of the web page) so it blends with sidebery color with
vertical nav-bar. */
/* #browser {
background-color: var(--lwt-accent-color) !important;
background-image: none !important;
} */
/* Hide sidebar header (sidebar.revamp: false) */
#sidebar-header {
display: none !important;
}
/* Uncomment the block below to show window buttons in Firefox nav-bar
(maybe, I didn't test it on non-linux-tiled-wm env) */
/* #nav-bar > .titlebar-buttonbox-container,
#nav-bar > .titlebar-buttonbox-container > .titlebar-buttonbox {
display: flex !important;
} */
/* Uncomment one of the lines below if you need space near window buttons */
/* #nav-bar > .titlebar-spacer[type="pre-tabs"] { display: flex !important; } */
/* #nav-bar > .titlebar-spacer[type="post-tabs"] { display: flex !important; } */
}
Restart the browser
Optionally, try to turn on/off native vertical tabs to know how it changes the color of the browser toolbar.
Result:
Optionally, add some bells and whistles (add to Sidebery styles editor):
Rounded corner for vertical nav bar
/* Do not apply the border from Firefox theme */
.Notifications + .main-box .central-box {
height: calc(100% - var(--general-margin));
margin-top: var(--general-margin);
}
.NavigationBar {
box-shadow: none;
}
.NavigationBar.-vert {
padding: var(--nav-btn-margin) 0 0
}
#root[data-pinned-tabs-position="left"]:not([data-nav-layout="horizontal"]) .PinnedTabsBar,
#root[data-pinned-tabs-position="right"]:not([data-nav-layout="horizontal"]) .PinnedTabsBar {
padding: var(--general-margin) 0 calc(var(--tabs-margin) * 2);
}
#root[data-pinned-tabs-position="left"][data-nav-layout="left"][data-drag="true"] .PinnedTabsBar,
#root[data-pinned-tabs-position="right"][data-nav-layout="right"][data-drag="true"] .PinnedTabsBar {
padding: var(--general-margin) 0 16px
}
/* Rounded transition between Sidebery nav-bar and Firefox toolbar */
.ma
Read the full README on GitHubWhat Hacker News says
28 sourcesIn Why I'm all-in on Zen Browser
Sidebery is my go to for that.
https://github.com/mbnuqw/sidebery
In Orbit by MozillaYou can achieve the exact same thing in Firefox using the Sidebery extension: https://github.com/mbnuqw/sidebery
In Horse – The Organized BrowserJust a shout out to https://github.com/mbnuqw/sidebery. My favorite productivity extension. I'm a tab hoarder, this makes my life manageable and gives my Firefox all the screen real estate by using keyboard shortcuts to open/close the tabs easily.
I also use the Firefox css to hide the top sidebar, so I get maximum screen usage.
Their bookmark feature is pretty awesome too.
In The best browser bookmarking system is filesHow does this compare to Sideberry extension(which is only for Firefox, it is free and open source)? Being cross browser, might not matter in 90% of cases, because from what I've noticed, people usually use one browser.
https://github.com/mbnuqw/sidebery
In Show HN: I Made TabDock–Organize Tabs,Kbar,and Searchbar Commands in the BrowserI have been using Sidebery for 2 years and never had an issue. It has all the features I need (bookmarks, tabs, panels integrated with firefox containers, themes, snapshots)
https://github.com/mbnuqw/sidebery
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sidebery/
In Mozilla introduces updates to tab management in FirefoxI think the best vertical tabs implementation in firefox is Sidebery. The use of "panes" to group tabs is brilliant. Older versions were buggy, but version 5 has been rock solid for me.
https://github.com/mbnuqw/sidebery
In Firefox Sidebar and Vertical tabs: try them outHere is the change (as reflected in the sidebery wiki):
https://github.com/mbnuqw/sidebery/wiki/Firefox-Styles-Snipp...
It was Firefox version 113 that changed it.
In Firefox Proton UI userChrome.css fixes. (2021)Have you tried the Sidebery vertical tabs extension for Firefox?
https://github.com/mbnuqw/sidebery
In Firefox 125https://github.com/mbnuqw/sidebery is also good for this, different approach than TST
In Firefox Sync actually worksheres a few general ones. on my linux computers i have a bash script to install firefox, then it sets up symlink of the user.js file from my own config folder to the default .config folder. on windows i just manually add it
user_pref("browser.aboutConfig.showWarning", "false"); // disable about:config warning
user_pref("browser.startup.page", 3); // restore previous session
user_pref("browser.ctrlTab.sortByRecentlyUsed", "true"); // cycles tabs in recently used order
user_pref("signon.rememberSignons", "false"); // dont ask to save passwords
user_pref("browser.search.suggest.enabled", "false"); // disable address bar suggestions
user_pref("toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheets", "true"); // enable custom css
this is the only css i could find that i like since it keeps the window controls as wel
Read the rest
l, although since a recent update, theyre just showing as a white box now but they still works
https://github.com/mbnuqw/sidebery/issues/458#issuecomment-9...
Sidebery's wiki describes[0] a method using a window "title preface" API, then using that preface in CSS selectors.
https://github.com/mbnuqw/sidebery/wiki/Firefox-Styles-Snipp...
In Firefox 118I am using https://github.com/mbnuqw/sidebery for this now.
In Firefox 118Ask HN: Why don’t GitHub readme pages include screenshots?
I frequently come across GitHub projects that don’t include any screenshots and the project will contain UI elements. I’m wondering if there is a reason why so many don’t include screenshots?
For example sidebery[1] didn’t have it. I use it and it’s great but it’s hard to get a sense of what it does Without actually showing a screenshot.
1. https://github.com/mbnuqw/sidebery
2 points · Open discussionSidebery – A Firefox extension for managing tabs and bookmarks in sidebar
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