Reviews for Back to Close WE
Back to Close WE by Jas
Review by Firefox user 10936178
Rated 4 out of 5
by Firefox user 10936178, 7 years agoThis is a very useful add-on. I don't know why this functionality isn't built into Firefox for Desktop automatically (it is effectively on mobile).
Doesn't work on new tabs opened from the bookmark bar.
Edit: Firefox just updated, and now it's working fine.
The regular back button is illuminated. I prefer the way Back IS Close (not compatible with recent Firefox versions) replaces the back button with a close icon instead. I have no idea if such a features is still possible to implement.
Edit: It's unfortunate that this is impossible in web extensions. I'm not sure what the best substitute would be. Likely I will get used to it.
Doesn't work on new tabs opened from the bookmark bar.
Edit: Firefox just updated, and now it's working fine.
The regular back button is illuminated. I prefer the way Back IS Close (not compatible with recent Firefox versions) replaces the back button with a close icon instead. I have no idea if such a features is still possible to implement.
Edit: It's unfortunate that this is impossible in web extensions. I'm not sure what the best substitute would be. Likely I will get used to it.
Developer response
posted 7 years agoGlad you like the addon :)
How are you opening tabs from the the bookmark bar? If I right click on a link on it (or in a folder on it) and then select "Open in a New Tab", it correctly opens a new tab with the proper back button functionality. Are you doing something different? If so I'd love to hear so I can make it work with that too (contact info in addon description).
Unfortunately it's not possible for a web extension to replace the icon of the back button. The only alternative would be to provide a button with the desired functionality. I would be happy to implement this if you'd like - however it has 2 pretty major downsides:
1) Would only work with the compact layout as web extensions can't make big fancy buttons like the native back button
2) It seems to be impossible to remove the browsers default back button without using advanced (and requiring manual work by the user) to remove the browsers native back button - so you'd end up having multiple back buttons :/
How are you opening tabs from the the bookmark bar? If I right click on a link on it (or in a folder on it) and then select "Open in a New Tab", it correctly opens a new tab with the proper back button functionality. Are you doing something different? If so I'd love to hear so I can make it work with that too (contact info in addon description).
Unfortunately it's not possible for a web extension to replace the icon of the back button. The only alternative would be to provide a button with the desired functionality. I would be happy to implement this if you'd like - however it has 2 pretty major downsides:
1) Would only work with the compact layout as web extensions can't make big fancy buttons like the native back button
2) It seems to be impossible to remove the browsers default back button without using advanced (and requiring manual work by the user) to remove the browsers native back button - so you'd end up having multiple back buttons :/
36 reviews
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 12432924, a year agoHello. I have used this addon for 6 years now apparently. Unfortunately the addon no long works on Firefox 118. The addon hasn't been updated since 2018 so that probably explains it.
Are there any hopes of getting an update on this addon? - Rated 5 out of 5by Ibraim, 2 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Wolfticket, 2 years agoOddly I don't actually use this on desktop, but I found it largely works on Firefox Android too (with beta and a custom add-on collection).
There it's a game changer because allowing tabs to build up in the background just relying on auto-close isn't the way I work.
Without this that's pretty much what happens unless you manually clean up each time. - Rated 5 out of 5by K8, 2 years agoLove this extension!
It would be great if can prevent some webpage's deceptive behavior that inserts history and ruin Back to Close function. - Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 13326079, 2 years ago
- Rated 4 out of 5by Celeri, 3 years agoThis extension is definitely useful, thanks for creating it!
The only thing that bothers me is that it seems to work only on tabs that are spontaneously created by the page you are surfing on, but not on tabs you create yourself (either by the contextual menu or by Cmd-clicking on a link).
If it was possible to enable this add-on in this case also, it would be awesome! - Rated 5 out of 5by emvaized, 3 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Nenco, 3 years agoNice addon. One of my daily drivers.
I have a small idea. Sometimes I close a Tab acidentially and have to use the hotkey to reopen the last closed tab. Could you make it so that when there is no forward history that I can reopen the last closed tab when pressing forward button? - Rated 5 out of 5by Valstop, 4 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by IqhaweBayani, 4 years agoOH YES! Yes yes yeeeeeeees. I was desperatly looking for this for some time now. Oh my god Jas, you're my hero my saviour. YES. This is such an improvement to my quality of life. Since I found out Safari had this it was bugging me everytime I had to conciously close another tab. This is such a lifesaver. Makes my daily life much more enjoyable. Less overhead means more brainpower for more important tasks. Many thanks!
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 13479367, 4 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Kai A. Stensson, 4 years agoThis addon is what is stopping me from even trying other browsers.. I got the Back button set to my thumb mouse button, and I can't live without this feature..
I can open and close tabs fast and easy.. If I would have to move my mouse up and down to hit the damn X for every window, I'd get Carpal Tunnel Syndrom one day. lol.
There have been several addons ove the years. Firefox has gone out of their way to try to remove this feature for some reason..
But I thank the author for being the last on a long line of developers keeping the back to close feature alive.
Firefox is dead to me if they kill this addon also. - Rated 5 out of 5by John Whitley, 5 years agoThis extension brings a great feature to Firefox that's been in mobile Safari for some time now: the ability to use the "Back" button (or shortcut key) to close the current tab and return to the tab it was originally opened from. This works for "newly opened tabs" like the description says, and also when at the beginning of a tab's history. Like browser tabs themselves, once you've used this feature, it's hard to go back to a time without it.
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 15241723, 5 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Garth, 6 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by cs16cs1, 6 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 12537813, 6 years ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by sdschramm, 7 years agoAt first I gave it 3 stars because it only seemed to work half of the time. Now I am dropping it to 1 star because not only does it still not work most of the time, but it started freezing up Firefox. I only have 12 tabs (plus 7 pinned/app tabs) open and a yellow bar appears on the screen saying "A script in the extension "Back to Close WE" is causing Firefox to slow down." It then gave the options to temporally disable the extension on the current page, stop it, or wait. Instead I chose to remove the add-on entirely. I'm not sure if there is any other way I can accomplish this feature, but its not worth bogging down my entire browser.
Developer response
posted 6 years agoThis sounds very odd. Nothing in the scrips should have the ability to hog down your browser. My suspicion is that there might be something else going on. - Rated 5 out of 5by zenith, 7 years ago
- Rated 4 out of 5by Firefox user 13935000, 7 years agoI really like this extension but is there a way to stop the notification of it being installed every time FF updates?
Developer response
posted 6 years agoThe notification has been completely removed as of version 0.7.0 :D - Rated 4 out of 5by Firefox user 13209251, 7 years agoReally handy addon. I've removed one star because there are some known minor issues but it's still an recommendation.