Before switching to Firefox, I previously used Internet Explorer, which had no tabs support. In an era of frequent pop-ups, your desktop ended being a mess.
It was annoying, but that is what I was used to. Then Firefox came and allowed to have all your browsing in the same window, without polluting the taskbar.
In my case, I clearly remember that tabs were the reason to switch into Firefox.
I had similar reasons with one more anecdote: my first internet access was through a Nokia 2G phone and I « dialed » to connect in Windows XP. Thank you Nokia PC Suite (which I could only get from the Byte magazine CDs and DVDs).
But boy, IE6 was painful! And i needed tabs to open pages and do something else while I wait for pages to load. That made me switch to Firefox after Opera. It wasn’t that long ago, I think 2007 sorts?
In my job now, I still try to make sure people can access my pages with as little resources as needed.
> Internet Explorer, which had no tabs support. In an era of frequent pop-ups, your desktop ended being a mess.
This is how I remember it: Firefox didn't block popups on its own, but they were constrained to another tab instead of a new window, which alone was a huge bonus.
It was annoying, but that is what I was used to. Then Firefox came and allowed to have all your browsing in the same window, without polluting the taskbar.
In my case, I clearly remember that tabs were the reason to switch into Firefox.