First off, if you’re not using Firefox, get it. Right now. I’m serious. I use tabs all the time. In fact I typically have between 6-10 tabs open all the time. Why? Well, why not? Firefox has a very useful and easy to use system to open and control the tabs in your browser window. The biggest tool, is your middle mouse button.

Typically any mouse with a scroll wheel (at this point just about all of them) has a middle mouse button. To use it, just click the scroll wheel like you would a regular button. In Firefox, this will activate a circular icon on your screen allowing you to scroll using the position of the mouse. Click with that button on a link, however, and that link will open as a new tab.

Now that you have tons of tabs open, there’s an easy way to close them, too. Use the middle mouse button to click on a tab you want closed. Presto, it’s gone. The middle mouse button makes opening and closing these tabs that much easier.

I use this all the time to keep pages open for future browsing. For example, lets say you’re browsing your favorite site (Samanathon.com, I’m sure) and you wanted to read an article. Well, rather than clicking on it like you normally would, middle-mouse click on it and open it in a tab. Now when you’re done reading it, you can close it, and be right back to your favorite page, without the need of the “Back” button.

Also now that you’ve opened 20 or so tabs, you’ll notice you can’t see them all at once. They’ll start to scroll off the screen when you’ve opened too many. Now there’s the two arrows on the side that will let you browse them, but I’m lazy, and that sounds slow. Instead, you can use the scroll wheel on your mouse to quickly scroll side to side and view all the tabs you’ve opened.

Want more? Lets say you have several webpages that you always visit, and you’d like them to open with Firefox. I know what you’re thinking “I can only set one homepage.” Well, you’d be wrong. In Firefox, you can set multiple homepages using “|”. So to add homepages, go to Tools->Options->Main and type in something like this “samanathon.com|www.google.com” (no quotes though). Now when you open Firefox, or use your home button, both of these pages will open in their own tabs.

I’ve probably missed a couple uses of the middle mouse buttons…or tabs…but that’s defiantly a good starter for anyone who’s ever wondered “How’d they do that…?”

Edit: Jon Lee pointed out, if you’re using a laptop, or a mouse without the scroll-wheel/middle mouse button, you can hold down “Ctrl” and it should mimic the middle-mouse button.  It may not do everything, but it should be a close approximation.