So it’s a relatively simple thing in Opera to move tabs to the left or right instead of top or bottom

Here’s a 36 second video showing me moving the tabs from top (default) to left, right, and bottom.

Opera 9.24 (MP4, 1.1mb, 480×360) (or 9mb Quicktime fullscreen version).

Compare that with this two minute video of me searching for, finding, and installing the appropriate Firefox extension, followed by me restarting Firefox, and then the extension just absolutely failing:

Firefox 2.0.0.8 Tabs on Side (MP4, 4mb, 480×360)

(For those of you with bandwidth to burn, checkout the fullsize version Firefox 2.0.0.8 Tabs on Side (Quicktime, 34mb, 1280×800) (note: the two movies are identical in content, it’s just the size which differs).

Note that in both cases I used rooSwitch to create a clean set of preferences for both apps. The Firefox video shows this, the Opera one doesn’t. Some might complain that adds about an extra 30 seconds to the Firefox video. That is true; however, if I just wanted to set the Opera tabs to one side, I could do that in a few seconds rather than trying them all out, as I did in the video.

I used rooSwitch to make sure that Firefox wasn’t being hindered by any other add-on. It was a “virgin” installation.

Result?

Vertigo 0.5 simply doesn’t work. Why? I don’t know.

There’s also Widefox.com which also is supposed to allow you to do this, but I didn’t wade through the seven pages of instructions to make it work.

The next time someone tells you Firefox “with extensions” can do everything Opera does out of the box ask them to show you how to put your tabs on the left or right.

Then when they tell you “Well, with Firefox plus extenions, you can do a lot of things that Opera can’t do” direct them to my experience where Fast Video Download gives me a nice, blank preference’s window.

I’ve tried exactly two extensions, and neither of them have worked. That’s not even getting into the business about conflicting extensions.