Firefox for iOS Community Forum

The 'Open Private Browsing' shortcut from the app icon has been broken for years. Long-press on the Firefox icon → "New Private Tab" → it opens a normal tab instead.

Once inside the app, it now takes five taps just to start typing in a private tab:

Open Firefox Tap the tabs icon in the bottom-right Tap the mask/private icon at the top Tap the "+" to open a new private tab Tap one last time on the address bar to actually start typing

Address bar autocomplete doesn't work at all — not even for bookmarks or sites you visit often. You have to type the full URL every single time, including dots, hyphens and the extension. This causes constant typing mistakes.

You also can't open any bookmark directly into a private tab.

Private browsing has become so frustrating that it's basically unusable, and this has been going on for years. Private mode is one of Firefox’s most important features. These basic issues really need to be fixed.

Hi.

I like to switch tabs in the iOS app with some gesture. Is that possible?

The only thing I found in the documentation is that some keybinding exists, but I do not have a keyboard attached to my phone.

I also found some old request and some Reddit posts that swiping the address bar would do the trick. This did not work for me.

I am hoping for something like a three finger swipe anywhere, but have not spent much thought on a perfect UI integration.

I love to learn how to make switching TABs by gesture work.

Thank you for your work! Oliver

Every time I switch to Firefox from another app it opens a new tab instead of returning me to the last used tab. Only happens on iPad, not on iPhone. Cannot find a switch to tune it off. Very tired of deleting all these unnecessary tabs.

How can we get rid of the invasive blue pop-up on iOS? Every time I get a tab I want to close, often ads I'm trying to avoid, I get this big blue banner that takes way too long to go away asking "undo closed tab" and ... I never want to undo but it's so frustrating having to wait for it to go away or switch tabs to get it to close faster. Why are they doing this to us? I'm switching to a different browser just to avoid dealing with it and it won't be safari.

On iPad with Firefox 148.2: I often have multiple tabs open and despite block autoplay settings a tab might start playing something. How do I locate that tab without having to open each tab or get an extension? I have seen in some older help results that there was a speaker icon on the tab that is playing, but mine do not have that.

Open tabs page keeps jumping to older open tabs and not the most recent. The screenshot I attached shows the open tabs page, there are more above this screenshot. This screenshot is the bottom, showing the most recent open tabs. Two versions ago, whenever I opened Firefox it opened two the most recently opened tabs… now with the latest iOS version it opens with an arbitrary old tab forcing me to scroll down to the bottom. Even if I just minimize the window to view another app, when I return to Firefox it jumps back to an old open tab again forcing me to scroll back down to the most recent. Needless to say, this is extremely annoying and I’m reporting it to you in hopes that you will come out with another update and fix the problem as soon as possible. Thank you very much..

Hello,

I hope someone can help me with this little issue.

I’ve downloaded firefox to my ipad and every link I click, it opens in a new tab, instead of staying in the same window. I find it quite confusing. Especially when I had a couple of tabs open already. So everytime I clicked a new link,I didn’t immediately see that I opened another tab, and kept clicking the link (thinking it didn’t work), until I had multiple tabs opened, but they weren’t visible in the tab bar. It’s not very user friendly to me.

Is it possible to prevent a link from opening in a new tab? I’ve looked into the settings, but for the life of me, I’ve not been able to find a solution.

Can someone guide me here?

Thanks in advance,

Best, I

Hallo everybody who wants to help me, A few days ago, YouTube opened a tab in my browser without being asked. How can I stop this? It started with youtube automatically opening the installed app every day. I then uninstalled the app. Since uninstalling it, youtube opens a tab in my firefox every day, which I don't want. Thanks for your support. Erich

I upgraded to 143.2 on iOS 26.0.1, but I cannot access any swipe tab gestures, which I assume means I can just swipe left and right in address bar to move between tabs.

I've been using Firefox for a good few years now, on my computer as well as my mobiles. After the latest update for my IOS (144.1 or 62735) and I've always loved the inactive tab system. I've noticed that some users have not shared my appreciation for it but as it has now been seemingly removed, (and I am unable to find anywhere in settings to toggle it back on) my tabs are now too many to efficiently traverse. Finding a specific tab is almost impossible.

Some of you may say, "Hey Truck, that's a you problem," and you'd be completely right! However since I do keep a lot of tabs on my mobile open and I don't close them down (because I usually go back and use them after the alloted 14 days) this is now an issue for me.

Wall of text aside, is there any chance that I may have overlooked in settings where to turn it on, and if not, could I please ask for that feature? Specifically Firefox IOS.

Many thanks, Truckmaster

I can't find a way to turn it off in settings, but whenever I reopen the window the last tab I was on is open even if I closed it before.

Is there actually a way to turn that off?

Hi! So I have been using the firefox app on my ipad air for a while now and in the last few weeks the following issue has turned up: Regularly, but not always, the app opens a new tab any time I click on a link. Example: I use moodle for work and each time I want to get somewhere in my moodle classes, a new tab opens. When I give the app a fresh start, the issue resolves for a while but returns eventually. I have no idea why but I have to say that it is quite annoying when you have to scrool through tabs all the time. Hopefully, you will be able to help me out. Thank your for taking the time to understand my issue! Sandra

I am using an iPad. How do you stop firefox from opening a new tab when clicking on a link? I want to it to follow the link in the same tab almost always.

Thanks for you help!