Vertical vs Horizontal Browser Tabs

It’s exciting to see innovation in the desktop browser space. Tech podcasts frequently discuss new entrants which force the debate on innovation and features such as vertical tab layouts.

For me, vertical tabs are the only option. At work, I often have more than seven tabs open. Using the default horizontal tab layout, space for the tab name shrinks to an unusable character count, leaving only favicons to identify the tabs. Favicons alone aren’t enough because I could have 4 tabs from the same web app open.

I’ve begrudgingly used Microsoft Edge for years because it was one of the first to embrace robust vertical tabs natively. Now, I'm using Arc, which not only embraces vertical tabs as the default, but posits all browser UI should reside in the sidebar.

Most webpages don’t need the full viewport width, but if they do, it’s easy to hide the side bar and focus on the content. Arc takes this concept even further with a presentation mode, which is really handy for sharing or reading without any app chrome.

Arc is also better designed and more thoughtful than any other browser I’ve tried.