[Bug] Pressing the "Tabs" button, then pressing back closes the app

[buttercookie42]

Steps to reproduce

1. Open a tab.
2. Press the tabs counter.
3. Press back.

Expected behavior

I return to the currently selected tab (as happens e.g. in Fennec and in Chrome).

Actual behavior

The app goes into the background (though thankfully at least it remains in memory).

Device information

• Android device: Moto G4 Play
• Fenix version: 1.0.1920 (#11341807)

┆Issue is synchronized with this Jira Task

[ekager]

This is intentional - see history in #1012

[yoasif]

I have been burned by this many times -- it feels totally intuitive.

My thought process here is:

1. I want to switch to another tab
2. I tap the tab switcher
3. I decide against it
4. I tap back.

I then end up basically exiting the app, and I have to hunt for my tab after opening the app again.

It'd be one thing if #1827 was implemented - at least that way, the user has an easy way back to the tab that they were originally on. Today, the user has to scroll through a list of tabs to find the one they were on.

Would appreciate ux-feedback on this use case.

[buttercookie42]

Even if the nice diagram in #1012 (comment) declares the home/tabs view to be the "root" of the app, in practice I (and probably everybody else, too?) will spend the vast majority of time actually browsing in a tab, which is why I think that the latter feels more naturally as the root/main view of the app.

[djc]

Coming from Fennec, I also found this deeply counterintuitive.

I checked out the comment from #1012 but the model there really doesn't match my expectations. To me, the primary activity in a browser is a content view of a tab. The tab switcher feels like a "modal" dialog that helps me navigate between tabs (which are essentially a horizontal space).

[vesta0]

Closing this as it works as intended but based on the great feedback we are going to user test it and re-evaluate.

[djc]

@vesta0 thanks for reconsidering! Would still be nice to keep this open (or open a new feature issue) so interested folks can get feedback after your re-evaluation?

[Poopooracoocoo]

aww :( so sad that this is intentional. Using Fenix just feels harder than Fennec or a Chromium based browser

[Poopooracoocoo]

This is still so annoying. It just doesn't feel right.