I have used a decent number of browsers over the years since I first fired up Mosaic, and I believe Chrome is my all-time favorite. I have liked its wacky tabbed interface, fast javascript, and separate tab processes (back when that was something special) since it first launched back in 2008. I have appreciated its easy extension API since I began using it a couple years back. It has been my primary browser ever since a javascript-whitelisting plugin was available for it.

But there is one thing wrong with it: I can’t remove the X button from the tabs.

I NEVER intentionally close a tab by clicking the X button. I generally press Ctrl-W, and if I want to use the mouse, middle-clicking the tab presents a much bigger target. The X button brings me only pain and suffering.

Yes, I can Ctrl-Shift-T to reopen a tab, but that doesn’t always bring back the current state of the tab (and it certainly doesn’t take away the annoyance of having closed it). Yes, I can pin tabs, but I’m not going to misuse that feature and wipe out the text labels on all my tabs just to make up for their bad design choice.

It will apparently never be fixed, as the Chromium bug report was closed WontFix years ago.

• 2014-12-09: I accidentally closed a tab. Ctrl-Shift-T.
• 2014-12-13: Same thing. Once again, easily remedied.
• 2015-08-02: Again. (I had forgotten about logging it here for a long time, but it’s still just as annoying and stupid.)
• 2016-01-22: Middle-clicked to open a new tab. Clicked to activate it. Closed it. Got annoyed.