What is going on with a Side View extension?

[sdaau]

I am looking for a "split view" extension in Firefox, which would allow me to divide the Firefox window in two horizontal parts/panes, and show one tab's content in left pane, and other tab's content in right pane.

So, I found How can I view two tabs side-by-side? : where the accepted answer is:

I found the official video here: https://mzl.la/3e6VIBn

That shortened link for me resolves to https://blog.mozilla.org/en/uncategorized/its-a-new-firefox-multi-tasking-extension-side-view/ "It’s A New Firefox Multi-tasking Extension: Side View" from 2018, where there is a Youtube video posted, called "Side view: a brand new extension by Firefox" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-qSWqRdCPk ; anyways, the blog page says:

So try Side View by Firefox today

That link is https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments/side-view , and when I click it, I get redirected to https://fpn.firefox.com/ which for me says:

The Firefox Private Network browser extension is in beta release and currently available to US desktop users only.

Oh, wow - I would have expected this from Microsoft, Google, and other greedy corpos - but wasn't Firefox all about free and open access to the web? At least that is why I have bothered over the years to contribute, at least in asking questions on forums ... What is this "US only" now? I guess no government ever will allow something like "free and open" access to the Internet, regardless of our lofty ideals 🙂

Then again, I do not want "Firefox Private Network", I want "Side view" ... So I looked further, and I found this Reddit thread: "Is it possible to access Firefox Side view or equivalent?" https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/azukmz/is_it_possible_to_access_firefox_side_view_or/ :

So I started looking and found Side view and got super excited. But now I see it's part of the firefox test pilot which is no longer accessible. Can any one help? Is there an equivalent extension availble? I can't seem to find anything [...]

Looks like it was spun off into a separate extension:
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/side-view/

Except, it does NOT look like the same extension as the one on the blog page/youtube video; this extension says explicitly "Open a mobile view of a page in the sidebar" and screenshots show a context menu entry called "Open link in sidebar"; while the video of the "original" blog page/youtube shows a separate add-on icon that lists tabs, and the screen split seemingly does not involve "sidebar".

So, what is the status on this? Is the "original" Mozilla split view extension available anywhere - or is the current "open in sidebar" split view extension the only one remaining?

Or is this the issue - found a bit later on in the reddit thread:

it seems that Firefox updated the extension api which doesn't allow multiple tabs in the same browser window

It has never existed though.

Oh well ... Anyways, does anyone have the status on Side View extension?

[jscher2000]

"Test Pilot" is or was a program to try out highly experimental add-ons. In this case, the add-on eventually made its way to the normal Add-ons site but the old article link was not updated:

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/side-view/

It looks as though the add-on hasn't received any updates since September 2018, so there could be some functional issues if it is no longer fully compatible with Firefox after 4 1/2 years of changes.

Edit: I didn't watch the video, but in the screenshots on the add-ons site page, it shows you can request the desktop version of a page in the sidebar.

Edit #2: The development history for the add-on appears to be available on Github at https://github.com/mozilla/side-view. I don't see a lot of action on Issues filed since 2019. In one bug report, a user reported that they switched to: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/open-link-in-sidebar/