It use to be that I didn't care for tabs either because I'm use to using the alt-tab buttons to switch between windows. However you can do the same with tabs only use crtl-tab to switch between your tabs. Here are some Firefox shortcuts...
Ctrl+T Open a new tab
Ctrl+W Close the current window or tab
Ctrl+Shift+T Undo close tab (re-open the last closed tab)
Ctrl+Tab Switch to the next tab
Ctrl+Shift+Tab Switch to the previous tab
Ctrl+[0-9] Switch to the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. tab
/ Open the "Find Text As You Type" widget (bottom of screen)
' Open the "Find Links As You Type" widget (bottom of screen)
Ctrl+G Find the next occurrence of a search phrase
Ctrl+Shift+G Find the previous occurrence of a search phrase
Ctrl+K Move cursor to the Web Search widget (top right of screen)
Crtl+F Activates the find option (F3 will go to next find)
Alt+D To bring you to the address bar