201–210 of 263 posts
Why can’t our browsers just act like 2nd brains, remember it all, and have killer search to find and/or resurface it?
One challenge is paywalls with temp access. Just because I can read an entire article today at a URL, that doesn’t mean I’ll be able to if I revisit that URL. “This is your last free article!”
Isn't this tab fatigue of every user not more a hint that bookmarking is broken? I mean, no matter how I bookmark a website, omnibar is absolutely useless in every browser when it comes to re-discovering your bookmarks via keywords that you remember. Sometimes I bookmark the same URL multiple times, because the Browser is too stupid to realize that a #generated-hashbang or a ?utm_source is a generated tracking parame…
Random aside: I want to be able to put the same bookmark in multiple folders!
When I've read the page, I don't need the bookmark anymore.
This is the #1 reason why I have > 60,000 bookmarks. I'd bet that 99% of them are obsolete, or I eventually read them. But it's kind of a monumental task to actually curate them.
I'll explain ...
I never understood why folks would have 100+ tabs. Then I joined a company which uses Google Workplace (Apps) for collaboration. Immediately, I had 2 dozen tabs open because those tabs represented files I was working on; where previously, those were discrete Excel, PowerPoint, Word documents - but where all now "tabs" open in my browser since I didn't use discrete document apps anymore due to Google Docs all being on the web.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeh they have this feature built into chrome. I liked it, in fact I liked it so much that I kept using it, and once again it became an unmanagable mess that I would avoid for things that are actually want to read later. Over time, this would become for things I kind of want to read later. At this point, I don't even remember the last time I used it. Tabs work because whenever you are using the browser, they're always…
As someone with 100+ tabs open as well, I'm not sure that all really holds up. I am actually in the process of moving towards bookmarks with my browsing habits and having FFs sidebar alwas open and just there helps a lot with the "always in front of you" aspect - especially considering that chrome only shows you the first X tabs and completely hides the rest while FF needs you to scroll to see them all. Plus folders…
1. The bookmarks pane makes obfuscation too easy. Most of us who fall into this trap do so because of the collectors fallacy. Tabs force us to choose between keeping everything we see versus seeing what we need to see. Bookmarks can be infinitely filed away into neat folders which hide the complexity, so instead of deleting you tend to file something away. The immediate effect is the same as closing a tab, you can see more clearly what you want to see, but long term your bookmark system becomes unmanagable, and slowly your tab count begins to increase again, as your brain says "no seriously I want to read this later, dont put it in there with the rest of the fluff".
I know this because even after I gave up on bookmarks it continued to haunt me, after chrome introduced tab groups. They have the same effect, they hide the complexity behind folders that after a while are so clogged up that they're useless, and you go back to old patterns.
2. The reason why tabs work effectively as a kind of todo list is because tabs are how you navigate the browser anyway. Though bookmarks have been included feature of browsers for a very long time, their not required. What I'm trying to say is, you obviously wont be replacing the entire concept of tabs with bookmarks, you still need to use tabs, even if (and I'd say this is a massive if) you only ever have 1 tab open. Which then means you'll be managing 2 systems for multitasking, one of which is significantly easier than the other.
As for pruning being faster with bookmarks, I'd disagree. I do use a suspender, but I usually dont even need to click the tab (if I do, I have it set so going to the tab doesn't auto-unsuspend it, it shows me the title and the suspension screen). I just see the favicon and the first 5-10 letters and can take a good enough guess what it is, and then middle click it from the tab Im currently on and its gone. I never have 100+ tabs open on one window, I tend to split them out (currenly I have 3 windows, each with a varying number of tabs, generally for context switching).
But, maybe things will end better for you, and I genuinely hope they do, but for me, its become a part of my life I've decided not to optimise and instead just embrace the chaos if it feels right :)
"I am widely admired at work for my ability to have many, many browser tabs open. (That, at least, is what I take from the frequent shouts of "holy cow, man, look at your browser!" You might consider that maybe they're very politely saying "Man, that's insane". Would you leave 150 books open on one table, or maybe use bookmarks instead? I guess the table might work, but it seems like lots of clutter. Everyone's milea…
I long for a browser optimized for research. Tab management would be an essential part of what I have in mind. It would offer a management view, where each window is a column with a list of all open tabs. I can select the tabs I want, move them around, group them into a new window, and (this is the key) save them. This would prompt me for a title, and would produce an ordinary Markdown text file with the title as an…
You can then right click on the folder in your bookmarks and choose "Open all Bookmarks" (which will use the current window).
I think Chrome has similar capability, but I haven't played around with it.
An annotated document of bookmarks would be next-level, though.
I am very much the opposite! I close my entire browser at least once per day - every tab closed. I have about 10 sites in my bookmarks toolbar - which are basically the key sites I use for work, and that's it. If I have too many tabs open, I lose context. Ditto with terminals - they ALL get shut down multiple times per day. Reset to zero, spin up state, do task, reset back to zero. I treat it like a commercial kitche…
Isn't this tab fatigue of every user not more a hint that bookmarking is broken? I mean, no matter how I bookmark a website, omnibar is absolutely useless in every browser when it comes to re-discovering your bookmarks via keywords that you remember. Sometimes I bookmark the same URL multiple times, because the Browser is too stupid to realize that a #generated-hashbang or a ?utm_source is a generated tracking parame…
Bonus: I'm no longer tethered to any particular browser's sync ecosystem. BitWarden has my passwords and xBrowserSync has my bookmarks. I can browser hop on all my devices!
Double bonus: Open source and you can self-host.
How much of this tab proliferation is a function of Google Docs? I'll explain ... I never understood why folks would have 100+ tabs. Then I joined a company which uses Google Workplace (Apps) for collaboration. Immediately, I had 2 dozen tabs open because those tabs represented files I was working on; where previously, those were discrete Excel, PowerPoint, Word documents - but where all now "tabs" open in my browser…