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Firefox Power User Keeps 7,400 Browser Tabs Open for 2 Years

pcmag.com

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Re: Firefox Power User Keeps 7,400 Browser Tabs Open for 2 Years

#31

Post by vundercind »

adam_arthur wrote: post #17

Why do people open 100s of tabs when you can easily get back to that page in less than a second in most cases? Seems the clutter and organizational requirement is more of a productivity loss than gain. Never understood this.

Open-new-tab is faster than finding your old tab (… is there one still open?) for enough things that they stack up fast. Add a dose of “I’ll come back to this after the current distraction…” (you don’t) and “I’m not sure the current distraction is actually over, better leave those open” and it quickly becomes a self-reinforcing problem. Eventually you just mass-bookmark all few hundred of ‘em and close them all (that’s what I do anyway)

Re: Firefox Power User Keeps 7,400 Browser Tabs Open for 2 Years

#32

Post by 100721 »

josefresco wrote: post #20
adam_arthur wrote: post #17

Why do people open 100s of tabs when you can easily get back to that page in less than a second in most cases? Seems the clutter and organizational requirement is more of a productivity loss than gain. Never understood this.

I don't understand "tab hoarders" but I also don't understand why Mac users pollute their desktop with a thousand icons either. I guess some people like clean workspaces, and some don't mind clutter.

> Mac users pollute their desktop with a thousand icons

This is a strange generalization to make. I think it's more of a subset of computer users in general, not just Mac users...

Re: Firefox Power User Keeps 7,400 Browser Tabs Open for 2 Years

#33

Post by shock »

gpvos wrote: post #29

I've had 7000 tabs open as well (currently 3700, I backup the session file and start again every half year or so). What I think would be handy would be if tabs would be auto-grouped by domain name, and that I could define domain groups (like work, newspapers, computing sites, youtube, etc.).

You can do that with Sidebery, at least partially.

Re: Firefox Power User Keeps 7,400 Browser Tabs Open for 2 Years

#34

Post by kimixa »

neglesaks wrote: post #24
ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I upgraded from 16gb to 32gb of RAM expressly because of firefox.

And the saying used to be that Chrome was the chief RAM gobbler of most users' PCs. :)

A fully rendered modern webpage is BIG - no matter what engine rendered it.

IIRC both current big engines drop the rendered state in the background under memory pressure, as it's pretty much the only way of dealing with it.

Re: Firefox Power User Keeps 7,400 Browser Tabs Open for 2 Years

#35

Post by fragmede »

jerlam wrote: post #27
lxgr wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you remember which pages you still need to/want to get back to?

Saving 100s of tabs isn't going to work either, unless you can remember the name of the window and then tediously look through the list of open tabs. In that case, just search through your history instead of having the tabs.

Not everyone's memory works the same way, and not everyone's organizational skills are the same. Whereas (it sounds like) you remember a task you're trying to do, and then go do it, and make a new tab and go do the task, for others, coming across the tab itself serves as the reminder about the task, and a call to action to do it. I'll open a tab that I need to do X, forget about X/procrastinate about X, open a tab for Y, and then Z, and then through going to a random tab, get to the tab about X, get reminded about doing X, and then go do it.

Re: Firefox Power User Keeps 7,400 Browser Tabs Open for 2 Years

#36

Post by vundercind »

100721 wrote: post #32
josefresco wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand "tab hoarders" but I also don't understand why Mac users pollute their desktop with a thousand icons either. I guess some people like clean workspaces, and some don't mind clutter.

> Mac users pollute their desktop with a thousand icons This is a strange generalization to make. I think it's more of a subset of computer users in general, not just Mac users...

It happens on Macs I’m sure, but the picture in my head of someone doing this to the extreme is definitely a Windows user.

[edit] for my part, as a Mac user, I couldn’t tell you whether my desktop’s full of icons (probably not?) nor what my background image is (… the default? Which I’m guessing is probably a mountain or a wave or something?) because I see my desktop so rarely, and never pay any attention to it.

Re: Firefox Power User Keeps 7,400 Browser Tabs Open for 2 Years

#37

Post by butz »

wtcactus wrote: post #15

I don’t need 7400, but I do have about 50-100 open in different spaces (personal/work/hobbies). What Firefox lacks for me, is the ability to sync these open tabs to different devices seamlessly. The only browsers that do this well right now are Edge and Arc browser, and this is the reason I abandoned Firefox about 1 year ago.

What is it in particular, that Firefox Sync lacks?

Re: Firefox Power User Keeps 7,400 Browser Tabs Open for 2 Years

#39

Post by _Microft »

"Firefox View", accessible via a pinned-tab-like button at the beginning of the tab strip gives a good way already to manage lots of tabs. It allows to search tab titles from all Firefox windows and gives access to tabs on connected devices and the browsing history.

Re: Firefox Power User Keeps 7,400 Browser Tabs Open for 2 Years

#40

Post by gpvos »

adam_arthur wrote: post #26
lxgr wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you remember which pages you still need to/want to get back to?

I go to the same set of pages all the time, and the browser has it in the search history. So usually only have to type a few characters to navigate to it. Do people often seek out obscure pages without entering from a more common context? e.g. hackernews to any article link

Entering pages from a common but changing context is in fact the main way to get more open tabs. I often scan the main page of HN or my newspaper and right-click the titles that look interesting to open them in the background, then go through those tabs at my leisure, while those pages may drop off those main pages in the meantime (it's a kind of FOMO really). Some of those will then stay open while I get sidetracked doing actually important things. Those pages are usually ephemeric and not meant as a reference, so not good bookmark candidates.
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