[adam_arthur]

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.

[Figs]

I've got a little under 200 tabs open right now in my main browser -- split into ~15 different groups with a plugin. I treat each as a little workspace for a project or subject I'm interested in and flip back and forth as needed. Keeping them open (although not necessarily loaded) is useful for preserving context (e.g. back button history, accounts logged in in the proper container, tabs arranged next to each other in a particular way for spatial memory, etc.) so that jumping back into something later is easy.

[vundercind]

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)

[terribleperson]

If you regularly do the 'bookmark them all in a folder and close them' behavior, you should try Simple Tab Groups.

[vundercind]

I’ve tried tab groups in safari, which seemed like the perfect feature for me, but I always forget to switch before opening new, unrelated tabs.

Bookmark-all-and-close works pretty well since I’ve literally never gone back and looked at the bookmarks in the 15ish years I’ve been using the approach. Groups would solve a different problem (task-specific tabs get mixed together) but add enough friction that I simply don’t use them.

[terribleperson]

It takes a while to build the habit, but I personally have a 'general' group that serves for my regular browsing. If I find I've got a whole bunch of tabs for a topic I'm working on, I create a new group from them. I clear out the general group regularly.

[josefresco]

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.

[100721]

> 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...

[vundercind]

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.

[josefresco]

> the picture in my head

Without first hand experience I would have "imagined" the same, but it's just not the case IRL.

[josefresco]

> This is a strange generalization to make.

I get it, but 100% of Mac users I've helped in my 25 years of professional computing had messy desktops. That's dozens (maybe close to 100) of Mac users. Not scientific, not conclusive, but it's exactly 100% with no exceptions. This includes fellow IT professionals and college acquaintances. The most recent experience being two days ago, where I assisted a Mac user in changing email settings. It's also very common for these Mac users to not understand file/folder structure. I often guide them to download a file/app, and once downloaded they generally have no idea where it went unless its... on their desktop! Same for "open" applications. For PC user's I'd say it's in the 10-20% range, low enough to be unremarkable.

[PebblesHD]

Something sounds a bit off if your IT professionals don’t understand files and folders. In any case, my anecdata in an organisation of over 1000 windows computers and about 400 macs is the windows device owners are generally the ones with icons strewn about the place and displays plugged in set to mirror ‘because it gives them more space’ but I tend to find this is because the windows users are the ‘business’ users whereas the macs are the developers.

[wryoak]

Maybe there’s an important correlation here between needing computer help and having a messy desktop

[m463]

The real answer would be to help address their desire while making it manageable.

I wish I could have virtual desktops or similar, per project. Any application I open for that project would be specific to that desktop.

In other words, my "taxes" tab might have:

- A browser for my bank.

- A browser for my 401k

- email messages regarding taxes

- a notepad for tax notes

- a todo list for tax steps completed and upcoming

This could alleviate the tab problem.

(or it could just explode the problem, I haven't been able to live this dream and it might not be so dreamy)

[ranger_danger]

Windows users have had screens full of icons since at least the 3.x days... and you can easily search google images for tons of Windows 98/XP screenshots from the early 2000s of desktops completely filled to the brim with shortcuts and such.

[Gigachad]

macOS puts screenshots on the desktop and you can’t change it. So it just ends up looking like that no matter what you prefer.

[realfeel78]

It's simple really: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoarding_disorder

[AnonC]

> when you can easily get back to that page in less than a second in most cases?

How? Tabs preserve the navigation history too. Bookmarks don’t. Searching for it doesn’t work when you don’t remember which website it was. Following links from search results and links from those pages (from the search results) to get somewhere that seems like it could help…that’s just one of the ways tabs get accumulated.

[pseudalopex]

You can read a paper about it.[1]

Keeping tabs around as a reminder to work on them or keep track of progress

Keeping frequently used tabs for quick access; has a diminishing return

Avoid closing tabs in fear of missing out on valuable information

The hopes to process more info than capable; while aware of the situation

Memory and mental model; Organize tasks with windows, desktops, browsers

Difficulties in judging the current and potential relevance of tabs in the future

[1] https://joe.cat/CHI-browser-tabs/

[sublinear]

My work machine usually has 5 to 7 workspaces open at a time each with 2 or 3 browser windows that each have anywhere from 3 to a dozen tabs open.

I visit every single tab multiple times a day and closing them out makes no sense. I need multiple windows for Jira, dev environment, testing, production, misc corporate intranet sites, servicenow, etc.

All of them have information updating live continuously. Why would I close them?

It's not even 100 tabs, but it's definitely a lot.

[marbletiles]

Because often you can’t easily get back “in less than a second” as a tab is the culmination of a large stack of combined thought+browsing.

I keep it open because I can more conveniently context-switch back to it when I need to, rather than attempt to retract my steps from a search query all over again.

An open tab is state in suspension - it’s sleep mode. A bookmark is hibernation.

[gpvos]

They just stay open. Going back and deciding which ones to close is a hassle.

[artdigital]

Why not one than 72h = auto close?

Maybe add to reading list, close the tab and let it sit in there

[colpabar]

He doesn't care, and he won't change his ways. And that's perfectly okay!

I'm assuming you are someone who closes tabs sometimes. I am too. What you have to accept is that we are the weird ones. A browser is a tool and just opening new tabs for everything is the easiest way to use it. There is very little downside, because there is no need to ever touch an old tab if you can just open a new one. There is no limit on how many you can have open other than what your machine can handle, and even if the browser crashes, nothing is really lost, because you just... open a new tab.

Just accept it. It's hard, seeing a million tabs open really bugs me too, but you're not going to change anyone's mind on the subject.

[gpvos]

I do close a tab when I've finished reading it, or otherwise don't need it anymore.

[gpvos]

Some tabs I just want to keep open indefinitely, so I'd like an option for that (maybe automatically, based on a self-defined list of domain names). But with some kind of archiving or reading list and a fully user-configurable deadline, that might work. (I'd put it the time limit at two weeks initially since I really don't mind having a few hundred tabs open, it's only after that that it starts to trouble me a bit and I lose oversight.)

[Glyptodon]

To me tabs are like a queue of things I plan to review or consume. Does a link look interesting? Open it in a new tab, then I'll look at after I finish with the current one.

[lxgr]

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

[jerlam]

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.

[fragmede]

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.

[xboxnolifes]

Sure It can. For example, If I'm looking for a certain stackoverflow post about a project I'm working on, I know it's be on the window with the other resources for that project, and I can remember that it's roughly on the middle right portion of that group of tabs. That narrows it down to <10 tabs to quickly check.

If I use my browser history, I'm going to have to re-filter out all of the webpages I deemed inadequate. If the tab was left open, I know it was at least somewhat useful.

[asadotzler]

Firefox switch to tab, my friend. You open a new tab, start typing the title of the page or the address of the site and it shows up in autocomplete with a switch to tab indicator and when selected it moves you to that tab instead of opening a copy.

[lxgr]

An activity log and a to-do list are two very different things. Most of the things in my history I don't want to come back to.

[mr_mitm]

Isn't that a good use case for the bookmark function?

To answer the actual question: I don't. Either I read it immediately or will never get back to it. There is always enough fresh content. I don't need another backlog.

And let's be honest, if you have a backlog of 7400 pages, neither do you.

[fragmede]

At 7400, that backlog of articles is clearly aspirational, but there's some place where I do want to read about a topic, but only when I'm in the right mood, and I'm not in the mood to read about that topic right now, usually at the start of the day I'm in a more productive mood and by the end I'm not, and so there are different topics to read about at different times of day.

[lxgr]

It's not, to me.

My bookmark list is huge and basically acts as (part of) a knowledge base. Conversely, open tabs are something of a hybrid between a "read this later" and to-do list.

I'm sure there are many other styles of organizing tasks/knowledge, and I would be a bit careful about discrediting what apparently works for other people.

There's borderline cases of working against UI paradigms like using the trash as a folder to store important documents, but I'd argue that this one isn't one of them.

[adam_arthur]

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

[gpvos]

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.

[lxgr]

> I go to the same set of pages all the time

Maybe this could be a clue as to what's happening: What if other people have different use cases and needs?

Even between work and personal browsing I use my browsers quite differently. At work, tabs are more of a to-do list (things I need to review/sign off etc.); for personal, tabs are a largely a reading list.

I'd never just remember all things people want me to take a look at and type them in the search history, so tabs solve that nicely for me.

[b112]

I agree. Me, I'm into furry porn, but where they're shaved so you can't tell they're furries.

That's really hard to Google, so I keep those tabs open!

[iamthirsty]

Bookmarks. Reading lists. Notes.

[lxgr]

Way too much overhead for many of the things I use tabs for.

Frequently, the time it takes me to action whatever I have a tab open for takes as long as adding it to, reloading it from, and marking it off of a to-do list.

[em-bee]

the primary difference between bookmarks and tabs is that bookmarks are static and tabs are dynamic. the best example is tracking a webcomic. the tab will stay open on the page where i stopped reading. it then allows me to go back and resume reading. when i follow links to the next pages, then the tab will be updated.

if i were to use a bookmark, then every time i'd advance a few pages in the comic, i'd have to delete the old bookmark and create a new one.

it is quite ironic that a browser feature called bookmark does not actually function like a physical bookmark for printed books.