7 ms·

There has got to be a better solution to this problem than having 1,000 tabs open in a web browser. That sounds like an absolute nightmare.

awalton 9y ago
I don't understand this perspective. It's similar to saying "Surely there's a better solution than having 1000 files on your file system. That sounds like a nightmare." It's not like you're actively monitoring every tab at once, you just have the knowledge ready to go and at a finger's whim. You use extensions like Tab Hunter to jump directly to the tab you care about. Yeah, you could do the same with using a bunch of profiles and bookmarks... but then you need to copy your login cookies and such and it just becomes a mess. I've tried many, many other solutions over the years and simply having a huge number of tabs is the one that continues to Just Work.
- zdkl 9y ago
  > It's similar to saying "Surely there's a better solution than having 1000 files on your file system. That sounds like a nightmare." No, it's similar to saying "Surely there's a better solution than having 1000 radio/tv channels tuned on at once, waiting for you to decide which one is relevant" Like why not open what you need when you need it rather than squirreling all those "maybes"?
  - sillysaurus3 9y ago
    Different people are different. When researching a question without a direct answer, it's more effective for me to open up tabs as I read a page and then search the most likely candidate. Whenever I reach a dead-end I can just switch tabs as opposed to pressing the back button N times. zzalpha's comment sums it up nicely: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14824086 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14824086 I know I'm a power user, but I miss how effective old Chrome was at this.
    - meowface 9y ago
      I'm a chronic tab abuser as well, often with over 100 tabs at once. 1000 tabs still sounds insane to me.
      - TheGrassyKnoll 9y ago
        Well, I'm running 600+ in Firefox for no particular reason. I guess that makes me only 60% insane.
    - julian_1 9y ago
      The same approach works well for forum discussions. One tab representing the forum, and child-tabs to track the comments section. For instance with HN, tabs provide quick navigatable references back to discussions that are relevant to my interest, and that might contain lead-off liks/references after they have fallen off the front-page.
  - mustacheemperor 9y ago
    I'd compare it more to bringing a stack of books to your table at the library. Just because you could notate the name and position of each and fetch them as needed doesn't mean it's not helpful to have them all handy. I've never personally used that many tabs for research, but vetting sources often requires taking a look at a lot of different links for any given subtopic.
    - 123e1daAdfafsdf 9y ago
      Or that you don't know which tabs will be useful until you open them, and your qualification process is multi-pass.
  - rhizome 9y ago
    It's not the same as having 1000 TV channels turned on at once.
  - vacri 9y ago
    No, it's like having 1000 radio/tv channels available at once, which you can tune to any one of in a mere moment.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- fletchowns 9y ago
  Ok let's say you remember seeing something on a tab but couldn't remember which one it was on. How do you even begin to find that tab? With 1000 files on my file system I have any number of ways of searching not only the filenames, but also the contents of the files, visualizations based on size of the files, etc etc. I don't think it's a good comparison.
  - KGIII 9y ago
    Given the limits of human memory, I wonder how many of those 1,000 tabs are duplicates?
  - jamesrcole 9y ago
    So what do you suggest is a better way to find the information, that would end up being less total work for the user? I don't think the person you're replying to was referring so much to implementation details, but rather more to function for the user. What if the browser had better support for finding items that are open in tabs?
huntie 9y ago
I'm not sure that there is. Bookmarks don't work as well because you can't preserve a session as easily. For example, I can just create a new tab group for a project that I want to work on, and then it will stay in the background until I have the resources to work on it. I don't know about other people, but I find it really useful to research a project and then leave it alone for a month or two before working on it. When I do this I often have a better perspective on the project than if I were to just jump in. With my setup, when I return to it my session is just as I left it; making it very easy to get up to speed.
- Sleeep 9y ago
  You can bookmark tab groups (at least in Firefox) that's what I do to save a session.
julian_1 9y ago
With a lhs vertical tree-style tab-manager, I'm at around 100-200 tabs. It works the same as an expandable chapter/section navigation metaphor, except I control the content and nesting.
heydonovan 9y ago
I'm curious, do you not have tons of tabs open? Do you just use a few at a time? A typical day at work will require at least 50+ tabs for each customer that comes in, plus Google/StackOverflow/Slack for whatever I'm researching, not to mention a few SoundCloud/YouTube tabs for music, while browsing Reddit or HackerNews, and then whatever I have racked up to read later. I'm open to another solution though, but can't think of one.
- fletchowns 9y ago
  I typically have 5 - 30 tabs open at work depending on what I'm doing
tormeh 9y ago
A breadth-first search of the web is likely to do that kind of thing. Nothing wrong with it.

awalton 9y ago

I don't understand this perspective. It's similar to saying "Surely there's a better solution than having 1000 files on your file system. That sounds like a nightmare." It's not like you're actively monitoring every tab at once, you just have the knowledge ready to go and at a finger's whim. You use extensions like Tab Hunter to jump directly to the tab you care about. Yeah, you could do the same with using a bunch of profiles and bookmarks... but then you need to copy your login cookies and such and it just becomes a mess. I've tried many, many other solutions over the years and simply having a huge number of tabs is the one that continues to Just Work.

zdkl 9y ago
> It's similar to saying "Surely there's a better solution than having 1000 files on your file system. That sounds like a nightmare." No, it's similar to saying "Surely there's a better solution than having 1000 radio/tv channels tuned on at once, waiting for you to decide which one is relevant" Like why not open what you need when you need it rather than squirreling all those "maybes"?
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  Different people are different. When researching a question without a direct answer, it's more effective for me to open up tabs as I read a page and then search the most likely candidate. Whenever I reach a dead-end I can just switch tabs as opposed to pressing the back button N times. zzalpha's comment sums it up nicely: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14824086 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14824086 I know I'm a power user, but I miss how effective old Chrome was at this.
  - meowface 9y ago
    I'm a chronic tab abuser as well, often with over 100 tabs at once. 1000 tabs still sounds insane to me.
    - TheGrassyKnoll 9y ago
      Well, I'm running 600+ in Firefox for no particular reason. I guess that makes me only 60% insane.
  - julian_1 9y ago
    The same approach works well for forum discussions. One tab representing the forum, and child-tabs to track the comments section. For instance with HN, tabs provide quick navigatable references back to discussions that are relevant to my interest, and that might contain lead-off liks/references after they have fallen off the front-page.
- mustacheemperor 9y ago
  I'd compare it more to bringing a stack of books to your table at the library. Just because you could notate the name and position of each and fetch them as needed doesn't mean it's not helpful to have them all handy. I've never personally used that many tabs for research, but vetting sources often requires taking a look at a lot of different links for any given subtopic.
  - 123e1daAdfafsdf 9y ago
    Or that you don't know which tabs will be useful until you open them, and your qualification process is multi-pass.
- rhizome 9y ago
  It's not the same as having 1000 TV channels turned on at once.
- vacri 9y ago
  No, it's like having 1000 radio/tv channels available at once, which you can tune to any one of in a mere moment.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
fletchowns 9y ago
Ok let's say you remember seeing something on a tab but couldn't remember which one it was on. How do you even begin to find that tab? With 1000 files on my file system I have any number of ways of searching not only the filenames, but also the contents of the files, visualizations based on size of the files, etc etc. I don't think it's a good comparison.
- KGIII 9y ago
  Given the limits of human memory, I wonder how many of those 1,000 tabs are duplicates?
- jamesrcole 9y ago
  So what do you suggest is a better way to find the information, that would end up being less total work for the user? I don't think the person you're replying to was referring so much to implementation details, but rather more to function for the user. What if the browser had better support for finding items that are open in tabs?

huntie 9y ago

I'm not sure that there is. Bookmarks don't work as well because you can't preserve a session as easily. For example, I can just create a new tab group for a project that I want to work on, and then it will stay in the background until I have the resources to work on it. I don't know about other people, but I find it really useful to research a project and then leave it alone for a month or two before working on it. When I do this I often have a better perspective on the project than if I were to just jump in. With my setup, when I return to it my session is just as I left it; making it very easy to get up to speed.

Sleeep 9y ago
You can bookmark tab groups (at least in Firefox) that's what I do to save a session.

julian_1 9y ago

With a lhs vertical tree-style tab-manager, I'm at around 100-200 tabs. It works the same as an expandable chapter/section navigation metaphor, except I control the content and nesting.

heydonovan 9y ago

I'm curious, do you not have tons of tabs open? Do you just use a few at a time? A typical day at work will require at least 50+ tabs for each customer that comes in, plus Google/StackOverflow/Slack for whatever I'm researching, not to mention a few SoundCloud/YouTube tabs for music, while browsing Reddit or HackerNews, and then whatever I have racked up to read later. I'm open to another solution though, but can't think of one.

fletchowns 9y ago
I typically have 5 - 30 tabs open at work depending on what I'm doing

tormeh 9y ago

A breadth-first search of the web is likely to do that kind of thing. Nothing wrong with it.