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You're probably more of a project finisher than a project starter Many of my open tabs are write-ups of topics that I hope to learn about some day, but I have

You're probably more of a project finisher than a project starter Many of my open tabs are write-ups of topics that I hope to learn about some day, but I have not returned to in years since opening (cumulatively 1000+)

krallja 4y ago
I have those too. They’re called Bookmarks. Some of them are decades old. I don’t leave them in RAM.
- throwaway821909 4y ago
  It means (for those of us who can't let go easily) going through every tab, opening all the interesting pages it links to, bookmarking them, preferably with screenshots, downloading any videos, etc. I'd rather they weren't in RAM but there's no easy way to move them to disk (automatically would be ideal)
- antonymy 4y ago
  Ditto. I have no idea why bookmarks are so hard for some people to use. RAM is far more limited than regular storage, and bookmarks are minuscule in size compared to browser tabs. This "problem" was solved decades ago and yet I still see tab-hoarders everywhere.
  - SAI_Peregrinus 4y ago
    Bookmarks don't store history or context (for Tree-style tab users, what tab was <this> opened from?). Tabs do. Bookmarks solve only half the problem, tabs solve more.
    - piva00 4y ago
      I use a mix of leaving multiple windows with 1-20 tabs in each and Toby to organise them after a while. My "workflow" usually consists of: open new window for the topic/theme (whatever it may be, research, study, reading news) and go opening tabs, searches, articles. When I get to a point where a window hasn't been active for a few days I close the useless/uninteresting tabs and save the rest as a collection in Toby. It's been extremely helpful to manage my fear of missing knowledge or closing something I could get interested, the curation after a few days really helps.
  - hammyhavoc 4y ago
    Well-written modern browsers suspend tabs. Barely uses any RAM.
  - BeFlatXIII 4y ago
    Bookmarks are buried in a toolbar and may as well be deleted. Tabs visually remind you of their presence.
- ASalazarMX 4y ago
  To be fair, Firefox starts up quickly even with hundreds of tabs saved, because only the pinned and current tabs are loaded on start. I used to think it was awesome how it kept memory use efficient by leaving unused tabs unloaded, but it has gotten too good. I use Sidebery to classify my dozens of dormant tabs, but the net weekly balance is a few tabs positive because I've become less selective with this power.
- hammyhavoc 4y ago
  They aren't in RAM in a decent browser. Mine are written to disk, possible to use session after session, and they are also suspended, thus aren't using resources.
- brokenmachine 4y ago
  You can search tabs in Firefox by typing % in the url bar. My PC has 64Gb of RAM. Why should I ever have to close a tab if I'm not ready to?
- bodge5000 4y ago
  The problem with bookmarks, for a lot of us anyway, is that they're very much "out of sight, out of mind". You bookmark something, and never come back to it. Its probably the same case if you have thousands of tabs and mechanisms to hide them, but maybe 30 tabs or so spread across a few windows gets crowded, your forced to prune them regularly, either by doing the thing you had the tab open for or deciding its not worth your time right now. I wish there was something better, but I've never found it.
- dublin 4y ago
  Tabs are not in RAM in Firefox - they don't get loaded until you click into them, so you can effectively have a nearly unlimited number of tabs open. (My primary browsing PC has only 8 GB of RAM, but handles thousands of tabs with ease.) As I said above, this is how I work, and it's not negotiable. If it bothers you to have that many tabs open, then fine, kill off your tabs. That's fine with me. And my way should be fine with you. (You're probably one of those persnickety inbox zero people, too :-), aren't you?) (My Inbox has 38K unread messages, and I reset them at the start of the year. That's after the many thousands that Google already threw away. It's just not worth the effort to throw away all that stuff one message at a time...) BTW, I have probably 100K bookmarks, but have no good way to merge multiple old bookmarks files and convert them to the new format, so unlike the tabs, the bookmarks are now useless. I stopped using bookmarks in favor of tabs years ago now. Now let's talk about power tools for handling large numbers of tabs!
ako 4y ago
I collect these in pocket.
- mackrevinack 4y ago
  personally i have found that pocket is like a black hole for articles. ive saved so many over the years but only end up reading .01% of them
- dublin 4y ago
  Correction: You have chosen to give Pocket your most personal data. No thanks.
  - ako 4y ago
    Online bookmark services are quite common, and not very personal.

krallja 4y ago

I have those too. They’re called Bookmarks. Some of them are decades old. I don’t leave them in RAM.

throwaway821909 4y ago
It means (for those of us who can't let go easily) going through every tab, opening all the interesting pages it links to, bookmarking them, preferably with screenshots, downloading any videos, etc. I'd rather they weren't in RAM but there's no easy way to move them to disk (automatically would be ideal)
antonymy 4y ago
Ditto. I have no idea why bookmarks are so hard for some people to use. RAM is far more limited than regular storage, and bookmarks are minuscule in size compared to browser tabs. This "problem" was solved decades ago and yet I still see tab-hoarders everywhere.
- SAI_Peregrinus 4y ago
  Bookmarks don't store history or context (for Tree-style tab users, what tab was <this> opened from?). Tabs do. Bookmarks solve only half the problem, tabs solve more.
  - piva00 4y ago
    I use a mix of leaving multiple windows with 1-20 tabs in each and Toby to organise them after a while. My "workflow" usually consists of: open new window for the topic/theme (whatever it may be, research, study, reading news) and go opening tabs, searches, articles. When I get to a point where a window hasn't been active for a few days I close the useless/uninteresting tabs and save the rest as a collection in Toby. It's been extremely helpful to manage my fear of missing knowledge or closing something I could get interested, the curation after a few days really helps.
- hammyhavoc 4y ago
  Well-written modern browsers suspend tabs. Barely uses any RAM.
- BeFlatXIII 4y ago
  Bookmarks are buried in a toolbar and may as well be deleted. Tabs visually remind you of their presence.
ASalazarMX 4y ago
To be fair, Firefox starts up quickly even with hundreds of tabs saved, because only the pinned and current tabs are loaded on start. I used to think it was awesome how it kept memory use efficient by leaving unused tabs unloaded, but it has gotten too good. I use Sidebery to classify my dozens of dormant tabs, but the net weekly balance is a few tabs positive because I've become less selective with this power.
hammyhavoc 4y ago
They aren't in RAM in a decent browser. Mine are written to disk, possible to use session after session, and they are also suspended, thus aren't using resources.
brokenmachine 4y ago
You can search tabs in Firefox by typing % in the url bar. My PC has 64Gb of RAM. Why should I ever have to close a tab if I'm not ready to?
bodge5000 4y ago
The problem with bookmarks, for a lot of us anyway, is that they're very much "out of sight, out of mind". You bookmark something, and never come back to it. Its probably the same case if you have thousands of tabs and mechanisms to hide them, but maybe 30 tabs or so spread across a few windows gets crowded, your forced to prune them regularly, either by doing the thing you had the tab open for or deciding its not worth your time right now. I wish there was something better, but I've never found it.
dublin 4y ago
Tabs are not in RAM in Firefox - they don't get loaded until you click into them, so you can effectively have a nearly unlimited number of tabs open. (My primary browsing PC has only 8 GB of RAM, but handles thousands of tabs with ease.) As I said above, this is how I work, and it's not negotiable. If it bothers you to have that many tabs open, then fine, kill off your tabs. That's fine with me. And my way should be fine with you. (You're probably one of those persnickety inbox zero people, too :-), aren't you?) (My Inbox has 38K unread messages, and I reset them at the start of the year. That's after the many thousands that Google already threw away. It's just not worth the effort to throw away all that stuff one message at a time...) BTW, I have probably 100K bookmarks, but have no good way to merge multiple old bookmarks files and convert them to the new format, so unlike the tabs, the bookmarks are now useless. I stopped using bookmarks in favor of tabs years ago now. Now let's talk about power tools for handling large numbers of tabs!

ako 4y ago

I collect these in pocket.

mackrevinack 4y ago
personally i have found that pocket is like a black hole for articles. ive saved so many over the years but only end up reading .01% of them
dublin 4y ago
Correction: You have chosen to give Pocket your most personal data. No thanks.
- ako 4y ago
  Online bookmark services are quite common, and not very personal.