6 ms·

I'm old and I code for a living, I have maybe at most a dozen tabs open on any day. I can't imagine needing 80 but now I see why chrome has that new search tabs

I'm old and I code for a living, I have maybe at most a dozen tabs open on any day. I can't imagine needing 80 but now I see why chrome has that new search tabs drop down.

alpaca128 3y ago
On my main Firefox profile I'm rarely below 1000 tabs. I also use them as bookmarks and backlog, and every couple of months I scroll through the entire tab bar and close everything unimportant. The address bar also searches all open tabs and lets me jump to matches.
- coldpie 3y ago
  FWIW the Firefox address bar also searches your history and bookmarks, so you can still retrieve those sites by searching for them without keeping a tab open for each one. Feel free to do what you like, obviously, but if having a zillion tabs open is causing you problems, know that there are other solutions :)
  - seba_dos1 3y ago
    Firefox already allows for proper tab UIs, so no need to search for other solutions there :)
    - coldpie 3y ago
      Just curious, what does that UI look like with 1,000 tabs open? Isn't it just like, one pixel per tab, or a scrollbar 50 times wider than your monitor? Is that actually useful?
      - twic 3y ago
        That may be a reference to this classic Firefox extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta...
        CWuestefeld 3y ago
        If it weren't for TreeStyleTab, the browser would be barely usable for me. This is the biggest reason that I won't use Chrome at all, and stay away from Edge.
      - seba_dos1 3y ago
        My browser looks very similar to this: https://framagit.org/ariasuni/tabcenter-reborn/-/wikis/themes#plasma-5s-breeze https://framagit.org/ariasuni/tabcenter-reborn/-/wikis/theme... Tab list usability remains pretty much the same regardless of how many tabs are open.
      - AndroidKitKat 3y ago
        The handy part about Firefox, unlike Chrome, will shrink tabs to a minimum width and then make them a horizontally scrolling list. I am somewhat of a tab hoarder (I also keep browser windows on vertical monitors), so using Chrome, where it would shrink tabs more and more until there's nothing but a sliver, wouldn't work. Below are screenshots of examples. Firefox keeps things usable; Chrome not so much. (I also know it isn't 1000 tabs, nor is it close to the amount I keep open on my work laptop). Firefox: https://yld.moe/raw/nVE.png https://yld.moe/raw/nVE.png Chrome: https://yld.moe/raw/vu8.png https://yld.moe/raw/vu8.png Also, if you're wondering why my tabs look like they're from 2017, that's just another benefit of using Firefox [1]. Although as nice as it being able to actually customize our browsers, it would be nice for Mozilla to stop breaking things for sake of breaking things. [1]: https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix
        efreak 3y ago
        If this is the only thing stopping you from using Chrome (ie you'd prefer to use Chrome), this might help. https://www.ghacks.net/2022/08/29/how-to-set-a-minimum-tab-width-in-google-chrome/ https://www.ghacks.net/2022/08/29/how-to-set-a-minimum-tab-w...
        AndroidKitKat 3y ago
        I was not aware of this, I will probably check this out on my Windows machine, since I've had a nasty bug where Firefox will decide to just use ALL of my GPU resources, crashing whatever game I am playing. Very annoying bug and I should probably take the time to report it, but every time I encounter it I'm usually focused on my game. Thanks.
  - account42 3y ago
    Don't rely on you browsing history - Firefox will start deleting old entries without warning you if it gets big enough.
- seba_dos1 3y ago
  Same here. It's simply a convenient way to work with a browser.
- saberience 3y ago
  This is blowing my mind right now, how do you operate with so many tabs? For me, as soon as I can’t tell which site is in which tab it means I need to close some. And I don’t see the utility of having so many tabs open, since you can obviously only use one at a time. So if you have 100 or 1000 open, most are not being used most of the time, so why not close them? What do you lose from closing tabs versus what do you gain from keeping them open? For me, if I use a site open it’s bookmarked or already in history so it’s fast to reopen. Closing tabs keeps my machine fast and memory usage low and also makes me faster at switching between the open tabs as I don’t need to search or parse through many UI bits.
  - temp0826 3y ago
    I never have 1000+ open but I do have many open in a couple different windows for long periods. Firefox does unload tabs when you restart (at least, it can be set that way. And there are extensions that let you unload them manually or after a time period). Unloaded tabs take no resources (or an unnoticeable amount if any) and allow this trick to work. That and vertical tab addons (I use sideberry).
  - fauigerzigerk 3y ago
    I don't keep hundereds of tabs open, but tabs do serve two purposes that are not covered by either the browser history or by bookmarks. One is as a sort of ad-hoc to-do list. When I leave a tab open it's because something is unfinished and I mean to come back to it soon. (I just wish there was a chronological view so that I could easily delete the oldest tabs). The second purpose is to store the scroll position of longer articles that I haven't finished reading.
    - kwoff 3y ago
      Tabs are the RAM of my TODO list, my README bookmark folder is the disk. Every so many months I purge the README folder, while regretting never really learning Blender, GIMP, SVG, d3, Godot, Rust, Julia, React, Svelte, CSS, shaders, machine learning, wavelets, Ableton, ....
  - nirvdrum 3y ago
- secondcoming 3y ago
  How messy is your bedroom?
- hakre 3y ago
  No wonder, the tab bar is open only. Managing multiple tabs is a no-go with it, or lets say, a wonderful journey into Firefox UI.
- skydhash 3y ago
  I have Safari, Anybox, and Alfred, and the three works together in a nice way to save anything interesting quickly. And once in a while, I comb through the inbox and sort them out. If I ever need to explore a subject, I then have a collection of links ready. I feel uncomfortable whenever I have 10+ tabs open. It felt that I’m not focusing enough on my research (taking the proper time to read and reflect in order to find a solution). The only things I hoard are books. They are more like my antilibrary (things I’d like to have read already) than collecting everything I encounter.
NavinF 3y ago
I usually have 600 tabs across several windows and desktops. Doesn't hurt performance if you have 64G or more so the real question is "why not?". Switching to an open tab using title text search is way faster than opening a bookmark
- backendanon 3y ago
  Hard for me to say, I guess I feel better not using more memory than needed, I think my security surface may less than it would be with a lot of tabs open but don't hold me to that as researched opinion, it isn't, can't think of anything else though.
- Thorham 3y ago
  "why not?" Simple, 20 tabs already drives me nuts.

I'm old and I code for a living, I have maybe at most a dozen tabs open on any day. I can't imagine needing 80 but now I see why chrome has that new search tabs drop down.

alpaca128 3y ago

On my main Firefox profile I'm rarely below 1000 tabs. I also use them as bookmarks and backlog, and every couple of months I scroll through the entire tab bar and close everything unimportant. The address bar also searches all open tabs and lets me jump to matches.

coldpie 3y ago
FWIW the Firefox address bar also searches your history and bookmarks, so you can still retrieve those sites by searching for them without keeping a tab open for each one. Feel free to do what you like, obviously, but if having a zillion tabs open is causing you problems, know that there are other solutions :)
- seba_dos1 3y ago
  Firefox already allows for proper tab UIs, so no need to search for other solutions there :)
  - coldpie 3y ago
    Just curious, what does that UI look like with 1,000 tabs open? Isn't it just like, one pixel per tab, or a scrollbar 50 times wider than your monitor? Is that actually useful?
    - twic 3y ago
      That may be a reference to this classic Firefox extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta...
      - CWuestefeld 3y ago
        If it weren't for TreeStyleTab, the browser would be barely usable for me. This is the biggest reason that I won't use Chrome at all, and stay away from Edge.
    - seba_dos1 3y ago
      My browser looks very similar to this: https://framagit.org/ariasuni/tabcenter-reborn/-/wikis/themes#plasma-5s-breeze https://framagit.org/ariasuni/tabcenter-reborn/-/wikis/theme... Tab list usability remains pretty much the same regardless of how many tabs are open.
    - AndroidKitKat 3y ago
      The handy part about Firefox, unlike Chrome, will shrink tabs to a minimum width and then make them a horizontally scrolling list. I am somewhat of a tab hoarder (I also keep browser windows on vertical monitors), so using Chrome, where it would shrink tabs more and more until there's nothing but a sliver, wouldn't work. Below are screenshots of examples. Firefox keeps things usable; Chrome not so much. (I also know it isn't 1000 tabs, nor is it close to the amount I keep open on my work laptop). Firefox: https://yld.moe/raw/nVE.png https://yld.moe/raw/nVE.png Chrome: https://yld.moe/raw/vu8.png https://yld.moe/raw/vu8.png Also, if you're wondering why my tabs look like they're from 2017, that's just another benefit of using Firefox [1]. Although as nice as it being able to actually customize our browsers, it would be nice for Mozilla to stop breaking things for sake of breaking things. [1]: https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix
      - efreak 3y ago
        If this is the only thing stopping you from using Chrome (ie you'd prefer to use Chrome), this might help. https://www.ghacks.net/2022/08/29/how-to-set-a-minimum-tab-width-in-google-chrome/ https://www.ghacks.net/2022/08/29/how-to-set-a-minimum-tab-w...
        AndroidKitKat 3y ago
        I was not aware of this, I will probably check this out on my Windows machine, since I've had a nasty bug where Firefox will decide to just use ALL of my GPU resources, crashing whatever game I am playing. Very annoying bug and I should probably take the time to report it, but every time I encounter it I'm usually focused on my game. Thanks.
- account42 3y ago
  Don't rely on you browsing history - Firefox will start deleting old entries without warning you if it gets big enough.
seba_dos1 3y ago
Same here. It's simply a convenient way to work with a browser.
saberience 3y ago
This is blowing my mind right now, how do you operate with so many tabs? For me, as soon as I can’t tell which site is in which tab it means I need to close some. And I don’t see the utility of having so many tabs open, since you can obviously only use one at a time. So if you have 100 or 1000 open, most are not being used most of the time, so why not close them? What do you lose from closing tabs versus what do you gain from keeping them open? For me, if I use a site open it’s bookmarked or already in history so it’s fast to reopen. Closing tabs keeps my machine fast and memory usage low and also makes me faster at switching between the open tabs as I don’t need to search or parse through many UI bits.
- temp0826 3y ago
  I never have 1000+ open but I do have many open in a couple different windows for long periods. Firefox does unload tabs when you restart (at least, it can be set that way. And there are extensions that let you unload them manually or after a time period). Unloaded tabs take no resources (or an unnoticeable amount if any) and allow this trick to work. That and vertical tab addons (I use sideberry).
- fauigerzigerk 3y ago
  I don't keep hundereds of tabs open, but tabs do serve two purposes that are not covered by either the browser history or by bookmarks. One is as a sort of ad-hoc to-do list. When I leave a tab open it's because something is unfinished and I mean to come back to it soon. (I just wish there was a chronological view so that I could easily delete the oldest tabs). The second purpose is to store the scroll position of longer articles that I haven't finished reading.
  - kwoff 3y ago
    Tabs are the RAM of my TODO list, my README bookmark folder is the disk. Every so many months I purge the README folder, while regretting never really learning Blender, GIMP, SVG, d3, Godot, Rust, Julia, React, Svelte, CSS, shaders, machine learning, wavelets, Ableton, ....
- nirvdrum 3y ago
secondcoming 3y ago
How messy is your bedroom?
hakre 3y ago
No wonder, the tab bar is open only. Managing multiple tabs is a no-go with it, or lets say, a wonderful journey into Firefox UI.
skydhash 3y ago
I have Safari, Anybox, and Alfred, and the three works together in a nice way to save anything interesting quickly. And once in a while, I comb through the inbox and sort them out. If I ever need to explore a subject, I then have a collection of links ready. I feel uncomfortable whenever I have 10+ tabs open. It felt that I’m not focusing enough on my research (taking the proper time to read and reflect in order to find a solution). The only things I hoard are books. They are more like my antilibrary (things I’d like to have read already) than collecting everything I encounter.

NavinF 3y ago

I usually have 600 tabs across several windows and desktops. Doesn't hurt performance if you have 64G or more so the real question is "why not?". Switching to an open tab using title text search is way faster than opening a bookmark

backendanon 3y ago
Hard for me to say, I guess I feel better not using more memory than needed, I think my security surface may less than it would be with a lot of tabs open but don't hold me to that as researched opinion, it isn't, can't think of anything else though.
Thorham 3y ago
"why not?" Simple, 20 tabs already drives me nuts.