I just saw a coworker with something like 30 tabs open in Chrome. I also know someone who regularly hits the 500-tab limit on their phone, though I suspect that’s more about being messy than anything else.

When I’m researching something, I might have 10-50 tabs open for a while, but once I’m done, I close them all. If I need them again, browser history is there.

Why do people keep so many tabs open? Is there a workflow or habit I’m missing? Do they just never clean up, or is there a real benefit to tab hoarding? I’m genuinely curious. Why do people do that?

  • dosboy0xff@infosec.pub
    9·
    2 days ago

    I hate the default way most browsers handle tabs. Moved over to this setup years ago and I’m definitely never going back.

    Firefox plus either Sideberry or Tree Style Tabs - both will organize your tabs vertically along the side of the window in a tree format. Follow a link in a new tab, it opens up as a new branch under the current one.

    Pair that with Auto Tab Discard to keep memory usage down, and something like Open Link with New Tab to automatically open links across domains in a new child tab.

    Now I tend to just collapse trees of related tabs and further organize broad related subjects in windows.

    • Everyday0764@lemmy.zip
      4·
      2 days ago

      this is my default setup, i have thousands tabs opened… when i need to search for something i usually search in my opened tabs, and it’s more useful then a search engine

        • Fiery@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          2·
          1 day ago

          It’s great, it does basically what sideberry does (or at least what it did for me, iirc sideberry had a config page 3 miles long so ymmv) but it’s built-in and that allows for things an extension just couldn’t do.

          And then there’s glance and split view which I pretty much can’t live without anymore

          • TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zipOPEnglish
            1·
            1 day ago

            That sounds awesome!

            Can you give some examples where that browser has made a big difference? What are the kinds of situations where it really shines?

            • Fiery@lemmy.dbzer0.com
              2·
              1 day ago

              In terms of unique features there’s a few places where it shines.

              Glance: You know how you open a link in the background to not lose the tab you’re currently on? Well in Zen you just click it with Alt+click and it pops open in an overlay which you can easily click away when you’re done with it (or open it to a ‘full’ tab if you need it)

              Split view: exactly what it sounds like, have multiple tabs open side-by-side or above each other in the same window

              Side tabs: exactly what sideberry does except the browser is fully designed around it with features like workspaces (with per workspace themes), essential tabs (are shown on top in each workspace) and pinned tabs (per workspace) all just being great.