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Comment by ksec

8 years ago

I love the concept, but...

Ever since the early Internet; pre Firefox era, I have been a heavy Tab user. I am possibly on the higher end of spectrum, my Safari currently has 410 Tabs opened. It sort of expands and shrink during the weekend. In some days they could blow up to 500+ Tabs, more like a reading list.

Quite a few of them are youtube links that are acting like a mini playlist or file selection of music. So having a Video as group selection shown in this concept is a godsend. I have been wondering why Safari Multi Tab page doesn't have this. ( And Safari Tab Overview is kind of stupid, it reloads / reactive all the tab you have when you press overview, making huge memory and CPU spike as well as jack )

But over the years I have came to the conclusion, most of the consumers don't use Tab like us. That is why those mini Tabs in Chrome that shrinks to ridiculously small size don't annoy them. They don't check email on the web. Nor do they do much comparison. Their web browsing flow is very linear. While my web browsing flow is extremely jumpy. Reading on something could bring up dozens of other questions in my head.

So I am wondering if there is enough market for this browser? Don't get me wrong I love innovation in the browser UI space and I love the new History timeline. But I am slightly worry about its sustainability.

8 comments

ksec

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kqr  8 years ago

There's also people like me, who has in the past used tree style tabs and other ways to manage their crazy number of tabs while browsing, but since then realised that it's not for them.

I used tabs like they were bookmarks, so I started using bookmarks more. I used tabs to keep track of history, so I started using the history more. I used tabs to do things the web browser shouldn't do, such as check email or play media, so I started doing those things in the right application (email client and media player, respectively).

My tab use dropped immediately.

I now have a plugin that prevents me from opening more than n tabs (in my case, I have set n=7 right now), which forces me to linearize my naturally sprawly browsing. I need to either finish one task before going on to the next -- or make a proper core dump of it, which includes mental notes as well as links to browsing session. This has actually helped me pick it up faster later on!

It has also prevented me from stressing about unimportant things because they are open in the web browser, telling me that they are left unfinished. Now I can prioritise the important stuff easier.

  • ksec  8 years ago

    Yes, bookmark and history are exactly what the function of those huge number of tabs. Along with reading list.

    Example, I now have a list of International shipping website as well as import tax web site that will likely takes me hours if not days to finish. I cant finish them now and move on to next thing. I will have leave it there, and make it like a to do list.

glandium  8 years ago

To support your point, data gathered from the Firefox user population a few years ago showed that, IIRC, the median number of tabs was somewhere around 2. And a lot (I don't remember the proportion but it was unexpectedly large) of browser sessions lasted a couple minutes. As if lots of people opened links from outside the browser, read it, and closed the browser shortly after.

  • MrEldritch  8 years ago

    This sounds like what I sometimes open Chrome up for - to try and see if something will work in a different browser, and then closing it back down and going back to Firefox.

naravara  8 years ago

>Their web browsing flow is very linear. While my web browsing flow is extremely jumpy.

I'm curious what you mean by "jumpy." The linearity I understand, and notice it when I'm researching with coworkers or shoulder surfing with someone.

I usually us saved links or bookmarks to preserve state or come back to things later. My primary use of tabs is to approach research as a sort of branching tree. Start with a page, any interesting link in it gets opened in a tab. I follow each branch in turn until I've got a handle on whatever I need to. Similarly, I use the tabs for comparison shopping, so they're useful for "shortlisting" items of interest.

bestnameever  8 years ago

how do you manage so many tabs? I struggle to find my active tab when i have 10 open. Maybe I should change my theme.