Browser tab management

[rh71]

tab management = tells a lot about your personality

 

[lxskllr]

I can open ~9 tabs before they start scrolling off the edge of the screen. That seems like an obvious limiter to me. You can't work with tabs you can no longer see, and the extra clicks involved in revealing them eliminates the convenience of having tabs. I tend to keep them at around 9-10 open tabs at any given time because of that.

That's generally my limit for tidiness. I don't stress it if I'm using the tabs, but if it's cruft, I delete the ones I'm not using so they don't scroll. I start the browser with my last session, and I have 5 pinned tabs, and usually 8-12 other tabs from a previous session. If I'm researching something in particular, I use tab grouping for organization...

 

[manly]

@igor_kavinski You have competition.

Firefox Power User Keeps 7,400+ Browser Tabs Open for 2 Years - Slashdot

An anonymous reader shares a report: A software engineer has been keeping nearly 7,500 Firefox tabs open on her Mac computer for over two years -- and doesn't plan on closing them anytime soon. The Firefox power user, who goes by the pseudonym "Hazel" online, posted a screenshot showing 7,470...

news.slashdot.org

 

[igor_kavinski]

Different reason for her though. I keep opening them and rarely find the time to digest them.

 

[Muse]

When I sit down to web browse, I will have 5 tabs in 2 minutes easy. At the end of my session I average 14 tabs- but I peak around 30.

And I have been doing that since before Firefox was called Firefox. I am a tab addict.

I also leave like ten programs running in the background. I manage my computer resources like a hoarder manages their storage space.

Before I went to 32GB RAM, things would slow down pretty quickly. Now they slow down anyway, but it takes way way way longer. Once in a while (talking months) I have the need to start over. I'm not good at tab management. After a few weeks I have too many windows open with too many tabs. One problem is I haven't been satisfied that I've gotten the info I want yet. I'm using Chrome except for the rare time Java is interfering, at which point I copy/paste a URL into Brave Browser.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I'm using Chrome

I stopped using Chrome because there is no option to select all tabs and then bookmark them like in Firefox, should the need arise. Also, Chrome tabs just get smaller and smaller at which point, you just see a bunch of really narrow icons which are too easy to close coz the X button is right on top of them. If Firefox didn't eat RAM so much, it would be the perfect browser for me. Sometimes I open my laptop and all CPU cores are pegged at 100%. Open a new Firefox tab, open its Task Manager, sort by CPU usage and kill anything that's 100% or even above that (usually imgur and few other culprits). CPU usage returns to normal then. Too much RAM consumption? End Task Firefox, re-open and restore tabs. That's been my thing for several years now, maybe more than 5 or 6 years.

 

[Muse]

I stopped using Chrome because there is no option to select all tabs and then bookmark them like in Firefox, should the need arise. Also, Chrome tabs just get smaller and smaller at which point, you just see a bunch of really narrow icons which are too easy to close coz the X button is right on top of them. If Firefox didn't eat RAM so much, it would be the perfect browser for me. Sometimes I open my laptop and all CPU cores are pegged at 100%. Open a new Firefox tab, open its Task Manager, sort by CPU usage and kill anything that's 100% or even above that (usually imgur and few other culprits). CPU usage returns to normal then. Too much RAM consumption? End Task Firefox, re-open and restore tabs. That's been my thing for several years now, maybe more than 5 or 6 years.

Well, Chrome knows my passwords, even a few I have let it generate. I don't know that I could switch browsers without some PW difficulties. Most I can find, but it's some work. These days I close a tab I'm on usually by hitting Control+W. It is a problem when there are so many tabs open I can't figure out how to find one I'm looking for.

 

[igor_kavinski]

These days I close a tab I'm on usually by hitting Control+W. It is a problem when there are so many tabs open I can't figure out how to find one I'm looking for.

There's this: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/vertical-tabs/efobhjmgoddhfdhaflheioeagkcknoji?pli=1

 

[lxskllr]

Well, Chrome knows my passwords, even a few I have let it generate. I don't know that I could switch browsers without some PW difficulties.

I don't know if chrome will let you export passwords, but firefox will let you import them as a csv file. Whether or not you want to switch to firefox(you should), it would be worth your time seeing what options are available, and fooling with it now in a relaxed state, instead of an emergency where you have to something, and you have 5 minutes to do it.

 

[Brainonska511]

I don't know if chrome will let you export passwords, but firefox will let you import them as a csv file. Whether or not you want to switch to firefox(you should), it would be worth your time seeing what options are available, and fooling with it now in a relaxed state, instead of an emergency where you have to something, and you have 5 minutes to do it.

You can export passwords from Chrome to a csv file. I did it 2 months ago just prior to formatting my wife's computer and moving her OS to an NVME drive.

 

[manly]

Different reason for her though. I keep opening them and rarely find the time to digest them.

I doubt she has the time to go through her 7500 tab backlog either. ;P

 

[Muse]

You can export passwords from Chrome to a csv file. I did it 2 months ago just prior to formatting my wife's computer and moving her OS to an NVME drive.

Can I get some reason(s) to switch from Chrome to Firefox? Thanks!

 

[Brainonska511]

Can I get some reason(s) to switch from Chrome to Firefox? Thanks!

I like that my browser is at least somewhat separate from the Google machine. Also, there have been some rumors Google is going to change how ad blockers can and cannot work on Chrome.

The main thing is I've used Firefox since before v1.0, and I haven't found a big reason to switch away.

 

[lxskllr]

Muse using firefox doesn't make a big difference, but letting google control the web is bad policy, same as when MS controlled the web. There's only two real players in the web engine game, google with blink, and firefox with gecko. There's also a sprinkling of webkit. Almost all browsers that aren't firefox are based on blink/chromium. If firefox goes away, that leaves one real engine, and google controlling the web.

Google is an ad company. They don't make anything cause they're cool guys. They make software to increase their ad business, so you can imagine what a google monopoly will do to the web. Firefox is the last firewall that'll prevent a google monopoly, and by using firefox, you're telling web devs "You have to test your shitty fucking software on something other than chrome", and it prevents google from making up "standards" on the fly that are only there to boost google's revenue.

 

[manly]

Muse using firefox doesn't make a big difference, but letting google control the web is bad policy, same as when MS controlled the web. There's only two real players in the web engine game, google with blink, and firefox with gecko. There's also a sprinkling of webkit. Almost all browsers that aren't firefox are based on blink/chromium. If firefox goes away, that leaves one real engine, and google controlling the web.

Google is an ad company. They don't make anything cause they're cool guys. They make software to increase their ad business, so you can imagine what a google monopoly will do to the web. Firefox is the last firewall that'll prevent a google monopoly, and by using firefox, you're telling web devs "You have to test your shitty fucking software on something other than chrome", and it prevents google from making up "standards" on the fly that are only there to boost google's revenue.

what's kinda crazy is the Google search antitrust trial is already wrapping up, and it hardly makes the news like a certain "hush money" trial.

Google Defends 'Better' Search Product as Antitrust Trial Concludes - Slashdot

Google is making its last attempt to fight back against a historic effort by the US Department of Justice to break the tech giant's grip on online search, as the most significant antitrust trial in 25 years comes to a close in Washington. From a report: A federal court in Washington began...

tech.slashdot.org

The problem now is that Firefox's usage share is so low that it's not relevant*. So really only Safari even shows up in some stats (mobile OS) as a good competitor to Blink.

* This should not be construed as advice; I do use Firefox for some secondary browsing.

 

[lxskllr]

The problem now is that Firefox's usage share is so low that it's not relevant*. So really only Safari even shows up in some stats (mobile OS) as a good competitor to Blink.

Well, the way to fix that is for people to use firefox. It's a good browser, and it's there for the user, not to make the stock line go up. The choices are give up and accept what google allows, or to try making things better and give google resistance. Nobody's gonna save the world, but enough people doing a tiny bit can have real results. That applies to resources, pollution, and computing.

 

[Muse]

I like that my browser is at least somewhat separate from the Google machine. Also, there have been some rumors Google is going to change how ad blockers can and cannot work on Chrome.

The main thing is I've used Firefox since before v1.0, and I haven't found a big reason to switch away.

IIRC, I switched from FF to Chrome because my FF had gotten super messed up, real slow. Probably before I upped to 32GB RAM, via new laptop. This was maybe 5 years ago or so??

 

[Red Squirrel]

I don't get why FF is so low to begin with. I guess people buy into marketing more than caring about their privacy. When Chrome came out my first thought was "why would I want a browser made by Google who spies on everything we do?" and stucked with Firefox. There was a time when Firefox was getting bloated and slow, I think I tried Chrome for a bit but felt dirty.

Now I kinda want to see if I can beat that record of tabs open. If I open it in a VM and just let the VM sit running on my VM server it should in theory run forever unless there's a slow memory leak.

 

[Muse]

Well, I guess I could export my Chrome PW's into a CVS file, shut down Chrome and install Firefox and import the cvs file and take it from there and see how things go. Seems like browsers are similar, right? Most of the shortcuts work from one to the other, right? I like almost never use Edge. It opens when I reboot, at least sometimes and I kill it. I usually have Brave running in order to hit a site without Java script support running. Just use that occasionally.

I'm mystified by some of the discussion here. Don't recall hearing about Blink, I'm drawing a blank...

 

[igor_kavinski]

I don't get why FF is so low to begin with.

Firefox can "feel" clunky compared to Chrome. Chrome's UI is more "fluid". But I mostly use Chrome for gmail, whatsappweb, facebook and a few other sites coz they stay logged in and I don't have to bother signing in again.

I keep Firefox, Brave and Tor browser open, though Brave's Tor tabs are super nice.

There's a new browser on the scene: https://arc.net/

Supposed to be THE Chrome replacement. Need to give it a whirl sometime soon.

I don't usually mess with Edge unless I need to open a separate browser session for some site. I gave it a fair chance for a while and it had some nice features with regards to tab grouping but it would get severe pauses on my i7-4770 work PC which is unacceptable because everything else works great so it's not the PC.

 

[igor_kavinski]

If I open it in a VM and just let the VM sit running on my VM server it should in theory run forever unless there's a slow memory leak.

What will you use for virtualization? If Virtualbox, forget it. It's awful for anything serious. Hyper-V, somewhat better but it's not as easy to use. Or maybe you will use KVM or Xen?

 

[igor_kavinski]

I'm mystified by some of the discussion here. Don't recall hearing about Blink, I'm drawing a blank...

It's a browser engine you can use to make your own browser, if you fancy doing that: https://www.chromium.org/blink/

 

[igor_kavinski]

I'm mystified by some of the discussion here.

Don't forget to try Opera. It's even faster than Chrome.

 

[Red Squirrel]

What will you use for virtualization? If Virtualbox, forget it. It's awful for anything serious. Hyper-V, somewhat better but it's not as easy to use. Or maybe you will use KVM or Xen?

Right now I have ESXi but been meaning to build a Proxmox cluster for a long time and just keep putting it off. I use VirtualBox for desktop virtualization like if I want to test an ISO or what not but for long term prod stuff it's going on the actual VM infrastructure. I have VMs with over 2k of uptime. When I build out my Proxmox infrastructure I'll probably keep ESXi going until I migrate everything over to the new environment. I'm hoping Proxmox will be as stable as ESXi has. ESXi is more or less dead now that Broadcom bought them though.

 

[Muse]

Don't forget to try Opera. It's even faster than Chrome.

I've used Opera in the past, was using it because it still supported XP.