Speaking as someone who used to have few hundreds if not a thousand tabs opened.

Bookmarks are for long term storage. In some sense it is more like Stared History, something may be we need to return in the far future for reference. If browser have a function where it would record everything I read, bookmark would be stared piece of information where I think it is important.

Tabs Opened are reading list or To-do list. 30 Tabs on Toothbrush because I haven't decided which one to buy. Another 30 Tab on "each" different items which I planned to buy. 50 Tabs on HN because I haven't had time to read it yet. Sometimes I opened them when I visit HN front page and read it later. I must admit about 200 tabs wouldn't be needed if I am at 200K+ salary I just buy the top range without thinking. But I am frugal. Shopping on Amazon Prime, another 50 tabs.

SideBar Tabs doesn't work for me. Mostly because the Desktop web isn't designed for squashed layout. I would imagine it would work much better if I am on a 21:9 ultra wide monitor. But I haven't had the luxury to test it out.

> His tab bar is composed of only barely recognizable icons

I assume he is on Chrome? Because Firefox doesn't squeeze out the Tabs to Fav icons only.

> 30 Tabs on Toothbrush because I haven't decided which one to buy.

I mean, really? A tootbrush is a $2 item. They are all basically the same, some bristles on a handle. Why would you spend the time reading or even opening 30 different pages about this?

Personally I just use the free one I get from the dentist with each cleaning/checkup.

I missed out the word "electric" toothbrush. But after some research I now have a fairly decent understanding of the pros and cons of Oral-B vs Philip SonicCare.

Just want to add. I really wish i am like a lot of my friends who could just pick one up and start using it and care about things less. But I do. I care about many things and in way too much detail.

> SideBar Tabs doesn't work for me. Mostly because the Desktop web isn't designed for squashed layout. I would imagine it would work much better if I am on a 21:9 ultra wide monitor.

... Are you still on an old 4:3 screen? Standard 1080p is wide enough, if a bit short. I tend to do half-width and full-height on a 4k screen, with a tab sidebar.

Another option is the Add-On "Vertical Tabs Reloaded" which I'm still using since before they added vertical tabs in the sidebar. Seems a bit more compact.

i am fully with ksec. the issue with sidebars is that they not only take up space, which feels wasted, but are also a distraction. i have the browser always on fullsceen, the tabbar at the top fades into the background letting me focus on the page i an currently reading. when i want to search for a tab then i use the dropdown which takes more space than the sidebar but also shows more of the title of each tab.

Yeah but the solution to that has been Treestyle tab for ages...

It's just annoying that firefox took away the original tree style tab's ability to hide the main tab bar...

Luckily in the mentioned 140 you can now configure Firefox to show tabs in the sidebar, and then actually use the Tree Style Tabs sidebar instead, not showing the native tabs at all.

The built-in vertical tabs are awful. Hit F11 for full-screen and all of the chrome disappears except for the vertical tabs. Who would want that? I'll try Tree Style instead.

LOL this could have been written by my wife, I'm just as guilty of that. But only on Apple devices... even on a measly 8GB M2 MBA, Chrome can easily deal with 200+ tabs. But an 8GB Lenovo ThinkPad X1 with Windows? Performance goes down the drain at about 15-20 open tabs. It's utterly ridiculous.

I bet you these are the same people who then turn around and complain about how much RAM browsers use.

Does your boyfriend ever put his tools away after finishing a mechanical project?

Is his desk clean?

Is he strong enough to lift a feather duster and whip the vacuum cleaner around?

Having a mountain of tabs open is the equivalent of not putting your tools away, keeping your desk tidy or keeping your house clean.

People that get stuff done tend to be those that keep things tidy. Millions of tabs open might give the impression of 'genius at work', but do the deliverables get delivered?

This might not be a popular opinion, however, after having to tidy up my dad's estate (he never put tools away and his computer had billions of tabs open), I have formed my own conclusions on this.

I hat tip your bravery for pointing out an indulgence likely common among readers. Guilty as charged right here. But.

The comparison doesn't really hold. This is not like an untidy workbench. Modern browsers don't incur a significant penalty for having hundreds or even thousands of tabs. There are workflows that benefit from Never Closing, and I'm glad to see browsers now don't turn into a nipple bar to expose me.

Indeed after years and dozens of times where someone looks over my shoulder to see many tabs and abandons our topic to engage in Shame Time, I am fully innoculated to their barbs and feel it says more about the person pointing than myself. I manage to engage in a world with noise. Some people can't. The worst of them reach for grand overarching conclusions, as you have done here.

I also sometimes leave the evening dishes for the morning cleaning session.

Too much tidying up is procrastination, so hat tip for you doing the dishes in the morning, that makes sense.

I have recently learned a lot about highly effective people and tidiness is a common trait, even with browser tabs.

For most of my life I have been working with far too many tabs open, however, I do have this habit of bookmarking all tabs monthly, to then go to about twenty tabs across (the forever tabs) to then 'close all tabs to the right'.

You would be amazed at how few of those 'vital' tabs get reopened.

Each of them is a promise to one's future self to do something or read something, and rarely does one's future self do that.

I can relate to the pursuit of tidiness. It is satisfying to purge. I makes more room for the things that are neglected amongst the distraction. What's left over on my desk from yesterday's adventures is best cleared away. My patch cables on the synthesizer are often best pulled even if I end up putting them back in place.

I just don't see open tabs as burdensome, any more than my Steam backlog. If I get to them I do, if I don't, I don't. I also don't defrag my SSD and when I reboot my RAM starts fresh.

Tidiness and entropy are always at tension, and it's often best to let the balance be.

> People that get stuff done tend to be those that keep things tidy.

Not my experience at all.