
Ask HN: How do you cope with your browser tab overload? - mattkennedy
Hello HN,<p>We&#x27;re a small startup in the process of building a Chrome browser extension to address tab-overload.<p>We realise there&#x27;s been many attempts to solve this (OneTab et. al), but to us, they feel like they&#x27;re just sweeping the problem under the rug. We&#x27;re trying to work back to the root of the problem, so we have a question:<p>Do you find that your browser tabs continue to accumulate and multiply? If so, why do you think that is (i.e. do they stay open as a todo list?); and how do you deal with it right now?<p>Any insight you&#x27;re able to share about this problem would be enormously helpful. We know it&#x27;s a whopper, but we&#x27;re determined to solve it and we need your help.<p>Thanks so much :)<p>P.S. We put together a more formal survey over here  ( http:&#x2F;&#x2F;bit.ly&#x2F;1lfTNMK ). If you&#x27;d like to beta test, or even play with some wireframes (brutally honest feedback is very welcome), just drop your answers and details into the form.
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jongold
I try to cut back on the hard stuff these days - I use OneTab religiously and
promise myself I'll 'come back to those tabs at the weekend', but I never do.
Current status: 800+ saved tabs in OneTab.

After getting bored with Kippt I've gone back to bookmarking in Pinboard
(wiped my account and trying to start fresh), but again I'm not really going
back to things I've saved there. New idea - just radically cutting down the
list of things I care about and being realistic about how many 5 page New York
Times essays and 20 minute Medium posts I'm going to get around to reading -
most of the internet is tldr anyway.

~~~
mattkennedy
Mmm. I guess that's the problem we're exploring. You could save these things
to Read Later (or read again, in the case of bookmarking tools), but they'll
likely sit un-retrieved.

It seems that tabs as a "to read" use-case isn't one we're going to solve, as
this is about self discipline. Either control your intake, or few tools such
as Pocket as a StumbleUpon from your past self.

But managing tabs relating to directed search, or actionable tasks, is an
interesting one to explore.

We're definitely still in the research phase of this problem, but thanks for
weighing in :-).

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Pyrodogg
I've found that all browser based solutions have been nothing more than a
nicotine patch for me.

The root of my issue is that I'm occasionally bad at managing my 'working
memory' and worry too much about letting things go from it. I worry that if I
let this cool new thing leave the forefront of my consciousness that I will
never see it again. This fear causes worry and sadness.

I've been working recently to overcome this knee-jerk tendency.

At Work. I limit myself to one browser for the internet. This includes work
research, news, and also HN (cant' quit). It is closed completely at the end
of the day. If there really was some work related site i need to follow-up on.
I simply leave myself a note to follow up on the _task_ and not the specific
website. If I need to find that, i trust my future self to remember, or look
it up in the history.

At Home I'm less strict but still try to maintain one Chrome instance. I won't
necessarily close it every night but I will review my open tabs before
leaving. I try to make reasoned decisions to keep open, bookmark, or let go
each tab. It's been a pretty successful project so far.

I consider in-built browser bookmarks to be all I need. If I bookmark
anything, I assign it to some logical grouping of sites so I feel better about
finding it later.

If I had some sort of magic button to whisk away my open tabs, I feel I would
be missing out on a crucial activity; letting each thing go from my mind. I
need to trust myself that if I really need this new framework for a future
project, i'll find it if it's actually useful. I need to make decisions on
whether to buy this thing or not instead of waffling and letting the tab rot.

At it's root, this is a human psychology problem and not a technical one. -my
2cents

~~~
mattkennedy
Thank you again, for such an articulate response. On principle I agree with
your perspective, especially when the tabs that accumulate are 'to reads'.

I find there are times though, when gathering tabs is inevitable. Like when
you're researching solutions to a problem and need to explore widely, before
being able to filter your sources down.

I think our focus will be more about helping users filter tabs stemming from
research—the letting go you speak of. These tabs tend to hang around because
you're not sure whether they're relevant or not, until you've conducted
further research.

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webmaven
Tabs Outliner: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabs-
outliner/eggk...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabs-
outliner/eggkanocgddhmamlbiijnphhppkpkmkl)

It for me it also replaces bookmarks, and does better tab crash recovery than
the browser alone. I've used it to 'unload' an entire browser window with
multiple tabs that encapsulates a particular mental state so I can concentrate
on something else and then switch back to it with less difficulty than having
to entirely rebuild that browser+mental state combination from scratch.

Nevertheless, I do find that tabs continue to proliferate. A bit more help to
detect duplicate saved tabs, do automatic grouping, and integration with
external tools meant for particular use cases (Pocket for stuff I want to
read/watch later, pinboard for longer term/more structured categorization,
etc.) would be welcome.

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chatmasta
I would love a tree representation of tabs. Every link you open in a new tab
creates a child of the current tab. So if I search google for "foo bar" and
then open the first three results in new tabs, I will have a d=2 tree with
root google and three children results.

I find that I navigate the web like this and a tree solution would be nice.

~~~
mcintyre1994
Is this what you're looking for? [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/) Last I checked it's Firefox only and Chrome
doesn't expose a powerful enough API for it though.

~~~
mattkennedy
If you are using Chrome, we've come across Sidewise (
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/sidewise-tree-
styl...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/sidewise-tree-style-
tabs/biiammgklaefagjclmnlialkmaemifgo?hl=en) ) and TabOutliner (
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabs-
outliner/eggk...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabs-
outliner/eggkanocgddhmamlbiijnphhppkpkmkl?hl=en) ).

Have you found Tree Style Tabs has addressed most of your tab problem?

~~~
mcintyre1994
Ah they look pretty good, I guess the API issue is with putting them in the
main window? I can't blame Google for that choice, but the Firefox one looks a
lot neater.

To be honest I use Chrome most of the time. My laptop's not particularly great
and tends to slow to a crawl to tell me to control my tabs long before I get
to a major problem. That's not to say I manage them well, I rely a lot on
Chrome's history search and recent tabs, I close a lot of tabs I wish I
hadn't.. the slow down really annoys me.

I answered your poll btw, looking forward to seeing what you come up with! :)

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phelm
Vertical Tabs [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vertical-
tabs...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vertical-tabs/)

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alt_f4
I personally deal with it by closing the tabs I don't really need.

~~~
touristtam
I do the same AND I use both FF and Chromium for different things

~~~
mattkennedy
Thanks for the responses guys.

If you're curious, we've put together a summary of what other people have been
saying: [http://blog.twin.gl/post/82178923107/a-few-findings-on-
tabs](http://blog.twin.gl/post/82178923107/a-few-findings-on-tabs)

