# Am I the onlty person who hates tabbed browsing? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 19, 2006, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-onlty-person-who-hates-tabbed-browsing/377139 "2006-10-19T20:34:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2006, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-onlty-person-who-hates-tabbed-browsing/377139/21 "2006-10-20T21:39:10Z")
I don’t _hate_ tabbed browsing, I’ve just never managed to see the point of it. I’ve tried to get used to it since everyone goes on about how wonderful it is, but I’ve never managed to stick with it for more than ten minutes or so. When I use Windows XP, I never group applications either. I’ve had a cluttered taskbar for ten years and it’s never bothered me yet. ---
**Author:** ![Gozu\_Tashoya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7993a0/32.png) [@Gozu\_Tashoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gozu_Tashoya)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2006, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-onlty-person-who-hates-tabbed-browsing/377139/22 "2006-10-20T21:50:46Z")
[QUOTE=AHunter3] what is this “Windows” of which you speak? [/QUOTE] It’s an OS. Kinda popular. Shows up on Google searches. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2006, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-onlty-person-who-hates-tabbed-browsing/377139/23 "2006-10-20T22:14:36Z")
Here’s how I use tabbed browsing on this board: On my bookmarks toolbar is a link to the SDMB ‘new post’ search. I look through the page, middle-clicking each thread which I want to read. I middle-click the link to the next page of results, middle-click the current tab, and I’m looking at the first of my chosen threads. After working my way through them, I arrive at the second page of ‘new post’ results, and repeat. It’s also extremely useful when dealing with long threads and multiple quotes. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2006, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-onlty-person-who-hates-tabbed-browsing/377139/24 "2006-10-20T22:26:35Z")
Yes, it’s about middle-clicking, not tabs. I do think that tabs get a lot of undeserved credit which is really due to the wonderful convenience of single-click background loading. I’d be quite happy to have the links background-load in new windows, and use the OS’s native mechanism to switch between the windows. ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2006, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-onlty-person-who-hates-tabbed-browsing/377139/25 "2006-10-21T17:52:28Z")
[QUOTE=AHunter3 • If that many windows were open as tabs, there would be so many tabs that each one would read “Strai” or “Straigh” or “St” or whatever — no differentiation. Instead, I go to the Windows menu as need be. Or I Command-` to cycle from window to window in the current app.[/QUOTE] Win XP and Firefox 1.5.0.7 here… while the truncated name appears on the tab itself, just hovering over the tab will give the full name… For example, I have a tab open that simply reads “Straight Dope Message Board - firs…” but hovering over it gives me “Straight Dope Message Board - first grader’s homework”. Much easier than looking through the task bar for the same thing. I use the mouseover to get a glimpse of what a thread contains, so it’s not really that much harder to do the same for tabs. Though of course, when I’m on the boards, I rarely care which order I read threads in. When I have to do research for something, though, it is also useful to figure out which is which. I love Tabbed browsing. I hate having to use IE at work. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2006, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-onlty-person-who-hates-tabbed-browsing/377139/26 "2006-10-21T18:04:06Z")
[QUOTE=rjung] Lemme guess: you have all your windows set to maximize, so you only see one window’s content at a time? [/QUOTE] Not a chance. I’ve got two screens here. I typically have 5-6 windows on the desktop. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2006, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-onlty-person-who-hates-tabbed-browsing/377139/27 "2006-10-21T19:29:24Z")
I like tabbed browsing. I usually come to the board, hit “new posts” and then go through and open several posts at a time. With explorer, I have to switch back and forth between the newly opened window and the search window. With tabbed browsing I just keep opening new tabs. (I have firefox set so that it doesn’t move to the new tab upon opening.) ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2006, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-onlty-person-who-hates-tabbed-browsing/377139/28 "2006-10-21T19:44:35Z")
I came to Firefox primarily because of the ease of middle-clicking to open new pages, I’m staying because of everything else, especially customizing. As to those who don’t find there are any advantages, cool. That’s the nice thing about PCs - you can set them up any way you want. And if others don’t like it, so what? As Isaac Asimov said when someone asked him why he continued to use index cards in collecting data for books after PCs were introduced, “Happiness is doing it your own rotten way.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-the-onlty-person-who-hates-tabbed-browsing/377139.md?page=1)