Now that I’ve become a Mozilla addict and have discovered the joy of tabbed browsing, I find myself sitting on a forum thread-listing page and joyfully Control-clicking in rapid-fire succession. Is this hard on the hamsters? Should I limit myself?
I can’t go back to IE. I won’t go back.
I’d asked almost the same question before, except I asked about multiple windows. I was told the hamsters aren’t bothered. I’m sure a Mod will be along to verify or deny this.
Doesn’t everybody?
I mean, tabs or windows, but surely people don’t left-click on an individual thread (thus going away from the list of threads page), twiddle their thumbs while it loads, read it, click “Reply”, twiddle thumbs, type reply & click “preview”, twiddle thumbs, read and click “submit reply”, twiddle thumbs, and then try to get back to the list of threads they started out on ?!?
You skim down the page and open interesting new threads in a background window or background tab, then click the link to go to the next page of links and while it’s loading you go to the first of the individual threads you loaded…right?
Yes, that’s what I do now. Before Mozilla, I would usually twiddle my thumbs. I rarely thought to right-click and open in new window.
Well, the key is a browser that lets you open links in a new background window, or background tab. You want to stay on the list view of threads until you’ve opened all the other windows you want, then you click the “2” or “3” or whatever at the bottom to go to the next consecutive page of thread titles, and by now those background windows (or tabs) are loading.
Inferior browsers that only open new windows (or tabs) in front of the one you’re working from are no fun at all.
Offhand, I see no reason why not; if anything, it might be more productive, as Microsoft’s products are not exactly known for running lean and mean.
I would imagine every other browser out there is more elegantly written and designed and would therefore be less of a strain and not more. Just my guess, though.
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
Bill Gates is not my best friend, no.
Assuming that your reading space is still the same, it shouldn’t matter: you might create a short burst of extra load on the server while going through a forum and opening a bunch of threads rapid in succession, but after that you spend a long time reading all the threads you opened without loading any new pages, so the load on the server should even out in the long run.
And there’s a slight advantage in that you do not re-load the main forum screen as often as you otherwise would. So it would seem that the effect of using a tabbed browser on the message board server is either “the same” or “slightly lower”.
I meant “reading speed” of course, not “reading space”. Oh, and “in rapid succession”, not “rapid in succession”.
Heh. I literally can’t browse the Internet single-threaded anymore: I have so many tabs open in Firefox I have to open a new window because I can no longer read the titles. There is simply no room for text in the little tabs. When I’m forced to use MSIE, I have so many windows open the taskbar fills up. When I use lynx, I spawn xterms all over the goddamn place. 
Yet even with my gonzo multithreading, the SDMB maintains a very usable speed. I’m obviously incapable of doing the servers harm, or even slowing them down, even when my mind is busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.
Anyway, opening a bunch of new windows at once and then reading them all will simply send a spate of connection requests to the server all at once, causing a small strain, and then leave the server alone until you decide to open a new batch. If some of your bunch can’t be serviced right then, the connection times out and you get to try again later, that’s all.