I use Opera with tabs so that when I launch the browser, instead of having one homepage appear, I have the pages I most often go to appear. That allows me to do a quick scan of roughly 10 sites all at once, instead of digging through one, then using a bookmark to go to the next, etc. It’s really handy for websites (like the SDMB) where they can suddenly bog down for some inexplicable reason. While the page is loading, I already have another page (usually from a different site) loaded and ready for me to look at. Plus, when I shut down my browser, I only have to click 1 button, rather than the dozens or so I’d need if I didn’t use tabbed browsing.
It’s a little sweet. Compared to previous.
It also utilizes tabs, which I’m getting used to. I kinda like 'em so far. It’s thoroughly confusing to Hub though, so he still uses 9.0SE.
Can anyone tell me what the “Power Browsing” is in the Suite? There are really odd options and look like they’re only for fun.
Sorry for the hijack. 
Combined with mouse gestures, it’s essential.
I love that I can just flick my finger up on a link and it opens in a new tab. 100x better than right clicking and opening in a new window.
On Windows(/KDE/Gnome), tabbed browsing does make for a neater taskbar. I tend to turn off grouping, so things can quickly get messy if I spawn a new window for each page I visit. But I don’t really prefer to overuse tabs. On a mac, I use tabs only for multiple pages on a particular domain, and new windows for separate domains; this works better with Exposé and matches the “each browser window is a book” metaphor that is more comfortable for me.
I suppose tabbed browsing is something for the UI gurus to debate. For each person who loves it, there is, I estimate, about a tenth of a person who vehemently despises it.
Strictly speaking, tabbed browsing would not be necessary if you used a window manager that gives you control over the organization of your windows. The Mac does this to some extent by allowing you to manipulate applications in addition to the windows that belong to them, and on Unix, you can group your windows into workspaces in whatever way you like. Windows, on the other hand, just stupidly piles everything up and provides nothing to manage even moderate multitasking, so window organization has to be done at the application level with multiple document interfaces, of which tabs are an example.
That isn’t to say that tabs are useless in other window managers, but they are only really necessary because of Windows’s flawed interface design.
I have tabs in Lotus Notes and dislike them. A little while ago, I found a registry hack for XP that forces XP to group all applications, and it works well for me.
Don’t let the tabs in Lotus Notes dissuade you from the whole concept, I also dislike the tabs in Lotus Notes but consider them indispensible for web browsing,
If you ever go Wiki-diving, it’s really quite useful to have tabbed browsing available. One article can link to dozens of others and you can just open whatever else you think might be interesting in another tab so you can finish reading your first article and then move on to the next.
Stark Raven Mad, I do that quite frequently.
Tabs are a great way to peruse info-dense hypertext sources, in general.
(Do people still use the word “hypertext”?)
I hope so, else we’re going to have to find another file extension to replace “html.”
Or google-diving where you’ve got oodles of possible pages that you’re going to have to sort through to find the information that you need.
I agree with all of the above pro-tabbed-browsing posters. Resources, ease of use, taskbar simplicity, etc. It’s all easier with it. Would never use a browser that didn’t support it.
For those who keep many tabs open, this is kind of a cool (Firefox) extension:
View all open tabs in a single new tab, and click any of them to go to that tab.
Truth be told, it’s more “cool” than useful, since I rarely use it.
I am a long-time Firefox/Firebird/Phoenix user, but I don’t agree that tabbed browsing in Firefox saves resources. It is a notorious memory hog. If memory usage is a concern, you might be better off with IE or one of its tabbed front-ends like MyIE or Avant. (Or maybe Opera - I don’t know about Opera’s memory consumption).
This article comprehensively explains advantages/disadvantages of Tabs vs. Multiple Windows:
Actually, I get the most use out of tabbed browsing when I’m just starting up the web- I can start a page loading, then hit ctrl+t and open up a new tab, with the cursor already in the web adress bar so I can type out the first couple letters of the sites I want to visit. I’m also still on dial-up, so the fact that Firefox doesn’t immediately begin loading a page when I create a new tab is nice, because I don’t waste my bandwidth loading sixteen copies of my homepage.