drfloyd518 hours ago
This isn’t as useless as it seems. It is a visual representation of how old the tab is. And I control what “old” is.
To put it another way, it helps me recognize which tabs I am using. And which I am saving for later without having to evaluate the content of the tab.
One tweak… the coverage percentage can it be adjustable? Max = 100% looses all information about the pages contents, except the title.
Also also… if the images can be made translucent… you can make old timey effects like yellowing and decay.
paid_dot_expert8 hours ago
It also creates a human feedback loop. It will train you to instinctively not keep old tabs open as you need to deal with the plants.
j16sdiz2 hours ago
It would cause more tabs to be open.
You can't use the old tab because all the plants. You open a new tab for the same page. Don't need to close any old tab for that.
Razengan4 minutes ago
Seems like we're recognizing something that people actually want: The assurance that their state will be preserved
versus what the operating system or browser can provide.
In fact, weren't _bookmarks_ supposed to solve EXACTLY this? You'd just bookmark a website on any page then come back to it any time in the future.
Then websites wanted to be apps and stopped storing state in the URL...
baxtr18 minutes ago
Pro talking here…
johnea8 hours ago
Why would you not want to keep them open?
zetanor7 hours ago
If you have tabs sitting there unused for days, isn't that just a bookmark?
terribleperson6 hours ago
Bookmarks are so badly neglected tabs might be preferable. Firefox mobile doesn't even allow you to tag new bookmarks.
opan2 hours ago
Been years since I used tags in bookmarks, but on FF mobile I do often miss qutebrowser's quickmarks. I have a lot of stuff like "malw" to get to my MAL Watching list on my PC. My compromise on mobile is to use the bookmark titles kinda like a search or a description with keyboard stuffing, so maybe the default name of the bookmark is something generic like "MyAnimeList.net", I'll put "malw - " at the start of it, then next time I hit new tab and type malw out of habit it should come up. Not as good or reliable as a quickmark, but you could probably do something similar for a tag replacement. Bookmark some blog post about the Amiga, edit the title, throw in "retrocomputing diy technology blogpost hacking" or similar on either end, then when you type in "retrocomputing" later it should show up along your other stuff with that in the title. Might be more primitive but should do the trick.
ninkendo6 hours ago
Or a history item!
People forget about browser history. It’s super useful.
My technique: I open tabs just like anyone else, and when I feel like “that’s too many tabs”, I just close them all. Every one of them.
If I need them again? Open up the browser history. It’s searchable. It has everything. Use it!
kccqzy6 hours ago
At work I’m basically required to use Chrome and Chrome does not keep browser history beyond 90 days. That is useless. An open tab can easily last more than 90 days and survive restarts.
nor-and-or-not2 hours ago
You might like Tab Session Manager, which also lets you tag and search your saved window/tab sessions and annotates them with a date.
tcfhgj6 hours ago
> It’s searchable.
not very well, except you add a lot keywords to website title manually via bookmaeks
dylan6045 hours ago
Browser history is nothing but self incriminating evidence. Why would you keep it around?
Melonai3 hours ago
Why? I don't really have anything that dangerous, illegal, or weird open... And the browser history on my local machine is at most exposed to me and my fiancé, who I don't really care to hide it away from.
dylan6043 hours ago
You do you, I'll do me. I know I'm not the only one, otherwise, the option wouldn't even be available as a preference. Just because you can't think of a reason someone might want to use that option does not mean everyone else is the same level of unimaginative.
As for specifics of why, that's something I've chosen to do and that's all that matters.
lazyasciiart3 hours ago
Damn, that’s a very defensive take for someone who started by asking why anyone would behave differently to them.
Barbing3 hours ago
> As for specifics of why, that's something I've chosen to do and that's all that matters.
No obligation to share, certainly.
Curiosity is there in part because we may learn a valuable lesson - something those “with nothing to hide” [I know] might not’ve considered. (not a request, we can learn from others)
done_lurking3 hours ago
If authorities already have the means to access your browser history then deleting it won't accomplish anything. They can just install malware and see what you're browsing anyway.
taneqan hour ago
In a remote hack or an evil maid attack, sure. If you get targeted for something, and your computer is confiscated and searched, the less ammunition stored there the better. With a large enough dataset (emails, web history, etc.) it’s pretty easy to cherry pick data points to build a narrative.
I don’t bother with this level of defensiveness but I can follow the reasoning.
skinfaxi3 hours ago
Are you against journaling for self-reflection?
dylan6043 hours ago
I don't keep a diary if that's what you're asking, but it doesn't mean that I can't look back on things to help make decisions for future growth.
Not really sure how any of that has anything to do with leaving a browser history
Barbing3 hours ago
Perhaps curious if the thinking extends to:
“[Any/most documentation of activity and behavior] is nothing but self incriminating evidence.”
dylan6043 hours ago
We've all see the stories about people being forced to grant access at border crossings. This is a specific type of information they would love to see. Being in the habit of not storing it means you don't have to forget to do it at the random time you need to have it deleted. So when you do a full shut down before going through the airport, which you obviously do, your browser has already cleaned up for you.
I don't care if I think I've done nothing wrong. The jackbooted thugs at the border might have a different say so, and now you're screwed because you felt like your history was necessary. I trust no one, and I'm not even a freedom fighter.
NetMageSCWan hour ago
Some times it really is paranoia.
fwip4 hours ago
Sometimes you want to go to a website a second time.
dylan6044 hours ago
I do it all the time
girvo7 hours ago
I use tabs as ephemeral bookmarks, yeah
Maybe there’s a better way
iugtmkbdfil8347 hours ago
Resource conservation ( memory ), attention conservation ( focus, change for additional distractions ) come to mind.
echelon6 hours ago
I'm working on tab garbage collection too!
https://github.com/echelon/browser-focus
I need to add screenshots.
Basically puts an overlay on all timed out tabs, shows all timed out tabs so you can kill them all together, etc.
I want a better algorithm / heuristic that can semantically track what I'm doing.
I might eventually be brave enough to break out of tabs and let my windowing system handle everything.
cactusplant73746 hours ago
It discourages and frustrates. So yes, it is useless in terms of modern browsing.
jdprgm2 hours ago
I don't think any browsers are really designed for the range of how many tabs people keep open.
I also wonder what the distribution does really look like. Just on my primary profile here I felt like I was making progress trying to get it to under 2000 tabs recently.
It feels like a hopeless battle though. Across multiple machines and browsers and browser profiles i'd reckon i'm stuck at like 12,000 open tabs.
cvs26813 minutes ago
> i'm stuck at like 12,000 open tabs
Would you mind giving this a shot and sharing your feedback? https://github.com/TheCodeArtist/firefox-tabs-review
Helps wade through the backlog of tabs to "burndown" one by one or en-masse?
ralnivaran hour ago
Might be just me but I just close everything at the end of day to start a clean slate for next day (usually around 50). I also just use bookmarks for persistent autocomplete.
SubNoize24 minutes ago
I think your approach is the general normal one.
K0baltan hour ago
This is bizarre to me. I close Out my browser completely several times a day lol.
darknavi25 minutes ago
My wife refuses to use bookmarks and instead uses open tabs. It drives me nuts.
spencer-pan hour ago
Do you actually come back to a tab 2,000 tabs later?
Lately I've tried using an extension to close any tabs I haven't opened for a few days. I haven't missed them, and if I actually want to come back to something, I make a todo now.
jdprgman hour ago
I do come back to a non-trivial amount.
The main issue is overcoming i opened a tab for reason and i want to close a tab for a reason, but tabs usually lead to more tabs so even trying to stay on top of it, it just endlessly grows.
Youtube alone is a major culprit and i'm confused on how everyone doesn't have at least several hundred videos they started watching or opened in a tab out of possible future interest.
Jach32 minutes ago
For youtube, sticking it on 'watch later' is one approach, or some other playlist. Even better, that way you can cronjob a script to save them locally. I'll leave youtube tabs for too long (despite this) and too often I've eventually returned and it's been removed. My other tab-shrinking habits are bookmark folders in the form "year-unread" and a local txt file where I loosely dump related URLs into pseudo-categories/sections.
SubNoize25 minutes ago
This feels like a hoarders mentality. You don't have to answer this but do you hoard in any other aspects of life? There's nothing more therapeutic than closing tabs. Worst case, everything is in history and can be opened again.
triclops2008 hours ago
"Originally, I was thinking about blocking users from closing their overgrown tabs until they slash all plants, but I thought it would be too annoying... " I would ask that you please add this as an option :), might actually use it for that feature alone because I do accidentally close old tabs by accident without noticing that was meaning to keep open.
alanning6 hours ago
Fun project, but I also really liked the way she came up with it:
I was doing a little creative exercise the other day around the word "Overgrowth”…
Is this a common thing in the creative space? Seems like a fun activity
dylan6042 hours ago
People get inspired by seeing a new color, smelling a new scent, or hearing a new song. Inspiration comes in all shapes and forms. Makes me kind of sad that you seemingly haven't been inspired by something random in life yet.
ramboldio7 hours ago
Related work: Trello allows 'aging' for tasks. One can set them to become more transparent over time or turn into stained 'pirate' paper.
itomato6 hours ago
Cursed skeuomorphism
newscracker2 hours ago
This is so cool! I wish for this to be available on Firefox, where I usually have multiple windows with each window having several tabs. The repository doesn’t make it clear if this works on non-Chrome/ium browsers.
Barbing3 hours ago
Related:
Zero regrets: Firefox power user kept 7,500 tabs open for two years
profsummergig6 hours ago
Chrome's "tab group" feature is awesome and it ended my issue with unaddressed and open tabs. It even works on Chrome for Android mobile.
ckx8 hours ago
This is so useless yet so cool!
SugarReflex8 hours ago
It doesn't do anything for shareholder value, but I love it.
bethekidyouwant8 hours ago
Unless you make ram
[deleted]7 hours agocollapsed
jakzurr7 hours ago
It is absolutely! (But nobody better try putting this on my browser.)
b33l8 hours ago
I like to throw cress seeds into unattended keyboards
asphodele7 hours ago
Classic joke at university was to sprinkle cress seeds on the carpet of someone's room and water it with a fine mist from a plant sprayer. In the morning the inhabitant would wake up to a neat lawn that had appeared overnight by magic.
jakzurr7 hours ago
OK, now I'm having flashbacks of astronomy Macintosh lab, late at night, too much homework (early 90's).
Fell asleep in front of keyboard, woke up to "Can of Worms" screensaver (never seen it before), had a heck of a start, wondering what the sound was, and what all those things were crawling all over the screen???
Barbing3 hours ago
Can they really grow that fast?
paid_dot_expert8 hours ago
Cress is a word I haven't heard in decades. Got to get some cress!
Dwedit5 hours ago
I just use a tab suspender, I prefer having RAM over having something cute.
eluru2 hours ago
found the shareholder
BLKNSLVR7 hours ago
Need more of this kind of fun!
5-7 hours ago
almost completely off-topic, but the demo video very heavy reminded me of http://www.traumagame.com/
sublinear8 hours ago
> Just for fun, you can pick your weapon of choice between the rusty machete, the chainsaw and the flamethrower.
tamimio8 hours ago
These useless programs are like what you used to see back in win98 or winxp with dancing monkey or scoopydoo walking all over your desktop windows, which I think later turned to human dancers before being used to distribute all sort of viruses.
itomato6 hours ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BonziBuddy
"BonziBuddy was described as spyware[1] and adware,[2] and was discontinued in 2004 after Bonzi Software, Inc. faced lawsuits and fines regarding the software.[3]"
It's just a matter of time before something like a "Zoltar screensaver for Basecamp" becomes an IP siphon.
makmanalp7 hours ago
sheep.exe was not useless, I loved it. you take that back.
bbor6 hours ago
Woah, my interests! Anyone have any tips or favorite projects to share from procedural vine/flora generation? It's a fascinating space, and this extension seems to do surprisingly convincing job of it
johnea8 hours ago
I like it!
I have a ton of these tabs. I don't consider them "neglected" though.
Some things take years to come to fruition. You can't just go buy them at home despot.
Maybe younger people don't yet have an appreciation for things that assume an air of legacy and heritage after many years of "just sitting there".
When finally re-visited, they have a meaning that can only accumulate with the passage of significant time...
firstdib6 hours ago
[flagged]
jasonpeacock6 hours ago
People who keep tabs open too long are the same as those who store files in the system trash.
At some point it’ll get flushed and you’ll only have yourself to blame…
zeroq5 hours ago
I'm one of those people.
I have serious ADHD and I often dive a rabbit hole for an idea for side project. Or research. Or combination of both. Most of my side projects you could categorize as spikes. There's no serious intent on delivering something of value for the world, just going from A to B and learning a thing or two on the run.
I'm like kerosene, I light up instantly, but the fire goes away very quickly. I can be researching a thing for 3 nights straight in my spare time to gather hooks and pieces of information... and then I get distracted and my focus goes somewhere else. And I'm left with 10 tabs that were suppose to kick start my idea.
To my own surprise I tend to go back to these ideas, but sometimes it takes me months, and sometimes, I keep these tabs on one of my devices, opened for months at a time. Sometimes I scrape them, adding links with notes to Obsidian.
Of course the amount of hoarded information vastly exceeds my throughput.
bertjk6 hours ago
And while initially you fear that you may have lost something valuable, you also immediately feel like a great burden has been lifted...