How old is your oldest browser tab?

[Ceebs]

(Wow, I've made two threads in the space of two days. Very unlike me, especially since I sometimes have anxiety about creating threads. 😅)

 

ANYWAY.

 

So, I just got off the phone with my partner and part of our conversation was a discussion of browser tabs. Not only how many we had open (I had 74, he had seven lol), but also how long the oldest one had been open for. My oldest tab dates back to March or April of 2020. I've been in a relationship with this browser tab a month or two longer than I've been in a relationship with my partner. 😂

 

Anyway, I said to him that I should make an AVEN poll about it and he encouraged me to do so. So here we are. How old is your oldest browser tab that you have open on whatever device you're posting from? And if you want, what is it and what's your reason for still having it open?

 

Mine is a New York Times Magazine article entitled 'Rocker John Hiatt: As Good As His Words'. It's (unsurprisingly) an interview with musician John Hiatt, originally published in March 1989. I still have it open because... I dunno how to explain my reasoning other than 'nostalgia'. Early 2020 was a difficult and confusing time for me and his music was comforting and I listened to it almost every day for a few months that spring. I guess I was just googling stuff about him and came across that article, and now I can't close it. Even though that was a rough time, things got a lot better soon after that because of the beginning of my relationship, and John Hiatt is a musician we both really like... and now that browser tab makes me happy.

 

Your turn.

[Ceebs]

Bugger, I screwed up the poll. Think it's fixed now.

[Qiri]

Bwahaha, everything gets closed at the end of the day! There is no browser tab longevity on this computer!

 

ETA - In all seriousness, I just don't like to have multiple tabs open when I don't actually need them or if I'm not actively using them. If I'm doing research, I'll download the article or copy/paste the information into a document I can save. If it's an article I want to read but not save, I'll read it then. If it's something I want to buy later, I'll write down the product/store details. Perhaps I tend towards obsessive compulsive behaviour, but I don't like having tabs open that aren't needed, and like the idea of starting anew each day. I feel like a decluttered space (including online) helps declutter my mind. But I don't have a limit on how many tabs can be open at the same time if I'm using them for something - three, seven, twenty - don't mind.    

Edited May 6 by Qiri
See ETA section

[Ceebs]

Now I feel like I made it wrong but oh well. 1-2 days means up to 48 hours, 2-3 days means between 48 and 72 hours, etc... hopefully you get the point. 😅

[Destranix]

About 5 hours maybe?

[iff]

Over 24 hours to 48 hours.

 

Someday my phone has so many tabs opened from the last week, I just close them. There could be 4 or 5 tabs relating to "listen live to bbc 6 music"

[uhtred]

Honestly, it hadn't even occurred to me to keep browser tabs open between reboots.  They are so transient that I would never want to rely on one being open for long.

 

Of course I'm old enough that I think more in terms of incised clay tablets - and its a pain keeping lots of those lying around.

[Rockblossom]

Tabs are open for only a few minutes most of the time.  I close the browser if I'm going to be away from the computer, and shut down the computer if I'm going to be away from home.   Anything I want to keep long term is bookmarked and filed in its proper place in my bookmark files.  If it is something I want to read once but haven't gotten to yet, it goes into a temporary bookmark file.  I rarely use a phone to access the internet, but when I do, I shut it down as soon as I'm finished.

[Ceebs]

Also, many of my oldest tabs have been open longer than I've had my current phone. I had an iPhone X when I opened my oldest one, then a 12, now a 13. Probably going to trade it in for a 15 soon. New phones sync with the old one, and that includes preserving all my tabs. 😁

[Snao Cone]

I have no idea. Sometimes they freeze and I close them and open the exact same one. It also greatly depends on the device. On my desktop I close the browser every time I turn it off, so that's less than a day each time. On my laptop I keep the browser open, but sometimes the laptop restarts itself and closes everything. My tablet and phone have the longest ones, as even when I restart them the browser keeps the tabs. I switched all of my devices to Firefox at some point in the past year, so I would say 6-12 months.

[Anomaly Q3Xr]

I mean, technically I rebooted my PC approximately 2 hours ago, so it would be around two hours. But my browser (Opera) restores my tabs after reopening the browser, until I close them individually (I do at least keep them to a more manageable amount), and the one I have had opened longest because I need some information but can't be arsed yet to deal with it, I opened 5-6 weeks ago.

 

I don't really use my phone, and always manually close all of the tabs once a week, but that is usually just a tonne of AVEN tabs when I am on the bus or at my Aunts.

[soong_type_freak]

1 week old tab cuz i was too lazy to bookmark a fanfic series. just keeping the tab open til i read it all.

[Squirrel Combat]

I think I have tabs in my Bookmarks that are at least two years old.

 

No wait! This is a newer laptop, so my oldest tab is from last July at least.

[Fraggle Underdark]

This was interesting to think about. I've actually had a tab for probably 7 to 8 years. I've changed computers since then but ported over my browser state, and of course I might have accidentally hit the delete button at some point in those years before quickly opening it again.

 

Anyway it's an old fan tumblr about the character Methos from the Highlander TV show (https://methos-daily.tumblr.com/). I had thought it'd been dead since I found it, and to the extent I look at I'm usually not on the front page, so I just noticed now there are actually a few recent-ish posts!

 

The reason I've kept it open so long is that Methos is one of my favorite characters of all time and finding him and the show was centering at a point of transition in life. (I think I found that tumblr while or even before I started watching the show, as I hadn't seen it when it aired and I found it by looking for complex and sometimes positive portrayals of immortals.)

[blunose2772]

Been working on a big Phototshop project (mostly to keep my mind busy so I don't fixate on my upcoming 40th birthday) and have tabs open to pages for research that have been open about a week. 

[Sarah-Sylvia]

I try not to have as many now, because sometimes I lose them on crashes or could slow down my computer or things like that

[Sarah-Sylvia]

3 minutes ago, Fraggle Underdark said:

This was interesting to think about. I've actually had a tab for probably 7 to 8 years.

that's impressive

[Lulu48]

Mine is around 6 months, maybe almost a year! I keep multiple tabs because I always think someday I might need it again. Currently working on a big paper project and I can't let go of that tab yet 😂 (I probably don't need it anymore but who knows.....?)

[Karret]

This laptop isn't even a full year old, got it in August last year, but I'd assume one of these tabs is probably around that old. X'D

[daveb]

I don't quite understand the question. I mean, I have learned in the past few years that some people keep browser tabs opened for long periods of time, but I don't know how they do that, much less why.  

 

I guess I'm in the camp with @Qiri, @uhtred, and @Rockblossom. I close my browser when I'm not using it, and I close tabs when I'm not using them. If I want to get back to something I use bookmarks. I also close down my computer when I'm not using it, and for the most part I don't use my phone for web-browsing. So any tabs are likely not open for more than a few hours at most.

[verily-forsooth-egads]

Less than a year, but that's an anomaly. On my phone… hm. Trying to trace a few of them. One of them might be as old as 2021. Most are 6 months or less though.

[Old Maid Librarian]

Is this secretly a poll to find out how old people are without asking how old they are? I'm in the group with @daveb @Qiri @uhtred and @Rockblossom.  I use bookmarks organized in folders for anything I need to get back to and close all applications before shutting down or rebooting the computer. Only tab that is open all day is my email because it is a pain to go through all the secondary security and I do go back and check it two or three times during the day.

 

@uhtred you should really get with the times and upgrade to papyrus. So much easier to carry around. 😉

[Anomaly Q3Xr]

I have almost 300 bookmarks, sorted into category folders, but keep tabs open for things I have no desire to bookmark (as no need for them long term), but do still want to use/read at some point.

 

There is also very limited times that I am home and the browser is not open, because even when working on Space Era or something I am usually researching, or adding to my Wiki, etc 

[daveb]

15 minutes ago, Old Maid Librarian said:

Is this secretly a poll to find out how old people are without asking how old they are?

 

(I wondered about that)  

[Ceebs]

46 minutes ago, Old Maid Librarian said:

Is this secretly a poll to find out how old people are without asking how old they are?

Nope haha.

 

If it indicates anything, it might be something like executive functioning or sentimentality, if I had to hazard a guess. For me, it's a combination of 'I'll get back to this later, I can't be arsed to finish reading it right now' or 'this tab reminds me of something meaningful so now I'm emotionally attached to it and closing it would make me sad'. Leaving things unfinished and becoming emotionally attached to almost anything imaginable are both defining characteristics of who I am and always have been. 😅 (And I'm not super young anymore. Not old either, but I didn't grow up using the internet -- mostly anyway, no home access until I was well into my 20s -- and smartphones didn't exist until I was an adult.)

[Ceebs]

Also I just went through all my open tabs. I remember approximately when I initially opened each one of them (or in some cases I remember the exact date), and I counted which ones are from which years. Eight are from 2020, three are from 2021, 15 are from 2022, 19 are from 2023, and the rest are from this year. 🙃

[Rockblossom]

Leaving tabs open and unattended for long periods can make your computer/phone vulnerable to "tabnapping" schemes.   Vulnerability will vary a lot depending on your browser and how you access the internet.  But for info:  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabnabbing

https://www.grcelearning.com/blog/what-is-tabnabbing-how-it-works-and-what-you-can-do-to-prevent-it

 

 

[Olallieberry]

Tabs are the new bookmarks

[Topi]

I have no idea how many tabs I have open, they are just too many 😅 The browser has a : D instead of a number ahahaha

 

The oldest ones date March 2020. I brought this phone in February 2020.

 

It's funny how I can find a bit of everything and see the evolution of my interests through them ahahahahah

[Olallieberry]

What I want to know is how many different, separate windows people's different tabs are in. My tab-per-window average is less than six, but I might have a handful of different windows with related tabbed content in each of them. Most windows (and their tabs) come and go within a day or two, and three or four "standard" windows are always open and always have the same few tabs.

 

I already anticipate some "what do you mean, more than one window? Like, my other screens?" reactions.