Tabbed browsers

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Guest

This isn't a Defender topic, but there's often been discussion of browser
issues here, so I thought I'd risk adding another.

When I installed the software on my transformation to broadband, I found
myself at the end of the process with a new browser set as default - the 'BT
Yahoo Browser'. Leaving aside the fact that it seems to be full of bugs and
fires up error messages at least once or twice every day (which doesn't fill
me with confidence about its security), one of the so-called 'advantages' it
offers is 'tabbed browsing'.

Could someone please explain why tabbed browsing is a 'good thing'? -
because I can't for the life of me see any advantage in this. What's the
difference in practice between a string of tabs near the top of the screen
within the same browser, and the string of 'open window' tabs at the bottom
of the screen which you get with Internet Explorer? It seems to me to be just
as easy to switch between windows as it is to switch between tabs - and in
fact the open windows seem easier to set up than the tabs.

I think I shall reset my default to Internet Explorer, and probably
uninstall this BT Yahoo Browser completely - unless anyone can recommend a
good reason not to? I'd value your comments, as ever.
 
Less code running on the system, and new paradigms to explore: For example,
I can set up a single button that opens a tabbed browser to the admin pages
of 5 web sites that I have admin authority over. Or, when I am working on
mailing lists, I can have the same--a one-button startup for a browser with
tabs to the USPS zip code lookup, Canadian postal code lookup, Yahoo people
finder and Google maps--all of which I use to try to pin down accurate
addresses when I run lists through a service which updates the zip+4
information.

And, for purely home use, I have a two-tab home page--NY Times, and
Live.Com, bringing in RSS feeds from NY Times, Wired, Slashdot, local
weather, Sans, and some stock quotes, just for entertainment.

To say nothing of the fact that the tabbed IE brower is safer to use than
the non-tabbed.

I can't back up the "less code" with stats, but I believe that there's less
resource use of various kinds with a single process and multiple tabs, than
multiple processes.
 
Bill Sanderson MVP said:
For example,
I can set up a single button that opens a tabbed browser to the admin pages
of 5 web sites that I have admin authority over.
Click to expand...

I don't think I see why that's any different to using a list of favourites
opening a range of websites in the same window. Maybe my browsing habits are
just too elementary?

Of course the resources issue is a different matter - but generally I rarely
have more than two windows open so I don't think it would make any difference
in practice, for me.

I must say though that this BT Yahoo browser package is intolerably
intrusive, with its persistent attempts to update, its frequent errors, and
the great barrage of add-ons that it's installed into Internet Explorer - one
of which actually prevents me from opening multiple windows! I've disabled
the whole lot of them.
 
I'll just address the toolbar. Microsoft initially provided a toolbar to
allow tabbed browsing and then Yahoo jumped on the bandwagon. Personally, I
didn't like their implementation and yes many bugs were present. Now that
IE7 is production, you are much better off upgrading to IE7 because it has
builtin tabs. Of course Mozilla Firefox has been around for a while with
tabs. Although you browsing habits may be simplistic, once you use tabs you
never go back.
 
Disabling add-ons is usually the right thing to do, as far as I'm concerned.
You can turn off the tabbed-browsing behavior in IE7 easily:

Tools, Internet options, and, near the bottom of the General tab, look for
"Tabs", and a Settings button. Uncheck "enable...." at the top of the next
property sheet, apply, restart the browser, and you're done.

--
 
Mr Cat said:
Although you browsing habits may be simplistic, once you use tabs you
never go back.
Click to expand...
I must be an even more simplistic browser-user than you think Mr Cat,
because the tabs seem to make most things more difficult, for me. No matter:
now that I've disabled all the yahoo add-ons, IE6 suits me fine just as it is.
 
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