Ask HN: Do you use the Browser tabs as a TODO list?

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Any tips on how to rid of this bad habit? I have tried experimenting with a browser (Qutebrowser) that doesnt support tabs. But I fall back to muscle memory.

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Nope.

I can’t understand why people are afraid to close browser tabs when you can always look up where you’ve been in your history. (Don’t take my word for it, try it!)

Browsing history can be very long, much larger than the number of opened tabs. You open a tab and you instantly see what you wanted to read. In history, you would have to dig a lot.

It's got search.

Your tabs don't have search and you pay for having a large number of tabs every time you switch tabs.

I'd agree the user interface would be better. If there was a good API to export your history from a few different browsers to some program that organizes your history that would make a big difference but that might be the beginning of the end of the browser monopoly so it won't happen.

But what exactly should I search for? The whole point is that list is I don't remember.

Frankly looking at 40 tabs I forget what I am looking for in the time I need to switch tabs.

40 tabs are 40 todos. They are not for the search but for looking at them all. Also, in Firefox you can search through opened tabs with '%' symbol in the URL field.

Nitpick. Ctrl + Shift + A will let you search open tabs by title or url. (in Chrome)

After I started using Disposable virtual machines on Qubes OS for random browsing, the number of opened tabs drastically decreased for me :-)

I have this "problem" too and when I want to close them, I bookmark them and tag them with keywords.

Now you have a hoarding "problem" :)

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