I feel you, and agree with most of it… buuutttt I think it’s even more frustrating to know you had a good reference that was closed and then spent a stupid amount of time to find again.

Everyone has their own workflow, whatever works.

I have, mostly. The search engine wasn’t the point; they’re all pretty terrible these days with the absurd AI spam everywhere.

It’s a combination of things… I’m a software developer, so I’ll often end up with 20+ tabs open while resolving a problem.

• I don’t want to bookmark them because I don’t need them when I finish the task.
• I can’t close the tabs until I’m sure everything’s working because Google sucks these days and who knows how hard it’ll be to find the source again.
• Relying on browser history is like finding a needle in a haystack. Tasks can take multiple days and 100 different entries in history.
• I might have “finished” a task that still needs tested and I know it’s a bit shaky; I’ll want to move onto a new task but keep the most useful references until I no longer need them.
• I only bookmark pages that I’ll need long-term or multiple times. It’s already hard enough to keep those organized…

My tab hoarding has only gotten this bad because search engines are terrible now and the amount of AI garbage to sort through makes finding anything useful a pain in the ass the first time; let alone trying to find it a second time.

Honestly, thank you for posting the details and results. Regardless of anyone’s opinions, it’s a fascinating thought experiment.

Personally, I don’t have the energy to go to such lengths. My “good enough” has been using AdGaud Home as a network-wide DNS blocker and connect my smart TV to it. It’s been great so far.

Plus, I get the bonus of seeing how much gets blocked.

Not disagreeing, but at some point this won’t be enough. Assuming companies aren’t already, “offline” devices will get shipped with the ability to utilize unsecured networks and/or other devices. Better hope any neighbors are privacy conscious too.*

(they’re not)

This might depend on the version the OS is. I have an LG that’s been great for years, then it got a ““fresh new look”” that featured a giant banner for “recommendations.”

I had auto-updates off, too. Thankfully, they still had an option to revert to the previous menu - but who knows how long that’d stay an option? It pissed me off enough to finally setup AdGaurd Home on my home server.

Fun Fact: It’s increased my phone’s battery life by ~48 hours (excluding the rare occasion where its being actively used all day).