Open Links In New Tabs
Web browsers have been developing for over 30 years. When the feature "tab" invented, I immediately chose "open link in new tab" all the time, no matter which browser I use. Today I found out that, not everyone (especially Gen Z, maybe Gen Alpha) does that.
There are many people still open links in the same tab. I didn't understand this in the first place: why on earth would anyone intend to replace the current page for a new page? It doesn't make any sense. Today I realize that there is a giant gap between China internet speed and western countries internet speed.
In the late 90s and early 2000s, the internet speed is REALLY slow, people often read basic HTML and plain text content. It took a while for the browser to load all the content. When there are images, it took even longer. There was a phrase "多图杀猫" in that time, meaning "too many images that it would kill your modem" if I remembered correctly. People got used to that speed and naturally thought the speed normal all the time loading webpages. I believe it was approximately 50K/s and up to 128K/s. When we take a photo with our iPhone or Android phone nowadays, it can easily take up at least 2M of space. It is not hard to imagine how people browse in those days.
Then, tabs appeared in the browser. People can load several webpages simultaneously. This was a huge improvement in experience for me. I became used to opening multiple tabs quickly. Now I always have at least 5 tabs in the background at the same time, there were even more ten years ago. Opening webpages in new tabs has become my muscle memory. So I am seriously surprised that some people don't use this function.
Today, browsers are able to run a large software like Notion or even 3D games. The W3 standard keeps growing. There are almost only 4 browsers (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari, and hats off to Firefox) left in the market. The most fashionable browsers have AI agents built in it. I feel like I'm locked in the days where browsers were just for text, images and a little Javascript. They live in a world that "browsing" means scrolling endlessly on a big bright touchscreen, rather than on an non-touchable display. Everything is done in the "app", rather than the website. They don't even know what "surfing the internet" means. That phrase is outdated according to Google.
I love what modern browsers offer today, but I really miss those days when they didn't.
Day 12.