were slim. Thus, long-term history became a critical part of the browsing experience. Paper notes with Web addresses scrawled illegibly were gradually replaced with automatic memory courtesy of the browser. Google commoditized relevant content. You probably take it for granted today that you can enter a search term and find what you're looking for in under a second. If Google can't find anything relevant to what you're searching for, you no longer assume it's a shortcoming of the technology; instead, you might generally conclude that the answer just isn't on the Internet yet. As a side effect of this new world, you no longer have to worry that the cream of the crop will slip away from you. Why crawl through long-term history when you could just search Google again for the same (or similar) words? Not only is searching Google often the fastest option, but Google is also much more forgiving. If you can't remember exactly what appeared in the title of the page you're looking for, you're out of luck in all Web browsers. But if you can tell Google so much as a synonym or a general description, it can hone in on what you want. The only problem with this approach - as some of its proponents are discovering, much to their frustration - is that Google changes its search technology from time to time. In general, such changes benefit users because the changes improve the accuracy, relevance, and ordering of the search results. But when you're relying on a certain set of results, it can be quite vexing to discover that, for example, "the first term on the second page of search results" is no longer what you thought it was. These kinds of issues make history invaluable for now. But one day, history might be history.             Chapter 7: Browsing with Tabs Tabbed browsing is the feature for people tired of playing Whack-a-Mole on the Web. You know how it goes: You're halfway through a 5-hour surfing extravaganza and fast approaching 2 ? 106 open Web sites, each in its own window. Suddenly, the buttons in your Windows taskbar are approaching atomic size. The Wally's Fish World button now reads "Wa "; Sports Illustrated becomes "Spo "; and CNN is just "". Switching back to the Web site you want becomes a guessing game. The taskbar itself is scrolling, which you didn't even know was possible! Firefox has made that a thing of the past. This chapter shows how to take advantage of a revolutionary new way to browse the Web. It's called tabbed browsing, and it eliminates desktop clutter by allowing you to group all of your Web sites into a single window. Each Web site displays as a tab in a strip along the top of the browser's viewing area. Now you never have to close a Web site just to make room for more. Choosing between Wally's Fish World and CNN is a decision nobody should have to make. Getting Started with Tabs When you open multiple documents on your computer, you're probably accustomed to working with each document in a separate window. To switch between two windows, you click the button that represents the appropriate document on the Windows taskbar at the bottom of your screen. This method is similar to how things work