I started my new job this week and it is all going all right. Being a University, the technology is generally fairly new, and the software is up to date. They have recently installed the largest Wi-Fi network in Australia and are running the largest Active Directory network in the southern hemisphere.

There is only one thing that is getting to me, and that is a Web Browser without tabs. Internet Explorer 6 is still on every machine around the workplace. I assume this is due to some incompatibility issues with a couple of corporate applications.

Over the last couple of years, I have been using tabbed browsers. I did not find it hard to adjust, and could see the benefits very quickly. It has now been a year since I have touched a browser without tabs and am finding it a lot of hard work. I find that my screen is full of windows without any flow or connection to each other. It has slowed down my browsing substantially. Needless to say, I upgraded the first chance I had so now I am back into tabbed bliss. I am no longer hesitant to open a bundle of links at once. I didn’t realise how big a deal it was until I started here.

Tabbed browsing has many advantages over conventional windows.

• It’s much quicker to open a new tab than a new window
• Less system resources are used
• Web-pages in a window relate to each other better
• A modern operating system will display pages better than older browsers
• IMG looks like crap in older browsers

If you have the means to upgrade your browser to the latest Internet Explorer or Firefox browser (doesn’t matter), you too can enjoy the beauty of tabbed browsing. It is a very quick and easy install for both. Most readers of Inspect My Gadget made the move a long time ago.

If I can encourage one reader to upgrade their browser to a tabbed browser I will feel like this article was worthwhile, and not just an excuse for a post on a slow news day.