Tabbed browsing is one of the great innovations in the world of web browsers. Prior to tabbed browsing, every webside that you wanted to view had to have its own separate browser window.

For example, if you were reading NFL.com, but then wanted to bring up NBA.com, you had to open up an entirely new browser window to have both websites open at the same time. This was a very inefficient way of doing things, as more room would be taken up on your Windows taskbar.

The invention of tabbed browsing gave us the ability to view multiple web pages at the same time, in the same browser window. Now you could easily switch between NFL.com and NBA.com just by clicking on a tab. In fact, you can open as many tabs as you wish. In other words, you can have 25 or even 50 web pages available in the same browser window, and at the click of a button.

Since tabbed browsing is now a standard feature in all browsers, many people will never know what it was like before it.

See “How to create a tab,” to get started with tabbed browsing.