Do you web surf or return to the same sites?

With little time spent at the computer at a time, I find myself repeating the same internet browsing patterns. I usually check email, pay a credit card bill, browse doomworld and sometimes other social media. Just about every time I search for something on Google or Youtube, I'm usually starting from scratch, not continuing an intriguing exploration of a particular topic.

Many of these sites statistically experience heavy traffic, which leads me to believe this is a common thing. When people use the internet, they regularly return to their comfortable trusted websites instead of exploring deeply. I feel like I'm limiting myself by doing this, but I've been doing so for so long that it might take some time to break out of the habit. The internet is huge and abundant with information. At this point you can pretty much learn everything in the world if you know what questions to ask.

So for most people here, do you find yourselves using the same websites over and over and over, or do you regularly seek the unknown? I've been wanting to branch out but I often find way too much tabloid-style internet journalism crap that pops up at the top of google searches and get discouraged from the idea that there are better things out there. However, I've heard that google and other things have ways of tracking your internet browsing patterns and only exposing you to things you'd find relevant to your interests, so it's possible that people are finding much different things than I am based on the patterns I've been following already and it might not be easy to start from a clean slate.

I'm keeping an open mind about switching to a new search engine besides google, since google is pretty quick to pull up quick answers to questions and not much more than that. I'd like to be exposed to differing viewpoints and other thought provoking literature/periodicals. I may just suck at googling the right things though.

I'd like to get more out of my internet browsing experiences, but some concerns I have that I think are keeping me from having any feelings of progress when internet browsing are:

1. A reliable method of benchmarking, so that when I have to leave and shutoff my computer, I can return to it, and continue where I left off with the same train of thought.

2. A search engine that is better at finding personal or obscure websites rather than heavy traffic click-bait websites that dominate the first pages of a google search, like buzzfeed-esque stuff, wikihow, howstuffworks, etc. (This may be a product of the time, compared to websites of several years ago)

3. A reliable method of documenting or blocking off websites that I've already read or browsed and/or found to not be a useful or reliable source of information.

I tend to do that myself. I keep 5 tabs open.
Youtube
Facebook
DeviantART (Mostly)
Twitter
Explosive Nachos (Darsycho's version of Doomworld powered by Enjin)

I never venture outside my little cubbyhole of websites.

The most I'll usually do is load up some documentaries on YouTube or something while I'm mapping and just ingest information while I work. All kinds of NatGeo stuff and Physics/Astronomy stuff is the best, although I did watch something about the mafia once. Good stuff.

Facebook, Youtube, Doomworld, Valvetime, Assembler games and Moddb .

Youtube, Google, Doomworld, ya know that type of things.

Mostly I return to the same sites. I check Doomworld, BBC sport, Facebook and the local news site on an almost daily basis. YouTube and Wikipedia would be placed high in my usage as well and these site make up the vast majority of my internet usage.

Mainly DW, dailymotion(for newest MLP eps) and YT, but when I was way younger I used to surf around google while clicking various websites while searching "mario". or "flash games" and playing random stickman games. I was a huge fan of stickmen and mario.

Ever since I got my new computer and no longer had to worry (much) about things getting slow and bogged down, I've developed a bad habit of leaving about 60-70 tabs open while only using about 2 or 3 of them. Eventually it does start to take its toll on my system, probably wouldn't be a problem if all I did was return to the same sites.

40oz said:

1. A reliable method of benchmarking, so that when I have to leave and shutoff my computer, I can return to it, and continue where I left off with the same train of thought.

2. A search engine that is better at finding personal or obscure websites rather than heavy traffic click-bait websites that dominate the first pages of a google search, like buzzfeed-esque stuff, wikihow, howstuffworks, etc. (This may be a product of the time, compared to websites of several years ago)

3. A reliable method of documenting or blocking off websites that I've already read or browsed and/or found to not be a useful or reliable source of information.

1. Get yourself a browser extension like OneTab or Session Manager (I personally use OneTab since it condenses everything into a list rather than opening all the tabs again at the same time).

2. Not entirely sure where to look for this one. DuckDuckGo maybe?

3. Yeah, I'd like to know how to do this too.

The concept of random, undirected web surfing has been dead for ages. I kind of miss it, I remember browsing the web in like 1996 and having no particular direction and drifting from homepage to homepage, reading about random stuff.

Hey just stopping by, found your forum on a random web surf and thought Id make a post to say "hello!
Cool site, bye and thanks everybody ☂

Metal Archives is the first thing I have loaded in my tabs and have done so for years, although I only made an account not so long ago. Along with Doomworld, Classic Rock, on a vast majority of occasions I will have Bloody Disgusting loaded, YouTube is a definite as I find that great to listen to an album or two, (I cannot go a day without listening to a mass amount of music, and haven't been able to for a massive percentage of my life). IMDB I'll visit on occasion, but I don't really reserve a tab for as well as Empire.

Linguica said:

The concept of random, undirected web surfing has been dead for ages. I kind of miss it, I remember browsing the web in like 1996 and having no particular direction and drifting from homepage to homepage, reading about random stuff.

What do you think is the cause of death? When I use the internet I sort of feel like a volleyball in a swimming pool. When I'm browsing the internet I'm pulled down under water looking for new things, but then when I'm done or haven't found enough interesting things, I rise up to the surface where google and facebook and doomworld are (though doomworld feels like the closest thing to being under water at this point) and continue floating around with my usual things and poking at them until they update with new information.

The internet felt like a new frontier at one point, and now it seems so boring. Did the internet actually change so dramatically, or is it that how we use the internet is much more focused that stumbling upon strange things accidentally just doesn't happen anymore? Or perhaps I'm just looking at it through a rose tinted lens and having used it for so long I feel as though I've exhausted its benefits for me.

I kind of miss it too. I think everything changed since the so called "web 2.0", when monolithics websites like google, facebook and youtube became the only reference to search content. Now we have some kinds of giant web-portals, it's all centralized. Not exactly a bad thing anyway.

The sites I go to the most would be deviantart for its main chatroom and youtube for videos. Doomworld is the main place I go to for forums now since I haven't bothered much with many other forums I used to go to. Also I go to Raptr a few times a day to track my game playing time.

I visit the same stuff. The imdb Game of Thrones board hoping for some new juicy spoiler. UHM(Upcoming Horror Movies) for basically loyalty reasons even though say Bloody Disgusting has way more content. I've been booted off of so many boxing websites in the lounges because of racial talk(yikes) where SJW want to shut me down. Youtube, love Colin Flaherty's channel and vintage video game speedruns......any of you ever tried to beat Ghosts and Goblins on NES, Jesus H. dude. I visit coasterforce once in awhile to see if any new super-coasters are coming out, but I'm not too coaster-geek friendly, plus I'm almost 40, lol. Lastly, I'm a long-time NASCAR fan and spectator(I live about 40 minutes from Martinsville Speedway in VA). Nascar is cool sometimes, but watching a race is like weeding through boxing matches because you might get an epic one, but most of the time it's shit.