alt+tab is a very different operation.

ctrl+tab cycling to the next tab is essential for many ways of surfing the web.

For instance, research a topic and tap up many tabs. Now go through them one by one. And in the process of doing so you might want to tab up even more.

At this point cycling to the next tab becomes a way to navigate the history, but where you have the context of each step preserved. MRU in this context is a nightmare.

MRU for tabs doesn't make any sense to me, that purpose is served by switching to another window instead (which is, and should be, MRU).

But ctrl+pgdn already goes to next tab, so ctrl+tab doesn't need to do that same thing, MRU is what multi-document programs (like text editors with multiple open files, IDE's) usually do for ctrl+tab. And this for good reason: this allows to cycle through the most recent documents the easiest, following usage patterns. This usage pattern also applies to browsers (and as said, ctrl+pgup/pgdn already do prev/next tab for the other usage pattern)

finding back your tab amongst the many open ones is a nightmare without some form of easily accessed recently used list that also works across windows

ctrl+pgdn is a two-handed operation, doa. The use-case for a browser and IDEs etc. is vastly different.

>finding back your tab amongst the many open ones is a nightmare without some form of easily accessed recently used list that also works across windows

not at all, they are ordered and you already know the direction you want to go. Unlike MRU that breaks down completely after a few tabs.

They're not ordered for me, any tab could be anywhere and many tabs can exist for many contexts from different moments of time that can be relevant again at any future time. How do you get the magical ability to have the tabs in the exact order you need them and have to go in only one direction?

Because that's how you open them. Which is the relevant context you need.

As soon as you have to search for anything the MRU is poisoned beyond sense and you have to start all over again.

> Because that's how you open them. Which is the relevant context you need.

Opening multiple tabs from one place, and then going through them exactly in that order, is just not something that happens often for me.

> As soon as you have to search for anything the MRU is poisoned beyond sense and you have to start all over again.

Not at all. Imagine you were reading some document in some tab. This tab could be in any window, on any workspace.

Now you check your email in-between, which is another tab in another window.

Now after checking your email, you want to go back to the document you were reading: try finding it back amongst all windows across all desktops, possibly not anymore the front tab because you also just opened a link from the document, or instinctively opened the discord tab of the window the document was in or paused some youtube music that was playing, or whatever!

MRU solves that perfectly. We're talking about 100s of tabs across multiple windows here. With MRU you only have to go through maybe max 10 or so, which is easy to find the document back in.