Some people open a browser to get in, get the fact, and get out. Beth McClelland opens one to wander through twelve centuries of history.
We first met Beth through her wonderfully precise review of Horse. She understood the feeling we were trying to create before we had found the words for it: a browser where curiosity could spread out without turning into chaos. In September 2024, Eleanor sat down with her to see what that looked like in actual use.
Twelve centuries in twelve months
Beth had recently left a master’s degree and wanted to recover time for her own interests. She found a challenge proposed by Stian Håklev: learn a broad overview of twelve centuries of history in twelve months. It offered just enough structure to point the expedition somewhere, with abundant permission to get distracted by medieval people doing medieval things.
Eleanor: What made the project a good place to try Horse?
This was the perfect environment in which to try Horse because there were so many threads (trails) to go down and it was instantly less overwhelming to do it in Horse Browser because of how neat it could leave the threads.
In a regular browser, the exploration and the filing are two competing jobs. You find an interesting person, open three references, discover an argument about a cathedral, and suddenly you are also expected to remember which tab belongs to which century. Apparently the human being conducting historical research must moonlight as inventory software.
Horse gives that second job to the browser. Each link branches beneath the page that opened it. Beth can follow the material in the order it becomes interesting; the structure appears as a result.
Browser on the left, notes on the right
Eleanor: What does the setup look like while you work?
When I’m in my research zone, I have Horse Browser on the left side of my screen and Capacities on the right so I can write my notes down. Other times I just want to read and click around, so I’ll open Horse Browser in full screen and close the sidebar and just very happily get lost, knowing my trails are waiting for me when I’m ready!
That last detail is the whole thing in miniature. Beth can hide the structure while she reads because she does not have to keep rehearsing it in her head. The Trail remains. The browser has not thrown away the route just because it is not currently waving it in her face.
The quiet internet
Eleanor: What part does Horse play in your broader digital life?
Horse Browser is my quiet, safe internet where I am free to explore something new. So all research, whether in-depth or a smaller curiosity, starts in Horse Browser. So sometimes I use it every day, in busier weeks it might just be a couple of times a week, but every time I open it, I appreciate the mindset shift and calming effect it has.
Beth used another browser for fast, day-to-day activity. Horse was the separate place for deliberate curiosity. A fresh topic began as a fresh Trail; the branches collected in the sidebar; the visual boundary between the two browsers helped mark a different kind of time.
This is not a universal commandment to maintain two browsers and arrange them according to a sacred digital feng shui. It is one Rider finding a clear role for each tool. Excellent software that already fits one part of your life is a lovely thing to have. Horse adds a place where the route matters as much as the destination.
A picture of the wandering
Eleanor: What are your favourite things about Horse?
Without a doubt, it’s the combination of the trails neatly organizing my clicks for me, and the shortcuts that make navigating that so easy. Together, I can happily wander down these rabbit holes rather than having to fight my way down them with clunky software getting in the way.
Beth set links to open in Sub-Trails, then often browsed with the sidebar closed. When she revealed it again, Horse showed “a beautiful picture of the journey” she had taken.
The interesting work remains Beth’s: choosing a question, recognising a useful source, connecting twelve centuries without accidentally inventing a thirteenth. Horse simply stops charging an organisational tax on every click.
That is technology behaving properly. Curiosity belongs at human scale. Remembering the complete lineage of thirty web pages is magnificent work for a machine.
Read Beth’s original Horse review, see how Trails work, or continue with Max Roberts’ podcast-research story.
Catch you on the Trail,
Pascal & Eleanor