How to easily find the last threads read during one's prior FW visit?

This is not an important issue, but I thought I'd ask anyway.

I like to keep abreast of 6 FW forums. I try to skim over all the thread titles on them, visiting perhaps once every few days or at least once every couple of weeks, to make sure I notice any threads I might be interested in.

I don't visit FW on a particular schedule, so it is irksome for me not to know where I left off in my previous visit, because sometimes I find that I have skimmed a forum well beyond the point where I'd actually already checked it before, thus wasting time.

My homemade solution is to skim over a forum, and when I'm done I click on the most recent 3 threads posted there so I have a "block" of 3 slightly-differently-colored threads that, when my skimming eye notices them on my next visit to FW, are the sign for me to stop skimming beyond them on that particular forum.

Unfortunately, the color change showing that a thread has been clicked on is pretty subtle (I wish it were more distinct from the color of the unread threads), and sometimes I miss that little block I've set up (usually because one or more of the 3 threads was locked-thereby changing the color very slightly again-or because one or more was moved).

This is not an earth-shattering problem, but it does take up time, and I'm thinking that maybe there is an easier solution other people have hit on.

Can I make my little block of 3 clicked-on threads a different color that stands out more from the unread threads? Or is there a different method by which one can indicate for oneself on a return visit the exact place on each forum where one stopped reading previously?

I suppose I could note down the exact day and time of my visit, and then scroll back to that point on my next visit, but that seems cumbersome.

Couldn't there be an easy tool that FW could implement to show the member where she/he left off last time -- where to start reading anew?

It's fine when it's something like Off-Topic where there are often fewer than 50 threads between my visits to FW. But something like Hot Deals is kind of a nightmare because there can be hundreds of threads posted between my visits.

...Okay, maybe I'm a bit of a perfectionist for wanting to make sure I don't miss any threads! I suppose most people just stop reading when they are bored, click to another website and move on in their lives.

Thanks, but that's not what I'm asking about.

I want to have an easy way to tell where I was when I last logged off the site, so I can pick up where I left off -- in terms of which threads I had either read or decided not to read, so I can look only at the new threads that were posted after I had logged off the last time.

I'm not talking about keeping up with any new posts on old threads that I had already read (or decided not to read) on previous visits - I know how to do that.

In normal web browsers, unread threads would be colored blue because you have not clicked on that link before, while threads you've clicked on would be purple. This is not exactly what OP wants (unread threads from before the last visit would still be blue), but is probably very close.

I appreciate the time you all have taken to give me help!

However, I think that I am not explaining myself very well -

-I already know how to tell if I've opened up a thread or not. I know that the color changes slightly.
-I know that there is an indicator showing whether anyone has left any more messages on the threads that I already have opened, indicating that there are posts there that I have not yet seen.
-I already have my view set to "previous 2 weeks" of recent topics, so I understand how to use that. But what if I last visited 9 days ago? That still leaves 5 days of old threads that I can't eliminate from viewing over AGAIN.
(Unless I keep a note of the day and time that I last visited, and then scroll back manually on every single forum that I read here to that point in the data record, which seems annoying.)

This is what I am asking about:
I don't open every single thread on FW. I skim the titles of threads, and if the titles are not appealing, I don't open them up at all. Therefore, there is no way for me to tell if I've already skimmed the title of a thread and rejected even the idea of opening it - it does not change color or anything else. I open probably fewer than 1% of the threads here, so for every thread that I have opened and that has changed color for me, that means I have skimmed over many others, rejecting their titles and their contents, and I don't want to go back and have to skim over those ones AGAIN the next time I visit, just because there is no way to tell where I had left off on my previous visit. The problem is when I visit FW after a week or ten days or so, and I can't locate where I had stopped skimming before, because thousands of new threads have been created. There doesn't seem to be an efficient way for me to figure out where I should START reading FW on the new visit.

I think that the time I've spent on trying to frame my question in an understandable way in this thread has probably exceeded the time I would save by knowing if anybody has a different method to create a "bookmark" for themselves as to where they left off on FW.

Thank you, but I don't want to go that far - don't have time to install and learn how to use a new browser. (Even if a lot of people like using it!)

And, if I used this solution, unless I kept 6 different tabs open for each FW forum that I like to keep up with, I'd still have to manually scroll back through 5 other Forums to find the exact date and time I had stopped reading. Seems to be a hassle.

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Maybe I will stick with my solution of clicking a big block of threads at the very top of every forum when I'm done with an FW visit. (I don't read them, I just click them back to back to have a solid color-block which acts as a brake to my skimming on my next visit.) I'll do a larger block than 3 threads now on, which might help.

What would assist with that awkward solution would be if FW would make the color difference between read threads and unread threads much more noticeable!

Frugal Freak, you sound like a techie person, if you created your own custom-made browsing thingy-ma-bob for FW.

We each have areas we like to get creative in partly because it floats our boat anyway, and areas where we go with least-complicated...

For example, I like to construct my own breakfast muesli with oat flakes, wheat flakes, barley flakes, certain nuts, dried fruits, spices, flaxseeds, etc. Each separate ingredient I buy is organic, no sugar, no salt, no preservatives, etc. I research the health benefit of the ingredients, think about the glycemic index, etc. Sometimes I have to go to several retailers to get exactly what I want.

Whereas, other people buy a box on the shelf made by General Mills or Kellogg's, and get on with their lives.

Internet Explorer is MY box of corn flakes from the shelf at WalMart: Grab it, buy it, shove it down, and don't look too closely at the trans fats, dodgy chemical "flavoring", and high-fructose corn syrup on the label.

frug, let me take some comfort in (probably irrationally) avoiding the learning curve required in downloading and figuring out a new browser thing.

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However -- it occurred to me that this topic might do better over in "FatWallet" forum, and within 2 shakes of a lamb's tail, muffin the moderator has suggested something that JUST MIGHT WORK! i'm going to try it now.

I was just gonna alert Mods to help you.

I have said this several times before in this thread: I am not trying to find out what posts I have and haven't read since my last visit.

I am trying to find out which THREADS I deliberately decided not to open on a previous visit, versus the ones I have not yet made a determination about.

There is a huge difference.

riznick said: FW is quite possibly the easiest forum to find what posts you have and haven't read since your last visit.