if you want to develop your ear its best to figure them out as much as possible and refer to tab to check yourself or if you get stuck ! if you just play for fun and dont care about developing your skills then have at it.. just my 2 cents worth! Ive been playin 23 years!

I've been playing about 11 years and I learned by ear and still play that way. I can barely read tabs myself and can figure a song out faster by listening to it and matching the tones by ear. Definitely a necessity when playing with a group as well.

Personally they helped my ear

I halfway take back my opinion on this. For those learning, tabs can help a lot in matching notes with frets and intervals. Once you have that system mastered, then playing by ear is the easiest approach to learning new songs.