I have a sidebar open, but only the new "vertical tabs" feature, which to me seems like it shouldn’t be loading any content (except favicons).
But that’s probably what’s going on.
NoScript sometimes shows domains with a "(sidebar?)" note next to them. On hover this is explained as "Site outside of a content tab, e.g. in a sidebar". What does that mean ? I understand "outside of a content tab" to perhaps mean content not loaded in the visible site...