An alternative to Session Buddy: "Tabs Backup & Restore"

[mkrier]

When the recent Suspender update screwed my tabs, I thought, no problem, I've got Session Buddy, as many have mentioned here. sigh. No.

Well, guess what- apparently, many months ago, Session Buddy (quietly) changed the frequency of it's updates:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/sessionbuddy-discuss/QUb4zqWz5CI

So I was totally screwed. In light of this recent little disaster, I did a some searching and experimenting with different extensions and now I'm using this:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabs-backup-restore/dehocbglhkaogiljpihicakmlockmlgd

So far good. Try it... Seems better, right? So, anyway, I recommend it guys.

(btw, I'm not putting down @deanoemcke , it looks like it was inevitable. (I'm a developer too.) )

[SnIPeRSnIPeR]

Tabs Backup & Restore
updated: 14 november 2012...

[RobertAb1]

Tabs Backup & Restore is not maintained anymore.

[mkrier]

Oh I see. Ok what's better then? In the void left of Session Buddy?

[RobertAb1]

We have problem here with Chrome and missing futures and APIs for session managers.
TBH, Waterfox is my main browser, but I am using Chrome just to see how "competition" is doing.

Maybe I could propose to use:
(1) Firefox 61 + Session Sync (or MySessions or Tab Session Manager), or
(2) Firefox 56/Waterfox 56.2.2 + Session Manager (works even better). :)
Firefox has already lazy tabs implemented natively few years ago, and they are working perfectly.
ReDEnergy/SessionSync#44
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6xH2pxt9wJS2XqUOaOfxyA

But seriously, how often do you restart your Chrome? I have noticed on my that Session Buddy is saving session 1 time every 1 restart. And after problem caused by The Great Suspender, I was able to recover my tabs using Session Buddy's saved session.

[mkrier]

You're in the minority there. As I said in the op post- session buddy quietly stretched out the gap for it's automatic saves. hell, does it even do automatic saves at all anymore?

I was NOT able to recover my tabs with session buddy. @deanoemcke can maybe chime in about it from the other post thread.

And no, it's infeasible for me to switch to firefox.

[RobertAb1]

How often do you restart your Chrome?

[SnIPeRSnIPeR]

I am using "Session Buddy":

Works fine for me...

[mkrier]

@RobertAb1

mmm well it's hard to take an average. The mean wouldn't be a good measure, but the median would be like... call it about two weeks...

[RobertAb1]

@mkrier
So you are getting 1 saved session per restart. The same as I do.
So I will give you simple advice. Do restarts daily, or more often if you are introducing important changes (opening/closing a lot of windows).
Looks like the problem with Session Buddy is solved :)

[mkrier]

@RobertAb1

Well, we philosophically disagree about backups. I believe that backups should never be manual. Humans are usually the point of failure. I shouldn't have to think about backups at all, except-in-so-much as to check that they're actually still working. (see- even there, that was the point of failure; the human.)

I'm much happier with Tabs Backup & Restore even if it's not supported.

(Well: edit: I guess a backup should be manual if you're going to like, reinstall the OS or do a migration, etc. A point of deliberate change/movement.)

[RobertAb1]

@mkrier

I completely agree: backups should be done automatically. And they are during restart :)

But I need to tell you. Session Manager in Firefox/Waterfox never/ever gave me problems. Never. The best session manager ever made. Also in Firefox/Waterfox, I never have problems with the order of tabs in window even after some accidents (like Windows blue screen). In Chrome, the order of tabs is ALWAYS changed. That is way, I am using now Waterfox.

[mkrier]

@RobertAb1

Ok I respect that, but manually restarting it to cause a backup, is still.... manual.

And while Session Buddy never gave you, in particular, problems, well- it gave a lot of other people problems who didn't waste their human labor doing things manually. (as you'll see in the link I provided in the op post- people who got screwed over by the quiet update last winter).

And, again, switching to firefox (waterfox), isn't an option for me- I rely on other extensions here. (One in particular)

But anyway, I think we've got our different situations resolved, right.

If so, cheers,

m

[RobertAb1]

@mkrier
At least, I will know not to worry about Session Buddy.
The main reason, I am restarting Chrome is to speed it up, and to make it to use less resources.
Have a nice day.

[mkrier]

@RobertAb1 oohhh I thought you were restarting it specifically to make session buddy backup. I see now, thanks.

[deanoemcke]

My 2 cents. I have experienced the same issue as @mkrier.

I think we just need to define what we are expecting from a session manager. For me, I expect it to be constantly recording the state of my tabs. If chrome crashes, I want it to have remembered my last known state.

• Session Buddy used to do this, but now no longer does. This for me makes it useless for my primary use case.
• The Great Suspender does do this. It will update the most recent session whenever a url is changed or a tab is added/removed. However, we're talking about an external tool for when TGS fails so that's out in this instance.
• Tabs Backup & Restore seems to do exactly what I want. It's a shame it's no longer maintained, but it still does exactly what I need, so personally i've switched to using this.

[ahmedhamdy2121]

I have switched too to Tabs Backup and Restore, at least it is working for now, until we see what shall happen in the next Chrome update...

[mikhoul]

@RobertAb1 commented on 28 août 2018 à 06:01 UTC−4:

Tabs Backup & Restore is not maintained anymore.

But does it work fine ? 🤔

If it is not maintained but is working fine there is no real issue.

Also I use this extension here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/freshstart-cross-browser/nmidkjogcjnnlfimjcedenagjfacpobb

There is a crash recovery integrated but lately it don,t seem to save as it should my session, maybe it's a conflict withanother extension I have since before it was working fine and saved my but lot of times 😊.

[chrcoluk]

Agreed, just because its not maintained it doesnt mean it cannot be used, not maintained can be a good thing as it means no new bugs been introduced from broken new code. As well as feature trimming which session buddy has suffered from.

[liamjohnston]

i'll just leave this here

[RobertAb1]

New session manager for Chrome:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab-session-manager/iaiomicjabeggjcfkbimgmglanimpnae
It is available for Firefox for longer period of time:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-session-manager/

[Cerberus-tm]

@RobertAb1 So for you Tab Session Manager works well in Firefox? It has a score 2.9 stars and I see a few reviews complaining about how it isn't reliable... (I'm still preparing for my eventual switch to the new Firefox).

[Luckz]

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but to me a "session manager" needs to maintain scroll position for all tabs, back/forwards history for all tabs, and perhaps have the option to keep unsent formdata. Saving a tab (versus piecing together a tab from whatever you exported) was only possible in Firefox before Web Extensions.
Tabs affected by The Great Suspender already lose scroll position much more than a native (merely discarded) tab would, cannot keep forward history because it is overwritten by doing a web navigation, and TGS pollutes back history with duplicates of the current tab (one for every time you suspend).

Chrome session managers can by design only be bookmark tools.

---

To add to the links mentioned in this thread,
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabs-outliner/eggkanocgddhmamlbiijnphhppkpkmkl?hl=en and https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabfern-tab-manager-and-b/hbajjpcdbninabigakflkhiogmmjaakm?hl=en add neat vertical own-window views.

[CollinChaffin]

I've always run SB and even with current version, mine has no issue on MANY systems not only instantly saving current session (open Chrome, open 5 tabs, close Chrome 10 sec later, reopen fresh, and there is the auto-saved session to restore as well as the HUNDREDS of sessions spanning years - all of which restore fine).

All I can think is it's something with your settings, or a conflicting extension. Also, perhaps your SB database has an issue?

[ckyoog]

Tab Session Manager is excellent, IMO, with features like auto save, auto cloud sync, and most important, it is open source.