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

mkrier commented 6 years ago

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 commented 6 years ago

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

RobertAb1 commented 6 years ago

Tabs Backup & Restore is not maintained anymore.

mkrier commented 6 years ago

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

RobertAb1 commented 6 years ago

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. https://github.com/ReDEnergy/SessionSync/issues/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 commented 6 years ago

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 commented 6 years ago

How often do you restart your Chrome?

SnIPeRSnIPeR commented 6 years ago

I am using "Session Buddy":

2018-08-28_21-53-58

Works fine for me...

2018-08-28_21-56-42

mkrier commented 6 years ago

@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 commented 6 years ago

@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 commented 6 years ago

@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 commented 6 years ago

@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 commented 6 years ago

@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 commented 6 years ago

@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 commented 6 years ago

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

deanoemcke commented 6 years ago

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 commented 6 years ago

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 commented 6 years ago

@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 commented 6 years ago

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 commented 6 years ago

i'll just leave this here screen shot 2018-10-04 at 11 04 45 am

RobertAb1 commented 6 years ago

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 commented 6 years ago

@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 commented 5 years ago

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 commented 5 years ago

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 commented 3 years ago

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

greatsuspender / thegreatsuspender

An alternative to Session Buddy: "Tabs Backup & Restore" #742