'Session Boss' is a powerful Firefox add-on that autonomously captures and saves your browsing sessions, enabling you to restore your tabs and windows at a later time. It functions by periodically saving sessions and detecting URL changes. Key features include the ability to save and restore tab containers, lazy tab loading, session grouping, and the capacity to search and filter sessions, windows, and tabs. It prioritizes your privacy by defaulting to exclude private browsing windows from session saves.
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Session Boss let you capture the session of the windows and tabs in the browser and restore the them later on. It automates the saving of the browsing sessions with periodic saving schedule and url change detection. It supports saving of containers and restoring them.
NOTE: Session Boss 2.10 by default turns off the inclusion of private browsing windows when saving a session. This default is better for user privacy by preventing accidental leaking of private browsing tabs in the saved sessions, especially in the automatic Scheduled backups and On-Change backups. The inclusion of private browsing windows function can be enabled again via the Preferences page.
Feature Highlight:
Save windows and tabs in sessions.
Restore a session of windows and tabs.
Restore individual windows.
Restore individual tabs.
Save and restore tab containers.
Tabs are loaded lazily.
Group sessions into groups.
Search and filter sessions, windows, and tabs
Undo and redo changes by user.
Scheduled backup of the browsing session in fixed intervals automatically.
On-change backup of the browsing session when the tab url is changed.
Export and import of sessions
Show tab creation/dependency hierarchy (support Tree Style)
Privacy Policy
This web extension does not collect any information from the user, nor does it send any data to outside parties or servers.
Permissions Usage Disclosure:
(This extension requires the following permissions to function properly.)
The "tabs" permission is needed to save and restore the url, title, and other properties of a tab.
The "storage" permission is required to store and load the session data.
The "cookies" permission is needed to save and restore the "cookieStoreId" property in a tab. (Note: the "cookies" permission will cause the display of the notice, "It requires permission to: Access your data for all websites," during installation.)
The "alarms" permission is required to schedule the backup code to run periodically.
The "contextualIdentities" permission is required to get the container information.
The "downloads" permission is required to save the export session data to files.
Issues:
Some special URL (e.g. file://, about:addons, and about:new) cannot be restored due to strict security policy of the browser. For these, the URL will be shown in a warning page and the user can copy and paste it into the address bar to open it manually.
The navigation history of each tab is not captured when saving a session. It requires further browser API support.
These summaries are automatically generated weekly using AI based on recent user reviews.
Firefox Browser Add-ons does not verify user reviews, so some user reviews may be inaccurate,
spammy, or outdated.
Pros
Effectively remembers and restores tabs
Supports Tree Style Tabs
Rescues sessions after browser crashes
Allows exporting and importing of sessions
User interface is generally well-received, though with some minor complaints
Cons
Random loss of saved sessions
Performance issues, particularly with large numbers of tabs
Limited features compared to other session managers
Outdated and visually unappealing user interface
Instability leading to potential data loss
Most mentioned
Unexpected loss of saved sessions
Slow performance and lag
Basic functionality lacking essential features
Issues with user interface design and usability
Recovery of tabs after crashes is a valued function
Recent reviews
Doesn't work at all. This extension is useless and can't save any session. Doesn't support private windows and GUI is buggy.
I don't get it what you have updated there 3 months ago, but it simply doesn't work.
I recommend this session manager rather than the one that Mozilla recommends.
Session Boss saves sessions automatically when changes happen, not in a fix time schedule. No unnecessary backups and nothing gets lost.
You can decide whether to keep or remove the current tabs right when restoring a session. It is not bound to a fix setting.
I am very contented with this session manager.
TL;DR The extension current state as of 11-Jul-24 is slow, functionally insufficient, visually unappealing, & Unreliable.
Session Boss is a poorly executed session manager that hinders user experience due to performance bottlenecks, feature deficiencies, and an outdated design & interface. infact it's a prime e.g. why people flee to better tab managing browsers ecosystems (chromium native support for tab management is not great but the extension support to manipulate the behavior makes up for it)
The extension's performance issues are particularly egregious when dealing with large numbers of tabs. A session with 1,500 tabs took over 30 agonizing minutes to restore using Session Boss. In contrast, Firefox's native solution (about:sessionrestore) accomplished the same feat in mere seconds. takes a minute or 2 to completely do its job of restoring the tabs with their associated groups in the tree style tab with no laggy experience at all. Otherwise it does what it suppose to do. backs up your tabs & its structure by both on schedule & change basis but in order to do that it consumes too much CPU making your browsing miserable. i.e. not optimized for a session manager.
Furthermore, the extension's performance woes extend beyond session restoration. General browsing becomes sluggish, and video playback is plagued by stuttering and lag. & worse it makes tree style tab slow & laggy. which makes it even more frustrating.
Session Boss boasts a feature set that can only be described as rudimentary. It's as if the developers took a core concept and then deliberately stripped it down to its bare bones.
- Basic Operations: The extension lacks fundamental capabilities like selecting multiple tabs for moving, copying, cutting, pasting tabs between sessions, and merging or splitting sessions. These are essential functions for any modern session manager.
-- Duplicate Tabs: Identifying and managing duplicate tabs is a nightmare. There's no built-in mechanism to distinguish between identical tabs, let alone group or remove them.
-- Import/Export: A critical omission is the absence of robust import/export options. The extension cannot import session data from popular alternatives like Chrome's TabXpert or Firefox's Tab Session Manager, nor can it utilize Firefox's native backup files (.jsonlz4, .baklz4). also, Non-existent CSV support. This limitation hampers user experience and restricts data transfer capabilities. & also significantly reduces the extension's utility.
- Organization: Session Boss offers no tools for organizing tabs within a session. There's no option to sort tabs by domain, URL, title, or most recently used. After searching for tabs, there is no way to select and manage multiple tabs across different sessions. This makes managing large numbers of tabs an exercise in frustration.
Coming down to the user interface of Session Boss is outdated and visually unappealing as already said above. It clashes with Firefox's modern design language, creating a jarring and unprofessional look. The extension's slow response times exacerbate the overall poor user experience. I suggest the Dev. to take a look at partizion.io & tabXpert both of them are great session manager & tab manager in every way. Performance wise, UI/UX wise, Feature Wise, support wise. please check them out so you can make your extension better for modern times.
Data Loss: The extension exhibited alarming instability during testing. In one instance, all saved sessions were mysteriously deleted after a system crash. This is an unacceptable level of unreliability for a session manager. Session Boss's on-change basis and scheduled saving functions conflict, causing delays and additional issues. Re-enabling the extension after disabling it resulted in losing all session data.
As it stands, this extension is in its infancy and requires extensive work before it can be considered a viable session manager for daily use.