News Firefox user loses 7,470 opened tabs saved over two years after they can’t restore browsing session

[Hartemis]

Not to disparage anyone, but do you really think the user in question was this organized?
If they were, we wouldn't be reading this article.

This workaround is easy to find, with google.
And once you've experienced a crash with a lost precious session, you'll never forget it.

Just don't panic when faced with an empty window, and not close, restart, close, restart, close, restart Firefox. Else, the files in sessionstore-backups will be overwritten by the new empy ones, and the session will be definitly lost, if there is no other personal backup.

 

[Hartemis]

Also, one advantage (for some people, in some rare circumstances) in keeping tabs open rather than bookmarking them, is that each open tab retains its own history (prev/next sites).

Older versions of session manager extensions, such as Tab Session Manager, were also able to restore these histories in the past. But since FF's new extension api (WebExtension), this is no longer possible.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1378651

It's rare, but sometimes it can be useful.

 

[pacman3220]

This is why I always take screenshots of all my open tabs and file the screenshots away to an external hard drive.

If the tabs are ever lost, I can always plug in my external drive and see what they were of.

 

[razor512]

Firefox has greatly improved their memory management for a large number of tabs, as well as having in my opinion, the best UX for when it comes to tab management. Tab scrolling works great and allows for a large number of tabs without issues such as where browsers like chrome will make the tabs so narrow that you can't read any text. Furthermore, addons such as FoxyTab are amazing from a UX standpoint, as it makes it far easier to manage tab containers, as well as organizing tabs. For example:

Though if a user wants to have such a high number of tabs, and want a extra sense of safety, then use the group/ folder function and bookmark all of the opened tabs (Firefox makes it easy to do). Then if even more security is needed, they can also use the windows file history and point it to the bookmarks file in the Firefox profile, and the user will have easy to use versioning of the bookmarks file.

 

[GeekyOne]

I didn't realize FF put inactive tabs to sleep. I had installed a tab sleeper extension on one of my computers for Chromium, but didn't like the delay in refreshing inactive tabs, so disabled it. I have over 50 tabs in multiple windows of both FF and Chromium. I only bookmark tabs that I want as frequent references. Other than a few tabs I have on the left like calendar, emails, etc., the rest are things I either partially read or want to get back to sometime. Bookmarking all of them would be a waste of time and add to clutter - I couldn't imagine having to wade through some 200+ bookmarks everytime I wanted to pull one up.

 

[slightnitpick]

I just looked at that to compare.

To search open tabs is a doddle, 1-click on down arrow to the right of the new tab button, one click on search tabs, type. It's quick and easy to do.

Or you can go to the address bar and type in a "%" followed by a space.

To search all bookmarks it's the same thing but starting with the bookmarks "star" button, also 2-clicks, type, so they are equally fast to search within.

Bookmarks is an "*" followed by a space.

And et cetera unless you change the settings: https://superuser.com/questions/179...y-in-firefox-directly-from-the-navigation-bar

 

[Mr.Vegas]

I have 1700ish open in firefox, takes more than half the 4K screen lol
730 tabs on MS edge
600 in vivaldi
and i have chrome, Stack Next SE and Waterfox with 2000-2500 more

never put all your egs in the same basket!

 

[slightnitpick]

I have 1700ish open in firefox, takes more than half the 4K screen lol
730 tabs on MS edge
600 in vivaldi
and i have chrome, Stack Next SE and Waterfox with 2000-2500 more

never put all your egs in the same basket!

This ups the odds of losing a subset of your tabs. I hope you know how to recover sessions in all of your browsers.

I've got about 300 in FF and a few dozen in Vivaldi (which I actually did fail to update for a couple of years as I thought it was set to auto-update, but from some reason the auto-update for it isn't working).

 

[Mr.Vegas]

This ups the odds of losing a subset of your tabs. I hope you know how to recover sessions in all of your browsers.

I've got about 300 in FF and a few dozen in Vivaldi (which I actually did fail to update for a couple of years as I thought it was set to auto-update, but from some reason the auto-update for it isn't working).

I turn off my PC overnight each day, I like fresh boot feeling so everything updates automatically.
I know how to recover the tabs from firefox cache but I prefer to use a plugin that available for all browsers: "Tab Session Manager"
It auto saves them every X amount of time, reboot, update, shutdown.
This plugin can be used to sync tabs across browsers for people that need it, since you can import/export sessions.

I have my browsers based on topic:
Firefox - for reading web sites,
Edge - its a huge YT application with vertical tabs,
Chrome - for shopping,
Waterfox - audiobook research and download,
vivaldi - crypto, more shopping and shopping research,
Stack Next SE just researching this browser its something out of this world, it has 3 levels of sorting: Main level > Sub level>Tabs
So tabs belong to a group, groups can be seen as icons on the bottom of the browser.
But there is this thing they call "Flow" each flow has its own Tab groups
So you have 3 levels of control

If this browser is stable it can replace ALL browsers:
You can set each Flow to the topic you want, say "Shopping", under shopping you have tab group for each shop: amazon > tabs, ebay>tabs, aliexpress>tabs and so on

 

[Hartemis]

Firefox has greatly improved their memory management for a large number of tabs, as well as having in my opinion, the best UX for when it comes to tab management. Tab scrolling works great and allows for a large number of tabs without issues such as where browsers like chrome will make the tabs so narrow that you can't read any text.

I fixed this in Chrome (FF is no longer available atmy company), thanks to this guide:

How to Change Tab Width in Google Chrome

It is possible now to change the tab width in Google Chrome. Google is experimenting with different widths of tabs in the Chrome browser.

winaero.com

Now, my experience is similar to that of Firefox.