Reviews for Tab Stash
Tab Stash by Josh Berry
560 reviews
- Rated 3 out of 5by Gemini62167, 3 years agoHmmmm. I so wanted to like this add-on. On the surface it provided a very easy way to organize tabs while not having to specifically bookmark them. You could create separate categories for each group of tabs you had set aside. Such a nice feature.
However, the reason for the low rating is despite how useful it could be theoretically, it really was a CPU hog. I cannot count how many times I had to force quit out of Firefox because Tab Stash was so hungry, my whole computer would die to a crawl. And if that couldn't be done I would have to resort to restarting.
It took me a while to figure out what it was that was causing this. When I discovered that Tab Stash was behind it all I then shut it down and with that everything returned to normal. But I was pretty disappointed in this. As the add-on really made life easier when it worked.
I thought that when tabs were stashed aside, they not only became inactive but were automatically turned off or unloaded so as to free up memory as well as release itself from eating up CPU. But despite there being numerous ways to set Tab Stash to do just that, it really didn't seem to have any noticeable effect. I gave up after being held up one too many times and having no choice but to restart my machine. There are just days when I have no time to mess around with things that make themselves more of a problem then they solve, and it was one of those days, so I ditched it. And with that, my system went back to normal, I was able to scoot about on the net as before, and outside of losing all my stashed tabs (so I thought) I could carry on in my normal fashion.
Later, I discovered that Tab Stash is nothing more than a clever UI that deposits all those stashed tabs in its own bookmark folder it creates within the Mozilla Bookmarks Menu.
Having discovered that, I simply continued to use that bookmark folder opened in the side bar where Tab Stash once sat. A simple Ctl-D and I can stash my tabs in that same folder, and then do with them what I wish at a later time. Sure, it doesn't have all the pretty functions up front, but I needed Tab Stash to do the most basic of things, which actually was the primary purpose for such an add-on in the first place. Failing that, I found doing it the old fashioned way utilizing Firefox's side bar, sufficed AND without hogging up CPU or decimating the memory.
Sometimes simple is best.Developer response
posted 3 years agoSorry to hear you were having CPU trouble that may have been caused by Tab Stash. In general, Tab Stash is designed to handle extremely large stashes efficiently (I know of users who have tens of thousands of stashed tabs with no problems), so I'm quite surprised to hear it's not performing well for you.
I'd like to find out more, e.g. exactly what situations led to the high CPU usage, so that I can get to the bottom of whatever is going on. Please feel free to open an issue on GitHub to discuss further: https://github.com/josh-berry/tab-stash/issues/new/choose - Rated 4 out of 5by donewithusernames, 3 years ago
- Rated 3 out of 5by Casyl, 3 years agoFantastic but would love to be able to rename tabs. I use it for a website that every tab is named the same, in Microsoft Collections I can rename everything, but really want to come back to Firefox. I love having the side bar and being able to navigate groups in a simple compact way.
Developer response
posted 3 years agoGood news—you can! Hover over the tab you want to rename, and click the icon that looks like a pencil. (Note the tab has to be in your stash; you can’t rename open tabs.)
Hope this helps! - Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 14029396, 3 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Sagar, 3 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 17722521, 3 years ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by Firefox user 16868508, 3 years agoMy Firefox 108.0.1 memory usage ranges from 40-50%. Installed this app and it maxed my memory to 99%. Firefox was very unresponsive, video and scrolling choppy. Removed this app and restarted Firefox - all is well.
Developer response
posted 3 years agoThanks for the feedback. I'm curious roughly how many bookmarks you have? If you have an extremely large bookmarks database (as in hundreds of thousands or millions of bookmarks), it's possible this may have an impact on Tab Stash memory usage. However, it's hard to say without more details.
I'd love to help further, please feel free to open an issue on GitHub: https://github.com/josh-berry/tab-stash/issues/new/choose - Rated 5 out of 5by Frosty, 3 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Hollytryx, 3 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by DeFEcT, 3 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 17703418, 3 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 17703100, 3 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Danny Walden, 3 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 17622034, 3 years agoHelps you to keep a clear mind. I love the minimalistic and compact UI.
- Rated 1 out of 5by Firefox user 14579966, 3 years agoI have not even started using it, and it annoyed me. No, starting automatically on all the windows is *not* a good idea. I do detest going through all of them closing this effing thing.
Developer response
posted 3 years agoI'm not sure exactly what you mean by "starting automatically on all the windows", but if you're referring to the sidebar opening when you first install it, this is done by Firefox all on its own, and unfortunately is entirely outside of Tab Stash's control.
I suggest raising your concern with Mozilla instead; there's nothing I can do about it, I'm afraid. - Rated 5 out of 5by Cyuonut, 3 years agoA fabulous extension with a very active and helpful main developer. The one star reviews should be ignored, as they are written by disgruntled people with minor problems. Like, well, in every site with star ratings.
Developer response
posted 3 years agoThanks for the kind words! Happy to hear Tab Stash is working well for you.
Also happy to report that the biggest problem others have complained about recently is now fixed in the 2.12 release—no more closing too many open tabs by mistake! - Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 13590901, 3 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by roman, 3 years ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by Ariana, 3 years agoAuthor is reporting unfavorable reviews to get them deleted so I'm posting my review once again, I also reported this extension as damaging because of that.
If you install this extension expect to lose tabs and never be able to recover them because for some reason this extension manages to make closed tabs impossible to recover.
Worst extension ever and It's a mystery how these extensions that actually destroy your data get recommended by Mozilla.
Not even Sidebery (which is a mess) made me actually lose tabs.
Edit: and completely unhelpful reply from the developer who also threatens to get this comment censored.Developer response
posted 3 years agoI don't have permission to delete reviews, only Mozilla does. I flagged your prior review for inappropriate language and Mozilla decided to take it down. I will flag this one to Mozilla for the same reason—hyperbole and insults are not welcome here.
Constructive criticism is always welcome, even if it's accompanied by a 1-star rating. You can find plenty of examples of how to write constructive criticism in other negative reviews of Tab Stash. (Though I do wish people would reach out using the other ways of contacting me to try to resolve their problem first—I do actually read and respond to bug reports!) A lot of the improvements that have gone into Tab Stash over the years happened only because of the feedback I've gotten from users both here in reviews and on GitHub.
In fact, there is a 2-star review complaining about the exact same issue you faced, but written in a way that was respectful—perhaps you can use that as an example. - Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 14234915, 3 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by cirrus, 3 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by sr, 3 years ago
- Rated 3 out of 5by buergi, 3 years agoUsability wise quite complicated, this add-on mixes the concepts of tabs and bookmarks, which as such is an interesting idea, as most people use tabs as a kind of bookmark.
However, my greatest problems with the add-ons are
a) usability (I just don't understand when a tab is just hidden, when it is closed and re-opened from bookmark)
b) performance (unstashing re-opens tabs one by one which can easily take 20s for lots of tabs)
c) loss of history (actually the tab is not stashed, only the open URL)
The loss of history is my biggest problem which finally caused be to uninstall the add-on. A tab is often worthless without its history.Developer response
posted 3 years agoThanks for the feedback!
Regarding usability, you can tell if a tab is open or not based on its color—open tabs have blue text.
Regarding performance, restoring tabs one by one is actually a safety measure that was added to Tab Stash recently, as it's possible to lock up your entire computer if too many tabs are opened at once. But this is something I'm looking to fine-tune in the future.
Regarding saving of tab history, unfortunately this is not compatible with saving tabs as bookmarks (and thus syncing them between computers), since bookmarks can only contain a single URL. Tab Stash tries to work around this limitation by hiding (instead of closing) tabs by default, but this obviously doesn't preserve history when syncing between computers, nor if you close all your open windows. - Rated 5 out of 5by Talwick, 3 years agoI really like this extension. The ability to - at a key combination - quickly stash what I'm working on for later, grouped by each event/date, is really clever! I like how it works through the bookmarks rather than trying to be a whole new system.
Sadly Firefox occasionally freezes while it is active (even though I am not doing anything with it) to such a degree that even Windows Explorer can freeze or restart (task manager can't open) and this is on a reasonably powerful gaming laptop.
EDIT: I've reinstalled this extension and everything seems to be fine after a few days. Perhaps I had installed something else at the time causing the freezing. Thanks again Josh for this great extension!Developer response
posted 3 years agoThanks for the review and sorry to hear about the freezing—it's highly unusual/unlikely that Tab Stash would cause your whole computer to freeze periodically, but I'd be happy to troubleshoot with you further.
Please feel free to open an issue on GitHub if you'd like me to look into it! The more detail you can share about your setup, when the freezes happen, how long they last, etc. the better.