Reviews for Simple Tab Groups
Simple Tab Groups by Drive4ik
Review by RogueKitsune
Rated 4 out of 5
by RogueKitsune, 7 years agoLike other I am switching over from Quicksaver's Tab Groups, so there will be plenty of comparisons to it.
The Good...
Pretty much everything UI related is better compared to Tab Groups. I like being able to set an image or colour to group. The menus and such also seem much more responsive.
The Ok...
I like that there are keyboard shortcuts but I would really like to be able to change the keybinding back to "ctrl + `" and "ctrl + shift + `"
The Bad...
Migrating from Quicksaver's Tab Groups to Simple Tab Groups was a bit rough. First I made sure to "back up" my tab groups by bookmarking them in folder named after their group. Then I installed Simple Tab Groups and disabled Tab Groups. After restarting only a few of my tabs showed up in a group even though the group had a tab count 563. So I restarted Firefox again. This time all my tabs showed up but I now had two groups with each with a copy of all my tabs. Repeating opening and closing Firefox continued the duplication of the group even after I started moving tabs into groups. To fix this I had to close all open tabs and restart. After that everything started working fine.
EDIT: Forgot to mention that this addon doesn't really like the about:* pages. Opening, for example about:config, does not bind it to a specific group instead it acts more like a pinned tab. In addition about:newtab does not load correctly when coming back to it (search bar, top sites, etc. don't show up)
The Ugly...
I know nothing can be done about it at this time but I still have to complain about it. I hate how this addon switches between groups. Essentially all the "current" tabs are closed and then new tabs are opened with the URLs from the other group.
TLDR
Good addon, but has some areas that need improvement
Disclaimer:
I only run nightly builds of Firefox, so there is a chance the issues I saw were caused by some change/defect in Firefox.
The Good...
Pretty much everything UI related is better compared to Tab Groups. I like being able to set an image or colour to group. The menus and such also seem much more responsive.
The Ok...
I like that there are keyboard shortcuts but I would really like to be able to change the keybinding back to "ctrl + `" and "ctrl + shift + `"
The Bad...
Migrating from Quicksaver's Tab Groups to Simple Tab Groups was a bit rough. First I made sure to "back up" my tab groups by bookmarking them in folder named after their group. Then I installed Simple Tab Groups and disabled Tab Groups. After restarting only a few of my tabs showed up in a group even though the group had a tab count 563. So I restarted Firefox again. This time all my tabs showed up but I now had two groups with each with a copy of all my tabs. Repeating opening and closing Firefox continued the duplication of the group even after I started moving tabs into groups. To fix this I had to close all open tabs and restart. After that everything started working fine.
EDIT: Forgot to mention that this addon doesn't really like the about:* pages. Opening, for example about:config, does not bind it to a specific group instead it acts more like a pinned tab. In addition about:newtab does not load correctly when coming back to it (search bar, top sites, etc. don't show up)
The Ugly...
I know nothing can be done about it at this time but I still have to complain about it. I hate how this addon switches between groups. Essentially all the "current" tabs are closed and then new tabs are opened with the URLs from the other group.
TLDR
Good addon, but has some areas that need improvement
Disclaimer:
I only run nightly builds of Firefox, so there is a chance the issues I saw were caused by some change/defect in Firefox.
Developer response
posted 7 years agoPlease update add-on to latest version (v2.2)
In this version I fix duplicate groups/tabs.
About "about:config" and etc.: this is not supported bu Firefox WebExtentions API
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/tabs/create
For security reasons, in Firefox, this may not be a privileged URL. So passing any of the following URLs will fail:
chrome: URLs
javascript: URLs
data: URLs
file: URLs (i.e., files on the filesystem. However, to use a file packaged inside the extension, see below)
privileged about: URLs (for example, about:config, about:addons, about:debugging). Non-privileged URLs (e.g., about:blank) are allowed.
The New Tab page (about:newtab) can be opened if no value for URL is provided.
Version 2.1 and above has option to fast group switching (in options page)
Thanks for your feedback!
In this version I fix duplicate groups/tabs.
About "about:config" and etc.: this is not supported bu Firefox WebExtentions API
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/tabs/create
For security reasons, in Firefox, this may not be a privileged URL. So passing any of the following URLs will fail:
chrome: URLs
javascript: URLs
data: URLs
file: URLs (i.e., files on the filesystem. However, to use a file packaged inside the extension, see below)
privileged about: URLs (for example, about:config, about:addons, about:debugging). Non-privileged URLs (e.g., about:blank) are allowed.
The New Tab page (about:newtab) can be opened if no value for URL is provided.
Version 2.1 and above has option to fast group switching (in options page)
Thanks for your feedback!
1,750 reviews
- Rated 2 out of 5by Firefox user 12977965, 2 days agoIts nothing Simple. The using give no effects. I'am nowhere see groups.
- Rated 5 out of 5by trftky, 2 days ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Vlijmen Fileer, 5 days agoSimple and effective. Has a few integration shortcomings to my feeling, but nothing in the way of it being great.
- Rated 1 out of 5by MoNad, 5 days agoFirst time using. Had two separate FF 136.0.4 (64-bit) instances open with multiple tabs on Win 10 Pro, up-to-date.
Created a new group, made a typo and deleted the empty group. The main instance containing the tabs (over 30) I wanted to group closed and isn't recoverable, two days of research down the drain.
And now I need to find an alternative. - Rated 4 out of 5by Firefox user 18588874, 5 days ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Andwer, 6 days ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by Darkness Paladin, 7 days ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 18906155, 7 days ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by Gemini62167, 8 days agoGarbage.
This one really ticked me off. I've only been using it for a few months, and yes. . . it was great while it lasted. Then after having created a number of very specific tab groups it suddenly went belly up. All the tab groups still exist, but every single one of them is empty with none of the saved pages within them.
To toss salt in an open wound, STG also stopped backing up the groups the day before it did this. Oh, and it had this nasty habit of randomly choosing whatever folder to dump the back ups in with no apparent means of changing that location to a folder of my choice.
In my case it was always my Downloads folder which quickly began to get messy with all these back up files. For the life of me, why the Downloads folder and not an Application Support or Preference folder is beyond me. But hey... what do I know?
Fine...
So, after the loss, all I could do was just restore the damn thing with next closest date and deal with the loss.
Yeah...
Well, the very next day it did exactly the same thing. This, after stupidly believing that it was a fluke, maybe having something to do with Mercury going retro again. Then proceeding to create some new groups that I needed to keep track of thinking that all would be well.
Once again... STG created no further backups and thus every single Tab Group contained nothing but that great big "0" for contents saved.
So, ya know what?
It's time to just stop trusting in these rinky dink add-ons for anything serious or important. Just trust in the basics. I've had too many situations like this happen where I've put time and effort into using add-ons only to have any number of problems. The big three I list below.
1.) Their creators cease supporting them and vanish from the face of the Earth, leaving people to scratch their asses as to wonder if there will ever be an update, fix, or just a simple sign of life from them ever again. A great example of this is the Apple Store. That hot mess is now chuck full of abandon-ware since Tim Cook raised rates for the store. That, and you will be very very very hard pressed to find an actual true free app instead of the ploy used to get you to download some adware laden, extremely limited version that will require a subscription. The good ol' days are long gone now. But considering the past ten years of Apple's arrogance and growing greed, who can blame the developers?
2.) Browser developers change something and suddenly an add-on you've relied upon for years is no longer supported. And no signs of life from their developers are to be found.
3.) Add-ons suddenly become defunct just for the sake of doing so. Developers have long since vanished, and unless someone, somewhere decides to risk taking on that add-on in some way (take Imagus for instance) people can only wish upon a star with their fingers up their holes, sitting and spinning in hopeful optimism like children promised a lolly if they behave at the dentist's office.
Nope. I'll keep using what I have. But, over the past twenty plus years, I've learned my lesson. Don't rely add-ons for serious long term usage. And forget any of them requiring subscriptions. I'm all for paying people for their products. But I'm not for becoming enslaved, ensnared, and transformed into a walking, talking, human, ATM for life paying a subscription for something that eventually will go the way of the DoDo Bird, like so many other add-ons, applications, and apps I've relied upon in the past. - Rated 4 out of 5by Voltaia, 9 days agoWould love if we could sync tab groups easily. Besides a backup. Perhaps some way to sync with Git?
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 18899077, 12 days ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by oz, 13 days ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Léon, 14 days ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by bornontrashday, 14 days agoadding a tab to a group closes out all other tabs in window. idk if that's expected but incredibly unhelpful.
- Rated 5 out of 5by Phllip, 16 days ago
- Rated 3 out of 5by RichardJT, 17 days ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Carlão, 19 days ago
- Rated 4 out of 5by Santtinen, 21 days ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 18879912, 22 days ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by Firefox user 18879187, 22 days agoIt's wiped every tab on the program about 4 times now.