7 ms·

Show HN: Freezetab – What browser bookmarks should've been

55 points by ksbrooksjr 9y ago

great_psy 9y ago
Even the regular bookmarks I have, I barely visit them ever again. The only things I re-visit are reference websites, which I could easily find with a quick search. I really do not see why I would want to save 1000+ tabs, at that point I might as well just search through my browsing history.
- ksbrooksjr 9y ago
  Before creating this extension I often faced the same problem. I would rarely return to my old bookmarks, and part of the issue was that there wasn't an easy way to sift through them. I added some features to help people keep their saved links organized, so that it would be easier to parse them at a later date. You can of course just search through your browsing history, but all of that data is lost whenever you clear your history. Even if you do refrain from clearing your browsing data, there aren't many options for organizing your browsing history. What if you want to view every link you've ever saved from Ycombinator? What if you want to find every link you've ever saved on a certain day of the month? Also, what if you want more control over which tabs are saved? Have you ever had so many tabs open that Chrome no longer displays their titles, making it extremely difficult to find the specific tabs you want to save? These are the sort of problem sets that I set out to solve. Hopefully there are some power users here who are able to derive some value from it. Give it a try, it's free.
sova 9y ago
Yo this is really excellent, it'd be cool to share collections with friends doing similar research. Does it save the scrollTop position in the extension so that one ends up at the same spot on the page? Also, have you ever read that oldschool CS paper on Breadcrumbs and how people envisioned that the future of web surfing would be long trails/breadcrumbs you'd follow that other people forged ahead on the web-of-links?
- ksbrooksjr 9y ago
  I'm glad you like it! I didn't even think about saving the scroll position, that's actually a really good idea. The paper you're referring to sounds a lot like Vannevar Bush's concept of the "Memex", which was a precursor to modern hyperlinks. I do think that a huge opportunity has been missed by the major browser vendors in relation to bookmarks. That area of technology has been pretty stagnant throughout the history of the internet, which seems odd given the fact that saving links is such a basic necessity.
  - sova 9y ago
    True words my friend. Glad you're remedying the situation. Trailblazing and trail keeping
ilaksh 9y ago
Are they bookmarks or organizing tabs that are actually open but better organized? Because tabs and bookmarks are not the same things. Tabs may have programs running in them.
- ksbrooksjr 9y ago
  Freezetab saves a tab's url, title, favicon, and the date and time the tab was saved. When you reopen a tab, the extension opens a new tab and navigates to the saved url. The extension does not actually create bookmarks, nor does it save the content of a website. All of your data is stored via chrome's local storage api. I used the words bookmark and tab on the landing page, because they are familiar words that provide a reference point for people trying to quickly grasp what the extension does (especially non-technical people). There's always a tradeoff between precision and concision when crafting marketing materials, but I hope most people are able to understand the project's basic functionality.
- eecks 9y ago
  Yeah I installed this hoping for a different view of my open tabs. e.g. all reddit tabs displayed together, all github tabs displayed together etc
johnmw 9y ago
This doesn't seem to integrate with my existing bookmarks? Have I done something wrong, or is this not possible right now? If not, are there any plans to do this in the future - any help organising my existing pile of bookmarks would be awesome.
- ksbrooksjr 9y ago
  Unfortunately there's nothing wrong on your end, I haven't implemented that feature just yet. I have a long list of planned feature additions, and bookmark importing/exporting is at the top of the list. Thank you for the feedback, I appreciate it!
simple10 9y ago
I've used OneTab[1] for years. It's indispensable. Freezetab looks even better with more features. [1] https://www.one-tab.com/ https://www.one-tab.com/
- ksbrooksjr 9y ago
  Glad you like it! If you're a OneTab user I think you'll definitely enjoy using it. Like you said there are more features, but it's also much faster. If you have 1000 saved tabs, OneTab attempts to load all 1000 of them (and their favicons) every time you open your tab list. Freezetab uses an infinite scrolling mechanism that loads your tabs as you scroll, so it's just as responsive when you have 1500 saved tabs as it is when you have 15 saved tabs.
acalderaro 9y ago
This is so cool! I added it to my bookmarks folder ;)
- ksbrooksjr 9y ago
  Hopefully you won't be using bookmarks much longer :)
bobwaycott 9y ago
Shiiit. Brilliant. I am the type who keeps windows of tabs upon windows of tabs open forever, throughout a project or complicated task for weeks at a time, specifically because I make windows the container of purpose, and hate trying to deal with folders of bookmarks. This is fantastic. Is it forever Chrome-only? Any chance of a Safari extension?
- ksbrooksjr 9y ago
  That sounds like a pretty brutal workflow. Freezetab would be great for your use case, so I'm glad you like it. I definitely plan on expanding availability to Firefox and Opera in the short-term (and eventually Edge), because porting Chrome extensions to those platforms is pretty straight forward. Safari on the other hand is a little bit more challenging. Most browsers implement extensions as plain HTML, CSS, and Javscript — they're essentially just websites. Safari requires developers to integrate native Swift and Objective C code into extensions, which means I might have to do a partial rewrite (and learn Swift or Obj C) to target Safari. You also have to pay a 99 dollar annual fee to maintain a presence in the Safari Extension Gallery, which is somewhat exorbitant for a free extension. If users install the Safari extension directly from my website instead of the extension gallery, then they'll miss out on auto updates.
  - bobwaycott 9y ago
    Thanks for the reply! Nice to hear your thoughts on it. I’ll definitely give it a go and see if it can make me switch to chrome. Great work! :)
  - vladsanchez 9y ago
    Great extension. I'm also notorious for keeping tens of windows open only to manage my tabs. FreezeTab would be a life/time saver. I just emailed asking for Opera support. I recommend you create an email-list for alerting about updates and supported versions. Do you mind elaborating about the business model around browser-extension building? In your case, is it merely for advertising your software development skills or is there anything else behind it? Thanks for FreezeTab. ;-)
phaed 9y ago
Nice, left you a rating. This just replaced TabOutliner for me. Would love a feature: Restore pinned status to tabs.
- ksbrooksjr 9y ago
  Thanks for trying Freezetab and leaving a review, I appreciate it. Restoring pinned status is a great idea. I've added that feature to the product roadmap and plan on implementing it soon.
theonething 9y ago
Awesome, switching over from OneTab. Some things that would make it more awesome: - detect duplicates - ability to sync with a cloud service, e.g. Google bookmarks
- ksbrooksjr 9y ago
  Thanks for making the switch. Duplicate detection is a planned feature, and I'll definitely work on adding it to the next iteration of Freezetab. Cloud syncing is certainly on my radar, but slightly more difficult. If Freezetab synced the saved links with Google Bookmarks it would lose all the metadata associated with each link. Freezetab assigns each saved link a unique ID for example — bookmarks don't allot any extra storage for this sort of custom metadata. I do plan on building a server side implementation of Freezetab to handle syncing if the extension gains enough traction.
cookingrobot 9y ago
This looks great. One of my complaints with bookmarks is that I often browse though Craigslist and make favorites of things I'm thinking of buying. Those pages have an extremely short life before they expire, and so I end up with collections of dead links. I'd love it to capture a screenshot or some kind of permanent archive when I make a favorite. I only save a few a week, so disk space isn't an issue at all.
mariocarvalho 9y ago
Fantastic! Started using it, just now. One request :) - Can you do some backup/restore system?
vithlani 9y ago
Old stuff. OneTab has been doing this for ages: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/onetab/chphlpgkkbolifaimnlloiipkdnihall?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/onetab/chphlpgkkbo...

55 points by ksbrooksjr 9y ago

Even the regular bookmarks I have, I barely visit them ever again. The only things I re-visit are reference websites, which I could easily find with a quick search. I really do not see why I would want to save 1000+ tabs, at that point I might as well just search through my browsing history.

ksbrooksjr 9y ago
Before creating this extension I often faced the same problem. I would rarely return to my old bookmarks, and part of the issue was that there wasn't an easy way to sift through them. I added some features to help people keep their saved links organized, so that it would be easier to parse them at a later date. You can of course just search through your browsing history, but all of that data is lost whenever you clear your history. Even if you do refrain from clearing your browsing data, there aren't many options for organizing your browsing history. What if you want to view every link you've ever saved from Ycombinator? What if you want to find every link you've ever saved on a certain day of the month? Also, what if you want more control over which tabs are saved? Have you ever had so many tabs open that Chrome no longer displays their titles, making it extremely difficult to find the specific tabs you want to save? These are the sort of problem sets that I set out to solve. Hopefully there are some power users here who are able to derive some value from it. Give it a try, it's free.

sova 9y ago

Yo this is really excellent, it'd be cool to share collections with friends doing similar research. Does it save the scrollTop position in the extension so that one ends up at the same spot on the page? Also, have you ever read that oldschool CS paper on Breadcrumbs and how people envisioned that the future of web surfing would be long trails/breadcrumbs you'd follow that other people forged ahead on the web-of-links?

ksbrooksjr 9y ago
I'm glad you like it! I didn't even think about saving the scroll position, that's actually a really good idea. The paper you're referring to sounds a lot like Vannevar Bush's concept of the "Memex", which was a precursor to modern hyperlinks. I do think that a huge opportunity has been missed by the major browser vendors in relation to bookmarks. That area of technology has been pretty stagnant throughout the history of the internet, which seems odd given the fact that saving links is such a basic necessity.
- sova 9y ago
  True words my friend. Glad you're remedying the situation. Trailblazing and trail keeping

ilaksh 9y ago

Are they bookmarks or organizing tabs that are actually open but better organized? Because tabs and bookmarks are not the same things. Tabs may have programs running in them.

ksbrooksjr 9y ago
Freezetab saves a tab's url, title, favicon, and the date and time the tab was saved. When you reopen a tab, the extension opens a new tab and navigates to the saved url. The extension does not actually create bookmarks, nor does it save the content of a website. All of your data is stored via chrome's local storage api. I used the words bookmark and tab on the landing page, because they are familiar words that provide a reference point for people trying to quickly grasp what the extension does (especially non-technical people). There's always a tradeoff between precision and concision when crafting marketing materials, but I hope most people are able to understand the project's basic functionality.
eecks 9y ago
Yeah I installed this hoping for a different view of my open tabs. e.g. all reddit tabs displayed together, all github tabs displayed together etc

johnmw 9y ago

This doesn't seem to integrate with my existing bookmarks? Have I done something wrong, or is this not possible right now? If not, are there any plans to do this in the future - any help organising my existing pile of bookmarks would be awesome.

ksbrooksjr 9y ago
Unfortunately there's nothing wrong on your end, I haven't implemented that feature just yet. I have a long list of planned feature additions, and bookmark importing/exporting is at the top of the list. Thank you for the feedback, I appreciate it!

simple10 9y ago

I've used OneTab[1] for years. It's indispensable. Freezetab looks even better with more features. [1] https://www.one-tab.com/ https://www.one-tab.com/

ksbrooksjr 9y ago
Glad you like it! If you're a OneTab user I think you'll definitely enjoy using it. Like you said there are more features, but it's also much faster. If you have 1000 saved tabs, OneTab attempts to load all 1000 of them (and their favicons) every time you open your tab list. Freezetab uses an infinite scrolling mechanism that loads your tabs as you scroll, so it's just as responsive when you have 1500 saved tabs as it is when you have 15 saved tabs.

acalderaro 9y ago

This is so cool! I added it to my bookmarks folder ;)

ksbrooksjr 9y ago
Hopefully you won't be using bookmarks much longer :)

bobwaycott 9y ago

Shiiit. Brilliant. I am the type who keeps windows of tabs upon windows of tabs open forever, throughout a project or complicated task for weeks at a time, specifically because I make windows the container of purpose, and hate trying to deal with folders of bookmarks. This is fantastic. Is it forever Chrome-only? Any chance of a Safari extension?

ksbrooksjr 9y ago
That sounds like a pretty brutal workflow. Freezetab would be great for your use case, so I'm glad you like it. I definitely plan on expanding availability to Firefox and Opera in the short-term (and eventually Edge), because porting Chrome extensions to those platforms is pretty straight forward. Safari on the other hand is a little bit more challenging. Most browsers implement extensions as plain HTML, CSS, and Javscript — they're essentially just websites. Safari requires developers to integrate native Swift and Objective C code into extensions, which means I might have to do a partial rewrite (and learn Swift or Obj C) to target Safari. You also have to pay a 99 dollar annual fee to maintain a presence in the Safari Extension Gallery, which is somewhat exorbitant for a free extension. If users install the Safari extension directly from my website instead of the extension gallery, then they'll miss out on auto updates.
- bobwaycott 9y ago
  Thanks for the reply! Nice to hear your thoughts on it. I’ll definitely give it a go and see if it can make me switch to chrome. Great work! :)
- vladsanchez 9y ago
  Great extension. I'm also notorious for keeping tens of windows open only to manage my tabs. FreezeTab would be a life/time saver. I just emailed asking for Opera support. I recommend you create an email-list for alerting about updates and supported versions. Do you mind elaborating about the business model around browser-extension building? In your case, is it merely for advertising your software development skills or is there anything else behind it? Thanks for FreezeTab. ;-)

phaed 9y ago

Nice, left you a rating. This just replaced TabOutliner for me. Would love a feature: Restore pinned status to tabs.

ksbrooksjr 9y ago
Thanks for trying Freezetab and leaving a review, I appreciate it. Restoring pinned status is a great idea. I've added that feature to the product roadmap and plan on implementing it soon.

theonething 9y ago

Awesome, switching over from OneTab. Some things that would make it more awesome: - detect duplicates - ability to sync with a cloud service, e.g. Google bookmarks

ksbrooksjr 9y ago
Thanks for making the switch. Duplicate detection is a planned feature, and I'll definitely work on adding it to the next iteration of Freezetab. Cloud syncing is certainly on my radar, but slightly more difficult. If Freezetab synced the saved links with Google Bookmarks it would lose all the metadata associated with each link. Freezetab assigns each saved link a unique ID for example — bookmarks don't allot any extra storage for this sort of custom metadata. I do plan on building a server side implementation of Freezetab to handle syncing if the extension gains enough traction.

cookingrobot 9y ago

This looks great. One of my complaints with bookmarks is that I often browse though Craigslist and make favorites of things I'm thinking of buying. Those pages have an extremely short life before they expire, and so I end up with collections of dead links. I'd love it to capture a screenshot or some kind of permanent archive when I make a favorite. I only save a few a week, so disk space isn't an issue at all.

mariocarvalho 9y ago

Fantastic! Started using it, just now. One request :) - Can you do some backup/restore system?

vithlani 9y ago

Old stuff. OneTab has been doing this for ages: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/onetab/chphlpgkkbolifaimnlloiipkdnihall?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/onetab/chphlpgkkbo...