23 ms·

Show HN: Save Memory in Google Chrome

314 points by srgseg 14y ago

barredo 14y ago
Installed. This is pretty nice for the people who uses dozens of tabs as temp bookmarks. A bit of feedback: I was just typing this comment and hit the button, obviously the comment was lost and had to type it again. Would be great if if checked for focused inputs or textareas or something before closing that tab, or that it restores the tabs them with the content. Another idea I can think of is to "close" all the tabs that are NOT the one you currently are in, or "close" all the tabs on the right of the current one. Anyway, thanks
- srgseg 14y ago
  Thanks, it's on the to-do :)
boundlessdreamz 14y ago
Allow a way to whitelist domains that should not be closed (like gmail)
- srgseg 14y ago
  Thanks for the feedback. At the moment, one way to achieve this is to "pin" the gmail tab. OneTab will not close any pinned tabs.
Serow225 14y ago
Neat. Could you add some sort of way for the user to choose whether they want to restore into the current window, instead of a new window? Cheers :)
- mvzink 14y ago
  Yeah, I was wondering about this. Honestly feels like a design flaw. When I hit "restore all" I expected the tabs to replace the OneTab... tab. Other than that, and knowing that it's all in HTML5 localStorage, this will be replacing PanicButton!
bdcravens 14y ago
For a free product, the copy on their site feels a bit more "salesy" than I'm used to for a free product
- wilfra 14y ago
  The open source and free software community is dominated by programmers. There aren't a lot of designers and there are even fewer sales and marketing people. And it shows in what they release. I found it refreshing to see an exception.
- nailer 14y ago
  I quite like the change - a clear rationale for installing something should be part of more Open Source projects.
- prakashk 14y ago
  Chrome is not my primary browser, so I won't be installing this any time soon, but I thought the copy was really short and sweet, with no fluff. If this was "salesy", I wish more FOSS products were like this one.
- pizza 14y ago
  I agree. It was the How do you make money? that made the whole page feel a bit.. off.. for me. I think taking it out would make it less confusing.
  - kirubakaran 14y ago
    Not for me. It answered exactly the question I had in mind. I love the effort they put into the "salesy" page. I don't see why "salesy" is inherently bad. It sells well, even if it is free.
ontheinternets 14y ago
Might want to add a more prominent link to the installation
Newky 14y ago
From what I understand, this calls out to their servers and they display a page? Would it not be more secure and safer to render this on some sort of local page? Don't really see the need for this information to go to a third party server.
- darkstar999 14y ago
  Read the Privacy section: > Your tab URLs are never transmitted or disclosed to either the OneTab developers or any other party, and icons for tab URL domains are generated by Google. The only exception to this is if you intentionally click on our 'share as a web page' feature that allows you to upload your list of tabs into a web page in order to share them with others. Tabs are never shared unless you specifically use the 'share as a web page' button.
- srgseg 14y ago
  (OneTab developer here): None of your tabs are sent to a third party server. It's all stored in HTML5 local storage. The only way the one-tab servers know about your tabs is if you click to 'share as a web page', which transmits your tabs to our servers to create a web page you can share with others.
  - Newky 14y ago
    Thanks for the clarification, I should read more carefully. Apologies.
    - briguy 14y ago
      I think this is a great idea, however I think you can make less ambiguous if you don't say "will not share". I think you are better saying...."will not transmit any information to our server". A lot of services don't intend to "share" things that are uploaded to their servers. Much easier decision to download/install if you unequivocally state that nothing will ever be Transmitted to the server. I personally am hesitant to install this just because it has the capability for me to accidentally upload my private info if I click the wrong setting.
srgseg 14y ago
OneTab developer here: thanks for all your suggestions, I'll be working on them :) A few FAQs: 1. The OneTab tab persists even if you close your web browser. 2. If you ever close your OneTab tab, this doesn't lose your tabs. You can always get it back by clicking the blue extension icon. 3. Your tabs are never sent to our servers unless you press the button to 'share as a web page'.
- andybak 14y ago
  In what scenarios can I lose my list? What happens if I click it, close it's list tab, open some new tabs and click it again? Does the old list get overwritten? Is there any way to get it back?
  - dkl 14y ago
    It's a pushdown stack of consolidated tabs.
  - srgseg 14y ago
    You will never lose your list. If you store multiple sets of tabs, they will appear as "tab groups" in OneTab. If you accidentally close your OneTab tab, it will reappear when you click the blue extension icon or when you restart your web browser.
    - pbiggar 14y ago
      Brilliant! You should mention this on the site, it what I was looking to know.
- emhart 14y ago
  Love it. Just used it to conveniently share a web page of 76+ freely available newspaper archives with fellow researchers who are helping me with a project. This is solving an immediate problem for me. I love it. Thanks!
- adaml_623 14y ago
  Does it only store the GET information or will it store a POST search request as well?
exterm 14y ago
Edit: This is not meant to sound discouraging to the developer; I just suspect he solved the wrong problem. I find it very strange that a tool exists to reduce chrome's memory footprint by closing tabs. This does not seem to be the right solution to any problem I can think of. If memory consumption is what bugs you, maybe you should use a browser that consumes less memory per open tab. If the number of open tabs is what bugs you, then you are probably using tabs as temporary bookmarks. There should be tools especially for this job. Some sort of "read-it-later" list comes to mind. "one-tab" looks like some sort of read-it-later list that is labeled as a memory saver. Fascinating.
- angryasian 14y ago
  I use a tool like session buddy for example. I primarily use it when I want to organize/links and make the group quickly accessible.. something most bookmarking programs that don't do right. My immediate use case is, OneTab helps reduce the day to day clutter. I'll have my same browser open for weeks at a time, and just makes it easier to manage from day to day.
- myared 14y ago
  You can make the same argument. OneTab is a partial solution whereas using another browser which consumes less memory per open tab isn't a solution at all if you want to use Chrome's features.
- T-hawk 14y ago
  That's exactly what it is, a read-it-later list. Browsers don't have a good mechanism for that. Not open tabs, which continually consume memory and CPU resources until you get around to them. And not bookmarks either, which are meant for permanent storage, subject to the clunkiness of navigating a folder structure and explicitly performing every add and delete operation. So in a sense, One-Tab is indeed a memory saver. Not by really reducing Chrome's memory usage, but by plugging the workflow gap that induces users to use Chrome in a way that consumes enormous amounts of memory. (And the selling tactic sure worked, seeing as there's 200 posts on it here in two hours.)
jchung 14y ago
No idea how this is better than Chrome's built in "Bookmark all tabs..." feature (Shift + CMD + D) and then just closing whatever you don't need open.
Tyr42 14y ago
Aww, history goes away. That might be a problem...
- przemoc 14y ago
  This and lost input in text-boxes is what it lacks to become useful. Also localStorage is limited and this limit cannot be raised, so someone with enormous amount of memory could prove that OneTab is not reliable, contrary to how it is advertised. To fix that it has to use indexedDB and require unlimitedStorage. (Well, we still require enough free space on disk, but it's the same with localStorage.) Anyone willing to record screencast how OneTab fails at handling million tabs? :)
dullroar 14y ago
Install isn't a link but a span, so you can't tell what it's doing/where it's going by hovering. Hmmm...Feels REALLY spammy, or is it just me?
- srgseg 14y ago
  The install button has to call the chrome.webstore.install API for instant installation, so if it were a hovered link it would not show anything particularly descriptive.
rufugee 14y ago
Looks great and I would definitely put it to use, but on Ubuntu with Chrome 22.0.1229.94, I get "Installation failed either due to cancelling the dialog box or because you already have the extension installed" when installing from your web page. When I try to do it from the web store, I get "There was a problem adding the item to Chrome. Please refresh the page and try again".
- estebank 14y ago
  Same error happening here along with a Butter bar stating "Manifest file is invalid." in Mac OS X 10.8.2 and Chrome 25.0.1364.160.
  - srgseg 14y ago
    We've been looking at this, apparently this happens when an extension has just been released and is "propagating between servers". If the extension install is not working for you, it should start working later today once Google's webstore servers have updated
    - shawabawa3 14y ago
      I had this issue and literally 10 seconds later I tried again and it worked fine
    - benregn 14y ago
      I've tried several times now and I'm still getting "Manifest file is invalid".
billpaydici 14y ago
How about just use Chrome? 1. bookmark all tabs ⇧⌘D 2. in the file dialog create a new folder e.g. "foo" 3. (later) with Bookmarks > foo menu open, select "Open All Bookmarks in New Window" Voilà
- joshdotsmith 14y ago
  Nice idea, but for me these are usually temporary bookmarks, and doesn't handle the garbage collection for me nearly as simply. Thanks for sharing, though!
Multiplayer 14y ago
I really like this. It's fast, simple and easier to re-view the pages than bookmark all tabs. Thanks!
dtf 14y ago
I love the simplicity. At the risk of adding complexity, there's this Chrome extension I used to love and use all the time called JoinTabs, that unfortunately started shipping with some nasty malware. It did this very simple thing of collecting all the tabs in all your open windows and putting them in one window. Since OneTab only seems to work on the tabs in a single window, is there any way to combine these useful features?
- MartinodF 14y ago
  I use "Merge Windows"! https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/merge-windows/adjadgadeebehakpgamlnafmdkegkmph https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/merge-windows/adja...
polskibus 14y ago
Isn't 95% reduction claim a bit too bold? It is widely known that standard measurement of Google Chrome's memory consumption with task manager is wrong because it doesn't take data sharing between processes into consideration. How was the 95% figure produced?
- mullr 14y ago
  This is the same question I have. Memory usage is notoriously tricky to measure because of shared libraries and the like. So a simple figure like 95% doesn't end up meaning much at the end of the day. chrome://memory may be a good place to start. Ninja edit: note the disclaimer at the bottom of chrome://memory: (Note: Due to memory sharing between processes, summing memory usage does not give total memory usage.)
- kenkam 14y ago
  He has 21 tabs opened, by reducing it to 1 tab, he has saved 20/21 lots of memory, ~~ 95% saved. Assumptions: each tab uses same memory; no shared memory (or shared memory equally divided between all tabs), every user has around 20 tabs open given the first 2 assumptions hold true. To me, the 95% is a magic number.
- FromStoneage 14y ago
  chrome://memory-redirect/
maaaats 14y ago
I got 16GB+ RAM for a reason: To use it. Nice extension, but I'd rather have the stuff in memory instead of reading it from disk on need. Haven't happened in years that I felt the need to free RAM.
- shadowfox 14y ago
  Perhaps this is aimed at the multitudes that don't have 16GB+ of memory?
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
xxpor 14y ago
Suggestion: could you make the list flow upwards when the user clicks the X to close a tab? This way the user doesn't have to move the mouse to close multiple tabs quickly. Basically it's the same behavior as Chrome, just vertical.
ktt 14y ago
Very similar to this extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab-focused/mhdljapdjjfoeafbcldiajggppjomeno https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab-focused/mhdlja... (except the permissions)
revelation 14y ago
This is the equivalent of closing all tabs, with the added bonus of having a list of what you just closed. I refuse to compromise on functionality because Chrome can't get its memory deal together.
- IgorPartola 14y ago
  Firefox seems to be no better: http://www.arewesmallyet.com/ http://www.arewesmallyet.com/
  - revelation 14y ago
    Thats alright. A single chrome tab is regularly >150MiB, and thats for plain sites! (edit: this seems to measure the size of the installer binary. I think you wanted to link https://areweslimyet.com/ https://areweslimyet.com/ which shows Firefox using <512MiB with 30 tabs for popular websites open)
    - IgorPartola 14y ago
      Yes, you are right. That's the one I was aiming for. Need more coffee...
  - jlongster 14y ago
    You just link to a graph showing the sizes of the Firefox binary on various platforms across different versions. It has nothing to do with RAM. Firefox definitely wins out in memory with more tabs because Chrome's process-per-tab model accumulates overhead for every process, while Firefox's tabs are more lean.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- waxjar 14y ago
  Chrome actually already has this built in, too. If you close your window, you'll get a browsable "x tabs" entry in your browsing history. An additional 20-30 MB of memory could be saved by not installing this extension.
fowlerje 14y ago
This is a great start. I wouldn't mind having a side tray or list of temporary bookmarks that I could easily add to, restore from, or remove. Then I would have 3 or 4 active tabs and about 15 inactive tabs and could swap between them easily. I know it is possible with shift + cmd + D, as one commenter pointed out, to bookmark all tabs temporarily but that would get cumbersome if you were constantly changing out tabs.
porter 14y ago
Not sure why I can't figure this out, but how can I just place one tab into the list? When I click on the icon everything gets collapsed and then I have to open each individual page (or all of them at once).
jsvine 14y ago
Nice. I built a similar Chrome extension recently: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab-bankrupter/pndipmgldhbejkehopnbbpjgidkbiimh/ https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab-bankrupter/pnd... Open-sourced here: https://github.com/jsvine/tab-bankrupter https://github.com/jsvine/tab-bankrupter As the name suggests, it's aimed more at the mental — rather than computational — weight of tabs.
serialx 14y ago
Please add a facebook share button. I would like to share this with my friends. :)
revorad 14y ago
Nice idea, but a heads up for anyone trying it out: installing and clicking on the icon closes all your open tabs immediately without warning. Quite a jarring first user experience.
ernestipark 14y ago
Super useful, thanks! I was afraid that this would close my pinned tabs, but seems like you paid good attention to this detail. A request: it would be nice to be able to right click and open the one-tab interface/tab without actually having to save all tabs.
niggler 14y ago
Save 99% memory in google chrome by bookmarking all tabs and closing Chrome!
- lttlrck 14y ago
  where did the 1% go?
  - niggler 14y ago
    Some long-running hidden chromium process that doesn't seem to die when you quit or force-quit chrome on mountain lion. You have to go into activity monitor to kill it. This never happened in Snow Leopard.
    - drunkenfly 14y ago
      Could it be that you have "Continue running background apps when Google Chrome is closed" setting to be on?
      - niggler 14y ago
        "This is only applicable to Google Chrome browser on Windows and Linux." (source: https://support.google.com/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1184722 https://support.google.com/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en&an...) the mystery continues ...
NelsonMinar 14y ago
Nicely presented. I've only tested this a little, but in some cases it appears that restoring a tab doesn't issue any new HTTP requests to the page server, maybe subject to cache headers. That's a nice trick, how does it work?
- srgseg 14y ago
  That's probably Chrome obeying the HTTP cache headers for the web site in question.
aranw 14y ago
Hmmm It would be nice if it saved tab history as well, restored and ended up finding all my history had been lost :/
josso 14y ago
Is this any different from opening the Chrome Task Manager and quitting every tab? (Memory-wise)
Deezul 14y ago
Feature Request: The ability to save and re-load tabs as a labeled set. An array of open tabs is often the result of an intentional workspace. If I could label a saved OneTab as "iOS Development" and have it launch iOS Dev Center, JIRA, bitbucket, and various API/documentation, it would make switching from casual browsing to work mode a breeze.
- xemoka 14y ago
  You're looking for "Session Buddy"[0] available on the Chrome store. This is a more complex OneTab, I've been using it for quite some time as I'm a tab abuser (60+ open tabs). It's great for storing and managing sets of tabs. [0] www.sessionbuddy.com
  - Deezul 14y ago
    Wow, thanks for making my day.
- srgseg 14y ago
  You can Ctrl or Cmd click a set of tabs, and it will restore them without removing them from the OneTab list. Thus you will be able to use OneTab to open sets of frequently accessed tabs.
mkolodny 14y ago
The current implementation doesn't differ much from just closing all of your tabs and reopening them using 'Recently Closed'. One way you could keep the one-click-to-open functionality of tabs is to keep the tabs in a persistent vertical list of favicons along the side of the screen. One tab could remain open, and clicking another tab, or favicon, could replace the current tab. Edit: Here's a mockup: http://imgur.com/pfYO7xY http://imgur.com/pfYO7xY. You could have the title show up next to a tab on hover.
twapi 14y ago
stupid marketing.
rmk2 14y ago
I absolutely fail to see the point here. Why should I use this? Is this again one of these instances where, magically, free RAM is good? 30 tabs opened simultaneously (with AdBlock, Ghostery and Disconnect), alongside Thunderbird, Emacs (+daemon) and a full DE run up to 1.8GiB of RAM used on my machine, which is everything but fast, new, or fancy. Consequently, I still have 2GB of RAM remaining that are not directly needed (and hence used for caching by the OS). I'm writing all this from a Core2Duo laptop, so really, when exactly does any computer bought at the same time (or since) have actual problems of running out of memory? I have not experienced such problems in years on anything other than a Raspberry Pi. Is this a problem that really needs solving? Feel free to point me to use cases where this is essential or useful, for I cannot see any.
- martinced 14y ago
  "...when exactly does any computer bought at the same time (or since) have actual problems of running out of memory?" Ah yes, I remember the days being a dev that didn't use VMs. It kinda sucked as a development environment that said: no easy way to test software on different OSes locally, no easy way to try other software which you don't necessarily trust in a confined environment (to see if it may be worth using, in which case you'd look into the trust issue more closely), etc. If you're a dev and have "enough RAM" you're probably not trying hard enough ; ) VMs tend to use quite a lot of memory and tend to be very useful for knowledgable devs. You asked and seemed so cocksure so these were my 2 cents...
  - rmk2 14y ago
    So, in that case, when you are developing, you are actively using multiple VMs and 30++ tabs? Maybe I am just bad at multitasking, but while I do see the point of the VMs, I don't see how they fundamentally change the overall picture. I don't doubt that you can manage to fill an arbitrary amount of RAM running multiple browsers, VMs and other programs, however, I do fail to see how that in turn enhances (or constricts) productivity. Multiple VMs? Sure. Multiple browsers? Sure. Multiple VMs and browsers? Sure. Multiple VMs, browsers and multiple dozen tabs? I don't see a use case here. If you have multiple multi-gigabyte VMs running, chances are its not your brower's RAM usage that is hamstringing you by using all available RAM. edit: I'm not saying I don't see a use case were theoretically there are tangible limits on RAM which become a problem, but to me, it remains exactly that: theoretical.
Flenser 14y ago
Initially I thought this might be an easier way for me to save sessions than my current session saving solution which doesn't make saving a single window a one click operation. I could use in conjunction with the split tabs to new window extension https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab-split/imjbfeponcaggdpmoiadjbafihlojbco https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab-split/imjbfepo... to get just the tabs I want to save, and then put them in a new list. However I think I'll stick with Session Buddy https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/session-buddy/edacconmaakjimmfgnblocblbcdcpbko https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/session-buddy/edac... as it allows: 1. naming of saved sessions (of which I have many). It's list of saved sessions will be easier scan to find the one I'm interested in. 2. opening of saved urls without removing them from the saved session. This I would find infuriating due to the way I use saved sessions as a more powerful bookmark feature. Also, if I closed the OneTab tab there didn't appear to be a way to bring it back without creating a new list. Some features that I'd like to see in a session saving chrome extension: 1. Sync to my google account with chrome extension syncing. Sessions Buddy will hopefully have this in the next release but it's been in development for over a year... 2. Multiple saved session lists so I can separate sessions between e.g. work/private, or "things I want to get back to" and "archived things that might be useful in future." 3. Integration with omnibar searching. 1 and 3 Could be done by saving sessions as bookmarks, which is what FreshStart does https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/freshstart-cross-browser/nmidkjogcjnnlfimjcedenagjfacpobb https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/freshstart-cross-b... but I don't use that extension because of it's confusing UI. After Edit: I should have mentioned. The easiest way I've found to limit chrome memory is to firstly only enable the extensions I use on a day to day basis, and enable/disable others as needed using Extension Manager https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/extensions-manager-aka-sw/lpleipinonnoibneeejgjnoeekmbopbc https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/extensions-manager... and then kill every tab process in the chrome task manager after chrome starts up. I usually have 90-100 tabs and currently have 142 tabs open. My system would grind to a halt if I didn't do this.
derefr 14y ago
Oh hey! I built something similar a while ago, for somewhat similar reasons: "Pause Tabs" (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pause-tabs/gldljdhnehlgmkncfenmgfjblmmcjgce https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pause-tabs/gldljdh...). The use-case is slightly different, though--instead of being an en-masse "dump these things out of my sight" button, I basically wanted a single-page "bookmark" that works more like the real kind you use in books, where the two fundamental operations are: > "Open, remove the bookmark, and restore reading to previous position, atomically"; and > "Save position, create bookmark, and put away for later, atomically". If you want, though, it can still give you the same effect of "hammer the button to 'put away' a window's worth of tabs." On the other hand, the bookmarks Pause Tabs creates [despite just being regular bookmarks] preserve of your vertical-scroll position on the page, which is kind of nice for long documents. I wonder why that isn't a "built-in thing bookmarks are just expected to do", actually.
dchichkov 14y ago
I think that this 95% number is wrong. Likely doesn't take good old shared memory into consideration... http://blog.chromium.org/2008/09/google-chrome-memory-usage-good-and-bad.html http://blog.chromium.org/2008/09/google-chrome-memory-usage-... "Measuring memory If you're measuring memory in a multi-process application like Google Chrome, don't forget to take into account shared memory. If you add the size of each process via the Windows XP task manager, you'll be double counting the shared memory for each process. If there are a large number of processes, double-counting can account for 30-40% extra memory size."
jdietrich 14y ago
Memory use seems like a really pointless thing for users to care about. There's a widespread intuition that using RAM is inherently bad and low memory usage is a worthwhile goal, but it doesn't really make sense. The key performance goal is minimising latency, which is best served by using as much RAM as possible without having to swap out. RAM is now fantastically cheap. 16GB of DDR3 costs less than $120 in either DIMM or SODIMM format, so there's little reason not to load out your machine with far more memory than you'd practically need. I'd like software to use more memory, not less - for the vast majority of the time, most of my RAM is unused and my disk is idle, so why not use an aggressive strategy of pre-emptive caching?
- reggplant 14y ago
  Remember not everyone can afford the latest beast of a machine that can accommodate 16GB RAM, some people still have laptops that can hold a maximum of 4GB by design limitation; it's more likely to be those people worrying about Chrome's RAM usage.
  - FigBug 14y ago
    And RAM uses power, whether it's being used or not. Having more RAM means shorter battery life.
    - jonknee 14y ago
      I suspect the power penalty of RAM is made up for by the fact that you don't have to hit the hard disk to get that data back (firing up the HDD will suck a lot of juice). It also appears the needs are pretty much tied to the chip, so a 4GB and 8GB module use about the same amount of power. http://superuser.com/questions/40113/does-installing-larger-ram-means-consuming-more-energy http://superuser.com/questions/40113/does-installing-larger-...
    - Inufu 14y ago
      I have 16 GB in my ThinkPad (x230) and it still lasts 10 hours, so that's really negligible.
0stanislav 14y ago
I always try to keep myself using less than 4 tabs in Chromium. Used to work with several browser windows, tens of tabs each, but found out that this is just noise, and is detrimental to productivity. Got the addon.Thanks and good luck!
whalesalad 14y ago
Would be nice if this would be semi-integrated natively into Chrome, almost like the implementation on older Apple devices that can't have as many concurrent web pages open. On my iPad mini for example... if I am reading a few pages and switch back to another one I was looking at 30 minutes ago, it re-loads itself. So if a tab is dormant for a while, Chrome will throw it away. Then when you recall it, the next day or whatnot, it will re-load it. For someone who typically has a hundred tabs open at any given moment, that would be a pretty cool feature.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
lftl 14y ago
While I've switched to a box with ample RAM so that this isn't really a concern any more, my old habit was to open up the Chrome task manager, and just kill any tab that I was just holding in place to read later. All the RAM gets freed up, but the tab is still held in place if I close the window. A simple refresh when I actually want to look at the tab would bring it back up.
jbarrow 14y ago
I really like the functionality of OneTab, as I'm someone who frequently has 3 concurrent Chrome windows, each with dozens of running tabs. The one thing that's going to prevent me from using this regularly, though, is that once you reopen a tab, there's no back state. I find that some of the most valuable information that I can get from a webpage isn't necessarily the page itself, it's the process leading up to the page. That being said, this is an absolutely beautiful Chrome extension and I commend the developers on what they've accomplished.
- bigwilley 14y ago
  I recently found TabMemFree https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabmemfree/pdanbocphccpmidkhloklnlfplehiikb https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabmemfree/pdanboc... It is similar to OneTab but keeps the tab open (with Flavicon and Name) but just "parks" it after a time period. It saves back states. As a heavy open tab users (we have a support group I've heard) I like it. Working with 4 GB of Ram is made much easier! If you have a tab that you don't want "parked" after 15 minutes (configurable) then you just pin it. So Gmail and Pandora get pinned. The rest park themselves and reload on when I select them.
  - mohanr 14y ago
    I did try this one for some time before The great suspender (https://github.com/deanoemcke/thegreatsuspender/ https://github.com/deanoemcke/thegreatsuspender/). IMO the great suspender is better at solving this problem for me because (recalling from memory my experience with tabmemfree couple of weeks back): 1. The great suspender retains a visual snapshot of the page (along with title, favicon etc) thus helping me jog my memory about what the tab is about. 2. It uses a internal chrome:// URL to park the suspended tabs instead of using an external URL (http:// http://). I am not saying that the developer of tabmemfree could be spying on the URLs being parked. But I am just not comfortable with the idea of parking my tabs using an external http service. 3. An explicit text format white list rather than relying on pinned tabs (which makes me lose the tab position, title etc). 4. Explicit option to suspend a tab or group of tabs (and bring them out of suspension) - instead of just relying on time-outs to suspend a tab.
systematical 14y ago
One love, One tab...
Nursie 14y ago
I want the opposite for Firefox on android - some way to instruct the browser NOT to unload background tabs because I might have been partway through entering data in those and just gone off to another tab to check something I was writing about. I have 1GB of RAM in my Note and rarely run more than one thing at a time. FF for android seems to have a really aggressive unload policy.
- Splendor 14y ago
  This is a big problem for me in ChromeOS too.
ttty 14y ago
It could be an extension that froze a tab: for example right click on a tab, save the data on disk and saves ram. When you go back it will take a lot of time. This extension opens the page again, loading it which leads to bigger time load.
ukapu 14y ago
Noticed that when I use CRTL+click to open tabs from the list the tab counter still decrements even though the number of tabs in the list does not decrease. Now I'm looking at a list of tabs with -3 tabs at the top.
guidefreitas 14y ago
Google Chrome should automatically shut down unused tabs and restore them as needed. Pretty much what this plugin does, but in an automatic way. Nobody need 50+ fully activated tabs all the time.
daemon13 14y ago
Can we have the same for Firefox? I have 2020 open tabs!
- Mahn 14y ago
  May I ask... why?
S_A_P 14y ago
Maybe Im not a "power user" or something, because I rarely have more than 3-5 tabs open at any given moment, and 2 of those are my email accounts. We have searchable browser history, and it seems like that would be a horrible workflow to have anymore than say 10 tabs open at any given time. They get so small you cant see them and how would you find what you want? ctrl + tab? Im genuinely curious as to how someone works this way.
- jahewson 14y ago
  Multiple windows
- xymostech 14y ago
  I regularly get up to about 30-40 tabs. I'm a spacial thinker, so I can remember where the content that I want is relative to it's position in the tab bar (+- about 2 tabs usually), so having the icons disappear doesn't bother me. I just compulsively ctrl-click things to open them in new tabs, in case I want both the new content and the old content.
mohanr 14y ago
There are better extensions out there solving this problem. One I use is https://github.com/deanoemcke/thegreatsuspender/ https://github.com/deanoemcke/thegreatsuspender/ It frees memory by taking a snapshot of the page and loading the image (instead of the DOM). This frees up a great amount of memory. It also persists the tab position, title, favicon (which are essential to me in remembering information about the tab). Clicking (or pressing Enter, F5 ..) on the image preview loads the page. You can set tabs to be automatically suspended after a predefined amount of time. You can set tabs to be restored automatically on focus (unfortunately no time delay option here). You can white-list domains from auto-suspension. For Chrome v25 users: The extension is having some stability issues which causes Chrome to crash (https://github.com/deanoemcke/thegreatsuspender/issues/30 https://github.com/deanoemcke/thegreatsuspender/issues/30). But if you are using any version before that, it should work fine. It had become an indispensable tool for a tab hoarder like me. Waiting for the dev to fix the current issue with Chrome v25.
senthilnayagam 14y ago
will this or any other extension work on chrome in mobile or tablets, thats one place where you cant add memory
axefrog 14y ago
Just noticed the "Bring tabs into OneTab" will bring in a detached developer tools window, which then doesn't work when reactivated as it's loaded as its own tab, detached from the original page.
itamarb 14y ago
How about one-comment.com for reducing the clutter from HN comments thread?
acomms 14y ago
Thank you! As a heavy tab user this is fantastic feature that complements the way I want to be using my browser. Keep up the great work.
un1xl0ser 14y ago
I don't care so much about the memory, but this reminds me of how chrome doesn't have a way of vertically showing the tabs. know that firefox when I use it supports that. I saw support for vertical tabs in Chrome that can be turned on, but I think that is experimental. The people that suffer from the memory problems are the people who really just need better tab management features. Maybe this is something for power-users that just needs to be handled with extensions. Also being able to suspend and resume sessions better is a good idea, and this may help with. When coding on a particular thing, I'll have most of the tabs open that I need. When I get back into it it's just a storm of CMND-T and searching for the references I was using. Sounds like this could help with that.
nessus42 14y ago
Excellent! I love it! Now when is there going to be a version for Safari?
ceejayoz 14y ago
I'm going to make NoTab, which closes Chrome for a 100% reduction in RAM usage.
joshmlewis 14y ago
I'm quite surprised of the feedback so far with this. It works well for what's offered. I find myself looking through dribbble or hunting down a problem and need to have a few reference tabs open on occasion but I don't necessarily want them open but I'd like a reference if I needed it again. I would suggest being able to make lists inside the OneTab page and saving those lists as presets if you can't already. That way I can label certain groups "Design inspiration for XYZ" and have those tabs directly related.
buremba 14y ago
what about the current session? think browsers as an os, not just a program. you spend most of your time in front of it. they deserve more resource than the other installed programs in your computer.
notdan 14y ago
I like the idea, but how is this any different than the "Bookmark all tabs" feature?
ccameronmills 14y ago
I was going to say this was pretty neat but within 30 seconds of actually using it, it managed to lose a window full of tabs which I'd had open for a couple days and I can't recall what was in it now so a bit frustrated. I collapsed up 3 windows into one tab, then did expand all on all 3 and one of the windows re-opened with only 1 tab.
Centigonal 14y ago
Dossier[1] has been doing this for years now. It's not as pretty, but it can manage lists and has a bunch of neat features. I'm no affiliated with whoever makes it (except as a user, I guess) -- but I did want to bring pre-existing alternatives into the discussion. [1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dossier/hohaaljbjhjodnncjbeeilfdloeinfbh?hl=en-US https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dossier/hohaaljbjh...
Flenser 14y ago
I've only just realised this is built into chrome natively: Right click on any tab in a window and choose "Bookmark all tabs..." from the bottom of the menu. Or press CTRL+SHIFT+D. This has the following advantages over OneTab: 1. You can add new bookmarks to the list at any time. 2. Bookmarks can be synced with google sync. 3. You can name the folder so you know what the list is. 4. Bookmarks are searchable in the omnibar. 5. You can open a single bookmark without it being removed from the list. If you don't want to keep it, just click the star in the address bar and then the remove link. 6. When right-clicking a folder there's an option to open all bookmarks in an incognito window. I can't believe I've overlooked it for so long! I don't need any session management extensions now.
dschiptsov 14y ago
Nice way to build a data-set for mining.)
ErikRogneby 14y ago
For the curious: chrome://memory-redirect/
kmfrk 14y ago
Just yesterday, I was thinking about something similar for Opera. Opera supports tab stacks (which are great), but many often go unused for days, so I thought about implementing a way to convert a tab stack to a simple tab with an overview of the sites that were open in it. My main problem with this is that you can't order your tabs into groups - the extension may not even make a distinction between regular tabs and pinned tabs.
galactus 14y ago
wow, amazingly simple/useful idea! Thanks!
secoif 14y ago
If this appeals to you, I have 2 words: Tab Wrangler. As a compulsive tab hoarder, I've been using Tab Wrangler for this same purpose for over a year and I believe its approach is far superior: it just closes tabs that you ahven't visited for a period of time. If you haven't been to a tab in ~20 minutes, likely you don't need it on hand. I can't know when I'm done with a tab until I've moved onto my next task, which means I'm no longer thinking about that tab. Also, you can lock tabs, have a minimum number of tabs (I set mine to 5) and easily list any auto-closed tabs so you don't lose anything, though I find myself only needing to look through that list once or twice a week. Anyway, Tab Wrangler absolutely changed my life. Not my project, just think it's awesome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab-wrangler/egnjhciaieeiiohknchakcodbpgjnchh?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab-wrangler/egnjh...
bmurphy1976 14y ago
Do what I do: save them to Instapaper. Then go back and organize them once a month but never bother to read them.
arrowgunz 14y ago
If this extension is not made to make money, why not Opensource it so that others can contribute to it. or Is it opensource already?
nu2ycombinator 14y ago
I am worried, It knows all the data you are surfing.
lorenzfx 14y ago
so you are saving 95% memory by closing all tabs? I have an even better idea: let's save 100% memory by hitting that X.
soemarko 14y ago
problem: tab syncing also stop working. one reason for me keeping chrome is the tab syncing works. Firefox offers nothing on iOS. safari only works whenever it feels like it.
anuragupadhaya 14y ago
Even being a marketing gimmick, it is a smart development. Minimal and useful. I <3 it.
eisbaw 14y ago
eisbaw@leno:~$ type chrome_free chrome_free is a function chrome_free () { kill $(ps -C chrome -o pid,args | grep --color=never 'type=renderer' | grep -v 'extension' | awk '{print $1}') }
marcamillion 14y ago
As someone that lives with 40 tabs open in any 1 window at a time, with at least 2 windows open....THANK YOU. I love this. I don't get why people are being so negative on this thread. Also that discussion about the cost of RAM, is pointless. Who cares how much RAM/Diskspace costs. That doesn't mean we should be inefficient with our resources, because we can simply buy more for cheap. That's an excuse that lazy developers use. That being said, I would love to know a few things about this extension (if the creators are here): - Where is this list stored? On my HDD? In my Gmail Account? - I would love to backup the list, so it doesn't get lost. I am accustomed to using Chrome's history, but that gets wonky from time to time and I have been in many situations where I expect the full history to be there, but it isn't for one reason or another. - Will my One Tab list be there if I reset my machine? I assume so, but what if I close my `One Tab` tab? Other than that...THANK YOU...for this WONDERFUL extension. This will easily be my most used extension - hands down.
- Flenser 14y ago
  It's stored on your PC in the window.localstorage for that extension. I used the Extension Gallery and Web Store Inspector to look at the code without installing the extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/extension-gallery-and-web/bbamfloeabgknfklmgbpjcgofcokhpia https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/extension-gallery-... It might be easier just to save them as bookmarks. Right click on any tab in the tab bar and choose "Bookmark all tabs" or press CTRL+SHIFT+D. Use the Split Tabs extension to break them up into local groups first: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab-split/imjbfeponcaggdpmoiadjbafihlojbco https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab-split/imjbfepo... I've talked more about the benefits of using just bookmarks here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5358109 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5358109
chenster 14y ago
OneTab doesn't seem to preserve individual tab browsing history. So if I understand it correctly it really just converts the unpinned tabs to bookmarks and them close the tabs. Am I correct? In Chrome, you can right-click any tag and choose "Bookmark All Tabs". Occasionally, I do that to save open the tabs if I don't have enough time to read them all. Admittedly, OneTab has a simpler interface and conveniently closes the tabs for you. See http://screencast.com/t/biqAF65Fdd http://screencast.com/t/biqAF65Fdd
alexmr 14y ago
Very useful. It'd be nice to be able to exclude certain tabs from ever being closed (like gmail) that I want to keep open.
est 14y ago
Chrome used to have an option called --single-process which reduce the RAM cost to few megs.
sturmeh 14y ago
I'd rather waste memory than waste network traffic, re-authenticating and hitting servers to check for updated data and restarting audio/video streams. It makes sense if you are using a machine with limited memory or you want to leave one page open whilst doing something memory intensive, but it by no means is a 'useful' way to casually browse.
sbronstein 14y ago
My big problem with Chrome tabs is that over time, they start consuming all of my CPU resources and I have to go in and kill a bunch of 'Chrome Renderer' processes to get the load back down to a reasonable level. This also happens if Chrome crashes / I quit or force-quit out of Chrome and then restart. I don't really want it to open however many tabs I had open, I just want to be able to see what tabs were open. I would be happy with it creating the tabs with the title at the top but not loading it. Short of that, One-Tab is a decent way to help with this issue.
omnray 14y ago
Its fanny that nobody mention there the TabsOutliner
- omnray 14y ago
  A screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/o8ZvIDH.jpg http://i.imgur.com/o8ZvIDH.jpg
theoutlander 14y ago
Interesting extension. I think you need to address a couple of things: 1. Try to maintain state for all the content in the controls. For instance, if I'm on JSONlint.com with some complex JSON in there, I'd like for that to be there when I re-open the tab. So, simply storing historic reference and reloading the pages doesn't add so much value for my use-case. 2. Can you do the same with other extensions? I have a ton of things running and it would be nice to disable all on-demand via one-click. My memory consumption was still over a GB with all the running extensions. Thanks & Good luck!!

314 points by srgseg 14y ago

Installed. This is pretty nice for the people who uses dozens of tabs as temp bookmarks. A bit of feedback: I was just typing this comment and hit the button, obviously the comment was lost and had to type it again. Would be great if if checked for focused inputs or textareas or something before closing that tab, or that it restores the tabs them with the content. Another idea I can think of is to "close" all the tabs that are NOT the one you currently are in, or "close" all the tabs on the right of the current one. Anyway, thanks

srgseg 14y ago
Thanks, it's on the to-do :)

boundlessdreamz 14y ago

Allow a way to whitelist domains that should not be closed (like gmail)

srgseg 14y ago
Thanks for the feedback. At the moment, one way to achieve this is to "pin" the gmail tab. OneTab will not close any pinned tabs.

Serow225 14y ago

Neat. Could you add some sort of way for the user to choose whether they want to restore into the current window, instead of a new window? Cheers :)

mvzink 14y ago
Yeah, I was wondering about this. Honestly feels like a design flaw. When I hit "restore all" I expected the tabs to replace the OneTab... tab. Other than that, and knowing that it's all in HTML5 localStorage, this will be replacing PanicButton!

bdcravens 14y ago

For a free product, the copy on their site feels a bit more "salesy" than I'm used to for a free product

wilfra 14y ago
The open source and free software community is dominated by programmers. There aren't a lot of designers and there are even fewer sales and marketing people. And it shows in what they release. I found it refreshing to see an exception.
nailer 14y ago
I quite like the change - a clear rationale for installing something should be part of more Open Source projects.
prakashk 14y ago
Chrome is not my primary browser, so I won't be installing this any time soon, but I thought the copy was really short and sweet, with no fluff. If this was "salesy", I wish more FOSS products were like this one.
pizza 14y ago
I agree. It was the How do you make money? that made the whole page feel a bit.. off.. for me. I think taking it out would make it less confusing.
- kirubakaran 14y ago
  Not for me. It answered exactly the question I had in mind. I love the effort they put into the "salesy" page. I don't see why "salesy" is inherently bad. It sells well, even if it is free.

ontheinternets 14y ago

Might want to add a more prominent link to the installation

Newky 14y ago

From what I understand, this calls out to their servers and they display a page? Would it not be more secure and safer to render this on some sort of local page? Don't really see the need for this information to go to a third party server.

darkstar999 14y ago
Read the Privacy section: > Your tab URLs are never transmitted or disclosed to either the OneTab developers or any other party, and icons for tab URL domains are generated by Google. The only exception to this is if you intentionally click on our 'share as a web page' feature that allows you to upload your list of tabs into a web page in order to share them with others. Tabs are never shared unless you specifically use the 'share as a web page' button.
srgseg 14y ago
(OneTab developer here): None of your tabs are sent to a third party server. It's all stored in HTML5 local storage. The only way the one-tab servers know about your tabs is if you click to 'share as a web page', which transmits your tabs to our servers to create a web page you can share with others.
- Newky 14y ago
  Thanks for the clarification, I should read more carefully. Apologies.
  - briguy 14y ago
    I think this is a great idea, however I think you can make less ambiguous if you don't say "will not share". I think you are better saying...."will not transmit any information to our server". A lot of services don't intend to "share" things that are uploaded to their servers. Much easier decision to download/install if you unequivocally state that nothing will ever be Transmitted to the server. I personally am hesitant to install this just because it has the capability for me to accidentally upload my private info if I click the wrong setting.

srgseg 14y ago

OneTab developer here: thanks for all your suggestions, I'll be working on them :) A few FAQs: 1. The OneTab tab persists even if you close your web browser. 2. If you ever close your OneTab tab, this doesn't lose your tabs. You can always get it back by clicking the blue extension icon. 3. Your tabs are never sent to our servers unless you press the button to 'share as a web page'.

andybak 14y ago
In what scenarios can I lose my list? What happens if I click it, close it's list tab, open some new tabs and click it again? Does the old list get overwritten? Is there any way to get it back?
- dkl 14y ago
  It's a pushdown stack of consolidated tabs.
- srgseg 14y ago
  You will never lose your list. If you store multiple sets of tabs, they will appear as "tab groups" in OneTab. If you accidentally close your OneTab tab, it will reappear when you click the blue extension icon or when you restart your web browser.
  - pbiggar 14y ago
    Brilliant! You should mention this on the site, it what I was looking to know.
emhart 14y ago
Love it. Just used it to conveniently share a web page of 76+ freely available newspaper archives with fellow researchers who are helping me with a project. This is solving an immediate problem for me. I love it. Thanks!
adaml_623 14y ago
Does it only store the GET information or will it store a POST search request as well?

exterm 14y ago

Edit: This is not meant to sound discouraging to the developer; I just suspect he solved the wrong problem. I find it very strange that a tool exists to reduce chrome's memory footprint by closing tabs. This does not seem to be the right solution to any problem I can think of. If memory consumption is what bugs you, maybe you should use a browser that consumes less memory per open tab. If the number of open tabs is what bugs you, then you are probably using tabs as temporary bookmarks. There should be tools especially for this job. Some sort of "read-it-later" list comes to mind. "one-tab" looks like some sort of read-it-later list that is labeled as a memory saver. Fascinating.

angryasian 14y ago
I use a tool like session buddy for example. I primarily use it when I want to organize/links and make the group quickly accessible.. something most bookmarking programs that don't do right. My immediate use case is, OneTab helps reduce the day to day clutter. I'll have my same browser open for weeks at a time, and just makes it easier to manage from day to day.
myared 14y ago
You can make the same argument. OneTab is a partial solution whereas using another browser which consumes less memory per open tab isn't a solution at all if you want to use Chrome's features.
T-hawk 14y ago
That's exactly what it is, a read-it-later list. Browsers don't have a good mechanism for that. Not open tabs, which continually consume memory and CPU resources until you get around to them. And not bookmarks either, which are meant for permanent storage, subject to the clunkiness of navigating a folder structure and explicitly performing every add and delete operation. So in a sense, One-Tab is indeed a memory saver. Not by really reducing Chrome's memory usage, but by plugging the workflow gap that induces users to use Chrome in a way that consumes enormous amounts of memory. (And the selling tactic sure worked, seeing as there's 200 posts on it here in two hours.)

jchung 14y ago

No idea how this is better than Chrome's built in "Bookmark all tabs..." feature (Shift + CMD + D) and then just closing whatever you don't need open.

Tyr42 14y ago

Aww, history goes away. That might be a problem...

przemoc 14y ago
This and lost input in text-boxes is what it lacks to become useful. Also localStorage is limited and this limit cannot be raised, so someone with enormous amount of memory could prove that OneTab is not reliable, contrary to how it is advertised. To fix that it has to use indexedDB and require unlimitedStorage. (Well, we still require enough free space on disk, but it's the same with localStorage.) Anyone willing to record screencast how OneTab fails at handling million tabs? :)

dullroar 14y ago

Install isn't a link but a span, so you can't tell what it's doing/where it's going by hovering. Hmmm...Feels REALLY spammy, or is it just me?

srgseg 14y ago
The install button has to call the chrome.webstore.install API for instant installation, so if it were a hovered link it would not show anything particularly descriptive.

rufugee 14y ago

Looks great and I would definitely put it to use, but on Ubuntu with Chrome 22.0.1229.94, I get "Installation failed either due to cancelling the dialog box or because you already have the extension installed" when installing from your web page. When I try to do it from the web store, I get "There was a problem adding the item to Chrome. Please refresh the page and try again".

estebank 14y ago
Same error happening here along with a Butter bar stating "Manifest file is invalid." in Mac OS X 10.8.2 and Chrome 25.0.1364.160.
- srgseg 14y ago
  We've been looking at this, apparently this happens when an extension has just been released and is "propagating between servers". If the extension install is not working for you, it should start working later today once Google's webstore servers have updated
  - shawabawa3 14y ago
    I had this issue and literally 10 seconds later I tried again and it worked fine
  - benregn 14y ago
    I've tried several times now and I'm still getting "Manifest file is invalid".

billpaydici 14y ago

How about just use Chrome? 1. bookmark all tabs ⇧⌘D 2. in the file dialog create a new folder e.g. "foo" 3. (later) with Bookmarks > foo menu open, select "Open All Bookmarks in New Window" Voilà

joshdotsmith 14y ago
Nice idea, but for me these are usually temporary bookmarks, and doesn't handle the garbage collection for me nearly as simply. Thanks for sharing, though!

Multiplayer 14y ago

I really like this. It's fast, simple and easier to re-view the pages than bookmark all tabs. Thanks!

dtf 14y ago

I love the simplicity. At the risk of adding complexity, there's this Chrome extension I used to love and use all the time called JoinTabs, that unfortunately started shipping with some nasty malware. It did this very simple thing of collecting all the tabs in all your open windows and putting them in one window. Since OneTab only seems to work on the tabs in a single window, is there any way to combine these useful features?

MartinodF 14y ago
I use "Merge Windows"! https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/merge-windows/adjadgadeebehakpgamlnafmdkegkmph https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/merge-windows/adja...

polskibus 14y ago

Isn't 95% reduction claim a bit too bold? It is widely known that standard measurement of Google Chrome's memory consumption with task manager is wrong because it doesn't take data sharing between processes into consideration. How was the 95% figure produced?

mullr 14y ago
This is the same question I have. Memory usage is notoriously tricky to measure because of shared libraries and the like. So a simple figure like 95% doesn't end up meaning much at the end of the day. chrome://memory may be a good place to start. Ninja edit: note the disclaimer at the bottom of chrome://memory: (Note: Due to memory sharing between processes, summing memory usage does not give total memory usage.)
kenkam 14y ago
He has 21 tabs opened, by reducing it to 1 tab, he has saved 20/21 lots of memory, ~~ 95% saved. Assumptions: each tab uses same memory; no shared memory (or shared memory equally divided between all tabs), every user has around 20 tabs open given the first 2 assumptions hold true. To me, the 95% is a magic number.
FromStoneage 14y ago
chrome://memory-redirect/

maaaats 14y ago

I got 16GB+ RAM for a reason: To use it. Nice extension, but I'd rather have the stuff in memory instead of reading it from disk on need. Haven't happened in years that I felt the need to free RAM.

shadowfox 14y ago
Perhaps this is aimed at the multitudes that don't have 16GB+ of memory?

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

xxpor 14y ago

Suggestion: could you make the list flow upwards when the user clicks the X to close a tab? This way the user doesn't have to move the mouse to close multiple tabs quickly. Basically it's the same behavior as Chrome, just vertical.

ktt 14y ago

Very similar to this extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab-focused/mhdljapdjjfoeafbcldiajggppjomeno https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab-focused/mhdlja... (except the permissions)

revelation 14y ago

This is the equivalent of closing all tabs, with the added bonus of having a list of what you just closed. I refuse to compromise on functionality because Chrome can't get its memory deal together.

IgorPartola 14y ago
Firefox seems to be no better: http://www.arewesmallyet.com/ http://www.arewesmallyet.com/
- revelation 14y ago
  Thats alright. A single chrome tab is regularly >150MiB, and thats for plain sites! (edit: this seems to measure the size of the installer binary. I think you wanted to link https://areweslimyet.com/ https://areweslimyet.com/ which shows Firefox using <512MiB with 30 tabs for popular websites open)
  - IgorPartola 14y ago
    Yes, you are right. That's the one I was aiming for. Need more coffee...
- jlongster 14y ago
  You just link to a graph showing the sizes of the Firefox binary on various platforms across different versions. It has nothing to do with RAM. Firefox definitely wins out in memory with more tabs because Chrome's process-per-tab model accumulates overhead for every process, while Firefox's tabs are more lean.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
waxjar 14y ago
Chrome actually already has this built in, too. If you close your window, you'll get a browsable "x tabs" entry in your browsing history. An additional 20-30 MB of memory could be saved by not installing this extension.

fowlerje 14y ago

This is a great start. I wouldn't mind having a side tray or list of temporary bookmarks that I could easily add to, restore from, or remove. Then I would have 3 or 4 active tabs and about 15 inactive tabs and could swap between them easily. I know it is possible with shift + cmd + D, as one commenter pointed out, to bookmark all tabs temporarily but that would get cumbersome if you were constantly changing out tabs.

porter 14y ago

Not sure why I can't figure this out, but how can I just place one tab into the list? When I click on the icon everything gets collapsed and then I have to open each individual page (or all of them at once).

jsvine 14y ago

Nice. I built a similar Chrome extension recently: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab-bankrupter/pndipmgldhbejkehopnbbpjgidkbiimh/ https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab-bankrupter/pnd... Open-sourced here: https://github.com/jsvine/tab-bankrupter https://github.com/jsvine/tab-bankrupter As the name suggests, it's aimed more at the mental — rather than computational — weight of tabs.

serialx 14y ago

Please add a facebook share button. I would like to share this with my friends. :)

revorad 14y ago

Nice idea, but a heads up for anyone trying it out: installing and clicking on the icon closes all your open tabs immediately without warning. Quite a jarring first user experience.

ernestipark 14y ago

Super useful, thanks! I was afraid that this would close my pinned tabs, but seems like you paid good attention to this detail. A request: it would be nice to be able to right click and open the one-tab interface/tab without actually having to save all tabs.

niggler 14y ago

Save 99% memory in google chrome by bookmarking all tabs and closing Chrome!

lttlrck 14y ago
where did the 1% go?
- niggler 14y ago
  Some long-running hidden chromium process that doesn't seem to die when you quit or force-quit chrome on mountain lion. You have to go into activity monitor to kill it. This never happened in Snow Leopard.
  - drunkenfly 14y ago
    Could it be that you have "Continue running background apps when Google Chrome is closed" setting to be on?
    - niggler 14y ago
      "This is only applicable to Google Chrome browser on Windows and Linux." (source: https://support.google.com/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1184722 https://support.google.com/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en&an...) the mystery continues ...

NelsonMinar 14y ago

Nicely presented. I've only tested this a little, but in some cases it appears that restoring a tab doesn't issue any new HTTP requests to the page server, maybe subject to cache headers. That's a nice trick, how does it work?

srgseg 14y ago
That's probably Chrome obeying the HTTP cache headers for the web site in question.

aranw 14y ago

Hmmm It would be nice if it saved tab history as well, restored and ended up finding all my history had been lost :/

josso 14y ago

Is this any different from opening the Chrome Task Manager and quitting every tab? (Memory-wise)

Deezul 14y ago

Feature Request: The ability to save and re-load tabs as a labeled set. An array of open tabs is often the result of an intentional workspace. If I could label a saved OneTab as "iOS Development" and have it launch iOS Dev Center, JIRA, bitbucket, and various API/documentation, it would make switching from casual browsing to work mode a breeze.

xemoka 14y ago
You're looking for "Session Buddy"[0] available on the Chrome store. This is a more complex OneTab, I've been using it for quite some time as I'm a tab abuser (60+ open tabs). It's great for storing and managing sets of tabs. [0] www.sessionbuddy.com
- Deezul 14y ago
  Wow, thanks for making my day.
srgseg 14y ago
You can Ctrl or Cmd click a set of tabs, and it will restore them without removing them from the OneTab list. Thus you will be able to use OneTab to open sets of frequently accessed tabs.

mkolodny 14y ago

The current implementation doesn't differ much from just closing all of your tabs and reopening them using 'Recently Closed'. One way you could keep the one-click-to-open functionality of tabs is to keep the tabs in a persistent vertical list of favicons along the side of the screen. One tab could remain open, and clicking another tab, or favicon, could replace the current tab. Edit: Here's a mockup: http://imgur.com/pfYO7xY http://imgur.com/pfYO7xY. You could have the title show up next to a tab on hover.

twapi 14y ago

stupid marketing.

rmk2 14y ago

I absolutely fail to see the point here. Why should I use this? Is this again one of these instances where, magically, free RAM is good? 30 tabs opened simultaneously (with AdBlock, Ghostery and Disconnect), alongside Thunderbird, Emacs (+daemon) and a full DE run up to 1.8GiB of RAM used on my machine, which is everything but fast, new, or fancy. Consequently, I still have 2GB of RAM remaining that are not directly needed (and hence used for caching by the OS). I'm writing all this from a Core2Duo laptop, so really, when exactly does any computer bought at the same time (or since) have actual problems of running out of memory? I have not experienced such problems in years on anything other than a Raspberry Pi. Is this a problem that really needs solving? Feel free to point me to use cases where this is essential or useful, for I cannot see any.

martinced 14y ago
"...when exactly does any computer bought at the same time (or since) have actual problems of running out of memory?" Ah yes, I remember the days being a dev that didn't use VMs. It kinda sucked as a development environment that said: no easy way to test software on different OSes locally, no easy way to try other software which you don't necessarily trust in a confined environment (to see if it may be worth using, in which case you'd look into the trust issue more closely), etc. If you're a dev and have "enough RAM" you're probably not trying hard enough ; ) VMs tend to use quite a lot of memory and tend to be very useful for knowledgable devs. You asked and seemed so cocksure so these were my 2 cents...
- rmk2 14y ago
  So, in that case, when you are developing, you are actively using multiple VMs and 30++ tabs? Maybe I am just bad at multitasking, but while I do see the point of the VMs, I don't see how they fundamentally change the overall picture. I don't doubt that you can manage to fill an arbitrary amount of RAM running multiple browsers, VMs and other programs, however, I do fail to see how that in turn enhances (or constricts) productivity. Multiple VMs? Sure. Multiple browsers? Sure. Multiple VMs and browsers? Sure. Multiple VMs, browsers and multiple dozen tabs? I don't see a use case here. If you have multiple multi-gigabyte VMs running, chances are its not your brower's RAM usage that is hamstringing you by using all available RAM. edit: I'm not saying I don't see a use case were theoretically there are tangible limits on RAM which become a problem, but to me, it remains exactly that: theoretical.

Flenser 14y ago

Initially I thought this might be an easier way for me to save sessions than my current session saving solution which doesn't make saving a single window a one click operation. I could use in conjunction with the split tabs to new window extension https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab-split/imjbfeponcaggdpmoiadjbafihlojbco https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab-split/imjbfepo... to get just the tabs I want to save, and then put them in a new list. However I think I'll stick with Session Buddy https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/session-buddy/edacconmaakjimmfgnblocblbcdcpbko https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/session-buddy/edac... as it allows: 1. naming of saved sessions (of which I have many). It's list of saved sessions will be easier scan to find the one I'm interested in. 2. opening of saved urls without removing them from the saved session. This I would find infuriating due to the way I use saved sessions as a more powerful bookmark feature. Also, if I closed the OneTab tab there didn't appear to be a way to bring it back without creating a new list. Some features that I'd like to see in a session saving chrome extension: 1. Sync to my google account with chrome extension syncing. Sessions Buddy will hopefully have this in the next release but it's been in development for over a year... 2. Multiple saved session lists so I can separate sessions between e.g. work/private, or "things I want to get back to" and "archived things that might be useful in future." 3. Integration with omnibar searching. 1 and 3 Could be done by saving sessions as bookmarks, which is what FreshStart does https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/freshstart-cross-browser/nmidkjogcjnnlfimjcedenagjfacpobb https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/freshstart-cross-b... but I don't use that extension because of it's confusing UI. After Edit: I should have mentioned. The easiest way I've found to limit chrome memory is to firstly only enable the extensions I use on a day to day basis, and enable/disable others as needed using Extension Manager https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/extensions-manager-aka-sw/lpleipinonnoibneeejgjnoeekmbopbc https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/extensions-manager... and then kill every tab process in the chrome task manager after chrome starts up. I usually have 90-100 tabs and currently have 142 tabs open. My system would grind to a halt if I didn't do this.

derefr 14y ago

Oh hey! I built something similar a while ago, for somewhat similar reasons: "Pause Tabs" (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pause-tabs/gldljdhnehlgmkncfenmgfjblmmcjgce https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pause-tabs/gldljdh...). The use-case is slightly different, though--instead of being an en-masse "dump these things out of my sight" button, I basically wanted a single-page "bookmark" that works more like the real kind you use in books, where the two fundamental operations are: > "Open, remove the bookmark, and restore reading to previous position, atomically"; and > "Save position, create bookmark, and put away for later, atomically". If you want, though, it can still give you the same effect of "hammer the button to 'put away' a window's worth of tabs." On the other hand, the bookmarks Pause Tabs creates [despite just being regular bookmarks] preserve of your vertical-scroll position on the page, which is kind of nice for long documents. I wonder why that isn't a "built-in thing bookmarks are just expected to do", actually.

dchichkov 14y ago

I think that this 95% number is wrong. Likely doesn't take good old shared memory into consideration... http://blog.chromium.org/2008/09/google-chrome-memory-usage-good-and-bad.html http://blog.chromium.org/2008/09/google-chrome-memory-usage-... "Measuring memory If you're measuring memory in a multi-process application like Google Chrome, don't forget to take into account shared memory. If you add the size of each process via the Windows XP task manager, you'll be double counting the shared memory for each process. If there are a large number of processes, double-counting can account for 30-40% extra memory size."

jdietrich 14y ago

Memory use seems like a really pointless thing for users to care about. There's a widespread intuition that using RAM is inherently bad and low memory usage is a worthwhile goal, but it doesn't really make sense. The key performance goal is minimising latency, which is best served by using as much RAM as possible without having to swap out. RAM is now fantastically cheap. 16GB of DDR3 costs less than $120 in either DIMM or SODIMM format, so there's little reason not to load out your machine with far more memory than you'd practically need. I'd like software to use more memory, not less - for the vast majority of the time, most of my RAM is unused and my disk is idle, so why not use an aggressive strategy of pre-emptive caching?

reggplant 14y ago
Remember not everyone can afford the latest beast of a machine that can accommodate 16GB RAM, some people still have laptops that can hold a maximum of 4GB by design limitation; it's more likely to be those people worrying about Chrome's RAM usage.
- FigBug 14y ago
  And RAM uses power, whether it's being used or not. Having more RAM means shorter battery life.
  - jonknee 14y ago
    I suspect the power penalty of RAM is made up for by the fact that you don't have to hit the hard disk to get that data back (firing up the HDD will suck a lot of juice). It also appears the needs are pretty much tied to the chip, so a 4GB and 8GB module use about the same amount of power. http://superuser.com/questions/40113/does-installing-larger-ram-means-consuming-more-energy http://superuser.com/questions/40113/does-installing-larger-...
  - Inufu 14y ago
    I have 16 GB in my ThinkPad (x230) and it still lasts 10 hours, so that's really negligible.

0stanislav 14y ago

I always try to keep myself using less than 4 tabs in Chromium. Used to work with several browser windows, tens of tabs each, but found out that this is just noise, and is detrimental to productivity. Got the addon.Thanks and good luck!

whalesalad 14y ago

Would be nice if this would be semi-integrated natively into Chrome, almost like the implementation on older Apple devices that can't have as many concurrent web pages open. On my iPad mini for example... if I am reading a few pages and switch back to another one I was looking at 30 minutes ago, it re-loads itself. So if a tab is dormant for a while, Chrome will throw it away. Then when you recall it, the next day or whatnot, it will re-load it. For someone who typically has a hundred tabs open at any given moment, that would be a pretty cool feature.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

lftl 14y ago

While I've switched to a box with ample RAM so that this isn't really a concern any more, my old habit was to open up the Chrome task manager, and just kill any tab that I was just holding in place to read later. All the RAM gets freed up, but the tab is still held in place if I close the window. A simple refresh when I actually want to look at the tab would bring it back up.

jbarrow 14y ago

I really like the functionality of OneTab, as I'm someone who frequently has 3 concurrent Chrome windows, each with dozens of running tabs. The one thing that's going to prevent me from using this regularly, though, is that once you reopen a tab, there's no back state. I find that some of the most valuable information that I can get from a webpage isn't necessarily the page itself, it's the process leading up to the page. That being said, this is an absolutely beautiful Chrome extension and I commend the developers on what they've accomplished.

bigwilley 14y ago
I recently found TabMemFree https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabmemfree/pdanbocphccpmidkhloklnlfplehiikb https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabmemfree/pdanboc... It is similar to OneTab but keeps the tab open (with Flavicon and Name) but just "parks" it after a time period. It saves back states. As a heavy open tab users (we have a support group I've heard) I like it. Working with 4 GB of Ram is made much easier! If you have a tab that you don't want "parked" after 15 minutes (configurable) then you just pin it. So Gmail and Pandora get pinned. The rest park themselves and reload on when I select them.
- mohanr 14y ago
  I did try this one for some time before The great suspender (https://github.com/deanoemcke/thegreatsuspender/ https://github.com/deanoemcke/thegreatsuspender/). IMO the great suspender is better at solving this problem for me because (recalling from memory my experience with tabmemfree couple of weeks back): 1. The great suspender retains a visual snapshot of the page (along with title, favicon etc) thus helping me jog my memory about what the tab is about. 2. It uses a internal chrome:// URL to park the suspended tabs instead of using an external URL (http:// http://). I am not saying that the developer of tabmemfree could be spying on the URLs being parked. But I am just not comfortable with the idea of parking my tabs using an external http service. 3. An explicit text format white list rather than relying on pinned tabs (which makes me lose the tab position, title etc). 4. Explicit option to suspend a tab or group of tabs (and bring them out of suspension) - instead of just relying on time-outs to suspend a tab.

systematical 14y ago

One love, One tab...

Nursie 14y ago

I want the opposite for Firefox on android - some way to instruct the browser NOT to unload background tabs because I might have been partway through entering data in those and just gone off to another tab to check something I was writing about. I have 1GB of RAM in my Note and rarely run more than one thing at a time. FF for android seems to have a really aggressive unload policy.

Splendor 14y ago
This is a big problem for me in ChromeOS too.

ttty 14y ago

It could be an extension that froze a tab: for example right click on a tab, save the data on disk and saves ram. When you go back it will take a lot of time. This extension opens the page again, loading it which leads to bigger time load.

ukapu 14y ago

Noticed that when I use CRTL+click to open tabs from the list the tab counter still decrements even though the number of tabs in the list does not decrease. Now I'm looking at a list of tabs with -3 tabs at the top.

guidefreitas 14y ago

Google Chrome should automatically shut down unused tabs and restore them as needed. Pretty much what this plugin does, but in an automatic way. Nobody need 50+ fully activated tabs all the time.

daemon13 14y ago

Can we have the same for Firefox? I have 2020 open tabs!

Mahn 14y ago
May I ask... why?

S_A_P 14y ago

Maybe Im not a "power user" or something, because I rarely have more than 3-5 tabs open at any given moment, and 2 of those are my email accounts. We have searchable browser history, and it seems like that would be a horrible workflow to have anymore than say 10 tabs open at any given time. They get so small you cant see them and how would you find what you want? ctrl + tab? Im genuinely curious as to how someone works this way.

jahewson 14y ago
Multiple windows
xymostech 14y ago
I regularly get up to about 30-40 tabs. I'm a spacial thinker, so I can remember where the content that I want is relative to it's position in the tab bar (+- about 2 tabs usually), so having the icons disappear doesn't bother me. I just compulsively ctrl-click things to open them in new tabs, in case I want both the new content and the old content.

mohanr 14y ago

There are better extensions out there solving this problem. One I use is https://github.com/deanoemcke/thegreatsuspender/ https://github.com/deanoemcke/thegreatsuspender/ It frees memory by taking a snapshot of the page and loading the image (instead of the DOM). This frees up a great amount of memory. It also persists the tab position, title, favicon (which are essential to me in remembering information about the tab). Clicking (or pressing Enter, F5 ..) on the image preview loads the page. You can set tabs to be automatically suspended after a predefined amount of time. You can set tabs to be restored automatically on focus (unfortunately no time delay option here). You can white-list domains from auto-suspension. For Chrome v25 users: The extension is having some stability issues which causes Chrome to crash (https://github.com/deanoemcke/thegreatsuspender/issues/30 https://github.com/deanoemcke/thegreatsuspender/issues/30). But if you are using any version before that, it should work fine. It had become an indispensable tool for a tab hoarder like me. Waiting for the dev to fix the current issue with Chrome v25.

senthilnayagam 14y ago

will this or any other extension work on chrome in mobile or tablets, thats one place where you cant add memory

axefrog 14y ago

Just noticed the "Bring tabs into OneTab" will bring in a detached developer tools window, which then doesn't work when reactivated as it's loaded as its own tab, detached from the original page.

itamarb 14y ago

How about one-comment.com for reducing the clutter from HN comments thread?

acomms 14y ago

Thank you! As a heavy tab user this is fantastic feature that complements the way I want to be using my browser. Keep up the great work.

un1xl0ser 14y ago

I don't care so much about the memory, but this reminds me of how chrome doesn't have a way of vertically showing the tabs. know that firefox when I use it supports that. I saw support for vertical tabs in Chrome that can be turned on, but I think that is experimental. The people that suffer from the memory problems are the people who really just need better tab management features. Maybe this is something for power-users that just needs to be handled with extensions. Also being able to suspend and resume sessions better is a good idea, and this may help with. When coding on a particular thing, I'll have most of the tabs open that I need. When I get back into it it's just a storm of CMND-T and searching for the references I was using. Sounds like this could help with that.

nessus42 14y ago

Excellent! I love it! Now when is there going to be a version for Safari?

ceejayoz 14y ago

I'm going to make NoTab, which closes Chrome for a 100% reduction in RAM usage.

joshmlewis 14y ago

I'm quite surprised of the feedback so far with this. It works well for what's offered. I find myself looking through dribbble or hunting down a problem and need to have a few reference tabs open on occasion but I don't necessarily want them open but I'd like a reference if I needed it again. I would suggest being able to make lists inside the OneTab page and saving those lists as presets if you can't already. That way I can label certain groups "Design inspiration for XYZ" and have those tabs directly related.

buremba 14y ago

what about the current session? think browsers as an os, not just a program. you spend most of your time in front of it. they deserve more resource than the other installed programs in your computer.

notdan 14y ago

I like the idea, but how is this any different than the "Bookmark all tabs" feature?

ccameronmills 14y ago

I was going to say this was pretty neat but within 30 seconds of actually using it, it managed to lose a window full of tabs which I'd had open for a couple days and I can't recall what was in it now so a bit frustrated. I collapsed up 3 windows into one tab, then did expand all on all 3 and one of the windows re-opened with only 1 tab.

Centigonal 14y ago

Dossier[1] has been doing this for years now. It's not as pretty, but it can manage lists and has a bunch of neat features. I'm no affiliated with whoever makes it (except as a user, I guess) -- but I did want to bring pre-existing alternatives into the discussion. [1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dossier/hohaaljbjhjodnncjbeeilfdloeinfbh?hl=en-US https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dossier/hohaaljbjh...

Flenser 14y ago

I've only just realised this is built into chrome natively: Right click on any tab in a window and choose "Bookmark all tabs..." from the bottom of the menu. Or press CTRL+SHIFT+D. This has the following advantages over OneTab: 1. You can add new bookmarks to the list at any time. 2. Bookmarks can be synced with google sync. 3. You can name the folder so you know what the list is. 4. Bookmarks are searchable in the omnibar. 5. You can open a single bookmark without it being removed from the list. If you don't want to keep it, just click the star in the address bar and then the remove link. 6. When right-clicking a folder there's an option to open all bookmarks in an incognito window. I can't believe I've overlooked it for so long! I don't need any session management extensions now.

dschiptsov 14y ago

Nice way to build a data-set for mining.)

ErikRogneby 14y ago

For the curious: chrome://memory-redirect/

kmfrk 14y ago

Just yesterday, I was thinking about something similar for Opera. Opera supports tab stacks (which are great), but many often go unused for days, so I thought about implementing a way to convert a tab stack to a simple tab with an overview of the sites that were open in it. My main problem with this is that you can't order your tabs into groups - the extension may not even make a distinction between regular tabs and pinned tabs.

galactus 14y ago

wow, amazingly simple/useful idea! Thanks!

secoif 14y ago

If this appeals to you, I have 2 words: Tab Wrangler. As a compulsive tab hoarder, I've been using Tab Wrangler for this same purpose for over a year and I believe its approach is far superior: it just closes tabs that you ahven't visited for a period of time. If you haven't been to a tab in ~20 minutes, likely you don't need it on hand. I can't know when I'm done with a tab until I've moved onto my next task, which means I'm no longer thinking about that tab. Also, you can lock tabs, have a minimum number of tabs (I set mine to 5) and easily list any auto-closed tabs so you don't lose anything, though I find myself only needing to look through that list once or twice a week. Anyway, Tab Wrangler absolutely changed my life. Not my project, just think it's awesome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab-wrangler/egnjhciaieeiiohknchakcodbpgjnchh?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab-wrangler/egnjh...

bmurphy1976 14y ago

Do what I do: save them to Instapaper. Then go back and organize them once a month but never bother to read them.

arrowgunz 14y ago

If this extension is not made to make money, why not Opensource it so that others can contribute to it. or Is it opensource already?

nu2ycombinator 14y ago

I am worried, It knows all the data you are surfing.

lorenzfx 14y ago

so you are saving 95% memory by closing all tabs? I have an even better idea: let's save 100% memory by hitting that X.

soemarko 14y ago

problem: tab syncing also stop working. one reason for me keeping chrome is the tab syncing works. Firefox offers nothing on iOS. safari only works whenever it feels like it.

anuragupadhaya 14y ago

Even being a marketing gimmick, it is a smart development. Minimal and useful. I <3 it.

eisbaw 14y ago

eisbaw@leno:~$ type chrome_free chrome_free is a function chrome_free () { kill $(ps -C chrome -o pid,args | grep --color=never 'type=renderer' | grep -v 'extension' | awk '{print $1}') }

marcamillion 14y ago

As someone that lives with 40 tabs open in any 1 window at a time, with at least 2 windows open....THANK YOU. I love this. I don't get why people are being so negative on this thread. Also that discussion about the cost of RAM, is pointless. Who cares how much RAM/Diskspace costs. That doesn't mean we should be inefficient with our resources, because we can simply buy more for cheap. That's an excuse that lazy developers use. That being said, I would love to know a few things about this extension (if the creators are here): - Where is this list stored? On my HDD? In my Gmail Account? - I would love to backup the list, so it doesn't get lost. I am accustomed to using Chrome's history, but that gets wonky from time to time and I have been in many situations where I expect the full history to be there, but it isn't for one reason or another. - Will my One Tab list be there if I reset my machine? I assume so, but what if I close my `One Tab` tab? Other than that...THANK YOU...for this WONDERFUL extension. This will easily be my most used extension - hands down.

Flenser 14y ago
It's stored on your PC in the window.localstorage for that extension. I used the Extension Gallery and Web Store Inspector to look at the code without installing the extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/extension-gallery-and-web/bbamfloeabgknfklmgbpjcgofcokhpia https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/extension-gallery-... It might be easier just to save them as bookmarks. Right click on any tab in the tab bar and choose "Bookmark all tabs" or press CTRL+SHIFT+D. Use the Split Tabs extension to break them up into local groups first: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab-split/imjbfeponcaggdpmoiadjbafihlojbco https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab-split/imjbfepo... I've talked more about the benefits of using just bookmarks here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5358109 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5358109

chenster 14y ago

OneTab doesn't seem to preserve individual tab browsing history. So if I understand it correctly it really just converts the unpinned tabs to bookmarks and them close the tabs. Am I correct? In Chrome, you can right-click any tag and choose "Bookmark All Tabs". Occasionally, I do that to save open the tabs if I don't have enough time to read them all. Admittedly, OneTab has a simpler interface and conveniently closes the tabs for you. See http://screencast.com/t/biqAF65Fdd http://screencast.com/t/biqAF65Fdd

alexmr 14y ago

Very useful. It'd be nice to be able to exclude certain tabs from ever being closed (like gmail) that I want to keep open.

est 14y ago

Chrome used to have an option called --single-process which reduce the RAM cost to few megs.

sturmeh 14y ago

I'd rather waste memory than waste network traffic, re-authenticating and hitting servers to check for updated data and restarting audio/video streams. It makes sense if you are using a machine with limited memory or you want to leave one page open whilst doing something memory intensive, but it by no means is a 'useful' way to casually browse.

sbronstein 14y ago

My big problem with Chrome tabs is that over time, they start consuming all of my CPU resources and I have to go in and kill a bunch of 'Chrome Renderer' processes to get the load back down to a reasonable level. This also happens if Chrome crashes / I quit or force-quit out of Chrome and then restart. I don't really want it to open however many tabs I had open, I just want to be able to see what tabs were open. I would be happy with it creating the tabs with the title at the top but not loading it. Short of that, One-Tab is a decent way to help with this issue.

omnray 14y ago

Its fanny that nobody mention there the TabsOutliner

omnray 14y ago
A screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/o8ZvIDH.jpg http://i.imgur.com/o8ZvIDH.jpg

theoutlander 14y ago

Interesting extension. I think you need to address a couple of things: 1. Try to maintain state for all the content in the controls. For instance, if I'm on JSONlint.com with some complex JSON in there, I'd like for that to be there when I re-open the tab. So, simply storing historic reference and reloading the pages doesn't add so much value for my use-case. 2. Can you do the same with other extensions? I have a ton of things running and it would be nice to disable all on-demand via one-click. My memory consumption was still over a GB with all the running extensions. Thanks & Good luck!!