Reviews for Session Sync
Session Sync by Gabriel Ivanica
234 reviews
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 12908324, 6 years agoThis is hands down the best session manager add-on currently available. If you are using a different session manager, you really should try this one out.
Developer response
posted 6 years agoA little bit late but thanks a lot for the review. Really glad that you like it. - Rated 5 out of 5by FFxuser, 6 years agoUpdate:
Hi Gabriel,
I am glad that you have fixed the issue of tracking the closed windows, although it took form more time than expected (around a year). Thank you for the fix, it's a very important improvement one. I am changing my rating from 4 to 5. I can also see that your add-on is being used by more people and it is getting high rates as well. Congratulations!!!
I must say that there are some good Add-ons that are similar to SessionSync and they work pretty good. However, in my opinion SessionSyn's unique feature is that it supports storage of the bookmarks on the cloud at least using Firefox account feature and its is also reflected in the Add-on name (the "Sync" part).
So, please allow me to suggest that you append some slides/screenshots with instructions on how that works because I have noticed that there is nothing about this feature in your current slides. As an example, I remember that in a previous version when you right click one of the recent Auto-saved sessions, a popup menu with "cloud" icon on top used to appear next to next to "Save" command, but it is was not clear if it invokes the "Firefox Sync" feature or just a regular command to save a session as bookmark, .etc.
I also have some questions regarding this Sync feature:
1-Consider this scenario: If I used the SessionSync during a browsing session with FF Sync feature enabled, then I ended the FF browsing session and started another browsing session in another device with SessionSync installed and FF Sync enabled. Is it expected to restore the list of all previously saved Sessions.
2-How long it takes to Sync/Save all the saved sessions from/to the cloud. (Lets say 5 session with 200 bookmarks each).
3-What is the maximum number of sessions/tabs/bookmarks that could be Synced or stored in the cloud.
Please note that I am not an expert in FF, so these questions might be ridiculous.
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Hi Gabriel,
Thank you for sharing this great tool and following up the feedback and providing support based on users experience. I do have some comments.
Please let me go back to the feedback provided by "Panorama" as it includes a very important point regarding the issue when auto saving a session with multiple windows.
I faced the same issue and I think that it is related to the "Auto-Save History" feature and in order to replicate it I would suggest the following steps:
-Open Firefox and then add a couple of new tabs within the same window
-Open a second window and add 3 new tabs
-Now you have 2 windows with 5 tabs and the current session in the History list should include both windows
-Close the first window, wait for a few seconds (till the auto save interval period passes) and then close the second window which will exit Firefox
-Reopen Firefox application and go to the "Sessions History" list and select the previous auto-saved session (most recent item)
You will notice that it includes only a list of 3 tabs from the second window while there is no record for the first window and its 2 tabs.
I am not sure if this bug is related to Firefox or to the tool itself. Anyway I think that the "Auto-Save History" function should add a new entry (item) in the "Sessions History" list for each closed window otherwise it would be incomplete feature.
I also have a question, could you please explain where do you store the data of the "Sessions History" list because it is not included in the "SessionSync" bookmarks folder.
Thanks again for your work and support,Developer response
posted 6 years agoUpdate: Sorry but I was not able to finish the update yet. I will update the message once it's done.
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Hi, and thanks a lot for the detailed information.
Sadly everything you mentioned is correct and the reason is that I implemented the saving mechanism without taking into consideration that closed windows should be saved. I realized that the behavior is not what is normally expected from a auto-saving feature. It should store all windows no matter how many are opened and closed and that's something that I quite failed to implement properly.
I will try to fix this ASAP (I should be able to fix it this weekend) and latest by Monday a new version to be ready.
Regarding saved location. Sadly the auto-saving functionality is not stored into Bookmarks. They are saved into the browser "localStorage" that is hidden from users. Most addons out there will store everything into this storage and you won't have access to the data unless the addon offers some kind of an export functionality. I decided to store what user would consider important data into "Bookmarks" because they users will be in control of it and not the addon and data will be there (visible) always. Please understand that not saving everything into bookmarks is not an issue but the other way around. I tried to offer something better by saving only those things that matter to you (every user) in the most transparent way possible (through bookmarks).
The reason why auto-saved data can't be stored in bookmarks:
- because it is saved periodically and saving into Bookmarks would create performance issues for many users as well as possible sync errors (bookmarks are not really intended to be changed that often, I mean not once every 10 seconds)
- bookmarks are usually intended for things that you want to keep for a longer period of time
- auto-saved sessions are usually intended only as recovery options/backup restoring: browser crashing, system crashing or getting back to a certain site that you know you visited a few hours ago/days
Because of this decision only bookmarks are synced across Firefox accounts. But I would say that is ok because you can always decide if you want to promote an auto-saved session to a synced session by saving it into Bookmarks.
Usually there are many things to consider when building such an extension and I tried to keep a good balance between functionality and features. It won't be perfect for everyone but as I receive feedback I try to improve it. Thanks again for feedback. Promise that I will have an update for this ASAP. I will update this comment as soon as the implementation is ready. - Rated 1 out of 5by Firefox user 14139948, 6 years ago
Developer response
posted 6 years agoYou could at least wrote a few words why you gave the rating. Otherwise I can't understand what's the problem and how I might be able to fix it. - Rated 2 out of 5by Panorama, 6 years agoFails at some of the most basic things, and specifically it can't save a "window". This means that if you have two browser windows open, each containing different types of information, it fails to save the second window. The first window saves, but when closed after saving, the second window creates an entry as if it did something, but it's just a useless link to "Session Sync".
IOW, all your tabs/research/data in the second window is "history", as in unrecoverable as an entity. Everyone know that Firefox itself sucks today (trying very hard to be as horrible as the POS chrome, and succeeding), but eliminating all the great and competent add-ons is just inexcusable because we're left with things like this that just don't work.Developer response
posted 6 years agoHi, and thanks for feedback. I don't understand exactly what exactly it's happening in your case because saving multiple windows definitely works. Not sure if there can be any other addons that can cause such an issue but saving definitely works ok. Of course... there can be lots of things that I can't control that can affect the addon but the code does exactly what it's suppose to. I will investigate to see if I can replicate this but I can definitely say that I never seen encounter this kind of bug.
The addon may not be for everyone and I do get that but please understand that your experience with it most probably is not reflection of the addon quality. 99.99% of the time the addon works as it should I would say. If there are serious issues that I can tackle (like the one you've mention) I will try to fix them as soon as possible but in this case I simply have no lead what exactly causes Firefox to stop saving the second window.
If you are able to provide more information that would be helpful (I usually don't test everything on linux and I don't have a Mac so if it happens to be one of these 2 I might have a better lead) please send me an email. Of course, I will still try to figure out what may be the cause for this issue. - Rated 1 out of 5by Firefox user 14131492, 6 years agoWTH you use s2.googleusercontent.com/s2/favicons?domain_url to get favicons?!? You literally send our full browsing history to google! Is this privacy for you?! Are you paid for this by google?
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I don't think I could trust you again but I will definitely keep an eye on your code so watch yourself.Developer response
posted 6 years agoFavicon request code was removed (as of version 3.0.3). No single request is created from within the addon toward a third-party server. Favicons are directly taken from the sites that you visit (so each favicon from it's respective site and cached locally if possible).
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Hi. I care really a lot about privacy and I really messed up this. Since there was no way around to get links favicons using WebExtensions I looked up for alternatives and I found that google has a service for this. I'm really really sorry about this. When I read your message I literately stopped for 2 seconds realizing how idiot I've been that I thought this is an alternative solution. Really really sorry for doing this. And no, of course I'm not paid by google. I simply made a stupid decision without realizing that service may be tracked by google.
I really understand your concern and it's totally right.
Again.. really really sorry. The code will be removed right away. I will update the message as soon as I fix this. - Rated 5 out of 5by buoyantair, 6 years agoThis extension is pretty good and allows me to manage multiple sessions. It also has a good UI so thanks for the creator!
- Rated 5 out of 5by GNU Castor, 6 years agoVery usefull & cool, my laptop and desktop loves it!
I hope there is mobile firefox version in the futur :) - Rated 4 out of 5by Seak T. F., 6 years agoEverything is nice except that multi-window session is saved as separate entries. It would be nice if all the windows are saved into one entry.
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 13464939, 6 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 14095372, 6 years agoThe most useful and the most advanced session manager out there, across all browsers. The only feature that I initialy didn't find is the option for import end export of sessions. Only after having read in the description, that import/backup option is available from the Firefox integrated bookmark menu, I finaly found that option. My advice to the developer:
1. Remove the first tab from the left ("Active session", the one wih logo), as it only duplicates the content already present in the 2nd tab "Sessions", and also in the 3rd tab - "current session".
2. Then rename "Sessions" to "Saved sessions", and rename "History" to "Auto-saved sessions".
3. In the add-on "burger" menu, or as an extra button along all the other buttons, put an extra "Import/export" button, which would open a tooltip, explaining where to find (in the Firefox Bookmark Manager), and how to use the import/export function" (by simply importing/exporting Firefox bookmarks).
These 3 things will make the menu much more logical, user-friendly and easy to understand, although already now it's near perfection.
P.S. Chome's "Session Buddy" open as a new full-width tab on default, and thus it's easier to navigate and see all the sessions - yet another possible approach. Session Sync allows a maximum 800x600px.
P.S.S. "t's true that Active Session is duplicate with the one from 3rd tab - "Current Session" but the 2nd tab does not do that. " - What I meant, was that both in the list under the 1st tab, and in the same list under 2nd tab I see my saved sessions - i.e. the same saved session list under 2 different tabs. This creates confusion.
P.S.S.S - Don't want to seem annoying - just trying to hopefully help you improve this already a masterpiece.
"Since the active session can only be accessed through that button when the Auto-saved sessions is disabled (from configuration) I need to think really well how a good solution." Suggested solution: as mentioned above, remove the 1st tab, and rename the other two. Then, switch places of the remaining 2nd and 3rd tabs. Then the add-on tabs will look like this: 1st tab - "Auto-saved sessions", and the 2nd tab - "Saved sessions". The 1st tab should be open on default no matter whether auto-saving is switched on or off. If off, then the first entry in the list under the 1st tab shall be "current session (auto-saving switched off)" or "current session (to save, turn on autosaving)", or "current session (not saved; to save turn on auto-saving").
PS.x4: hopefully my last post :-) Yet another proposal - rename the addon to "Bookmark & Session manager" - this way not only users of session add-ons will find you, but also the much larger userbase of bookmark managers. Good luck!Developer response
posted 6 years agoReply to P.S.S.S:
=)) Nobody's annoying. I should be really grateful for so much helpful feedback. Although we should have probably not used this review section as a chat. Feel free to contact me on my mail. You can find a leave feedback button with my mail on the top-right side of the help page.
Sadly that "Current Session" from the auto-save section is actually a snapshot of the current session that can be from anywhere between 1 second ago and 10 minutes (whatever time you set in the configuration). So it's not really a reflection of your current session. Again... probably creates some confusions this one as well but I assumed since it's in the auto-saved session it shouldn't be that problematic. Most sure I was wrong. Yes it's sort of funny but like I said when you actually try to fit everything right, there's always something that is not really ok.
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Reply to P.S.S
Yes sadly it does that... it does changes the right panel (where it shows the active session instead of a certain selected session if you had one selected) but I do understand. I don't really like it how it is right know. I'll definitely try to find a solution to it.
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Reply to P.S
You can that that too with SessionSync (CTRL + SHIFT+ V) will open it into a Window or a Tab (depending on what you have set from configurations).
Session Buddy is a great session manager... true, but at the same time quite different from this. I actually use (and probably other users as well) Session Sync as a great organized bookmark manager: If I find something interesting I add the current tab to a certain session. You can only do this by keeping the current tab active only by using the the panel.
The truth is... although I have some feedback I truly have no idea how many users use it purely as a Session Manager, how many as a Bookmarking Manager and how many as both. All I know is that I have somehow to find good solutions (while also preserving a good user experience) to fit as many individual expectations as possible :D. And that's incredibly hard to do. But feedback is great and I will try to improve it as much as possible.
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Later edit:
1. It's true that Active Session is duplicate with the one from 3rd tab - "Current Session" but the 2nd tab does not do that. Basically the first tab is there just to press it to get fast to the "Current Session". Yes it's not really ideal, I will try to remove it somehow because it's a little bit out of place there.
Since the active session can only be accessed through that button when the Auto-saved sessions is disabled (from configuration) I need to think really well how a good solution. Certain configuration options can create a lot of problems and that's why there might be some redundancy each and there.
2. Yeah... I kind of wanted to have them better explained but I always had problems with available space. Since I don't know the width of that tab list longer description can not appear complete. If I manage somehow to kill the first tab I will try to provide better description.
3. True... since this is a feature many users expect I should provide a better description of it. Really good idea to have it there. I will try to add some explanations as soon as possible.
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Thanks for feedback. Import and export functionality will definitely arrive in a future update (as many other features: see https://github.com/ReDEnergy/SessionSync/issues/40 for more info). In the meantime you still have an option: Firefox Bookmark Manager can export/import all your bookmarks (these will contain the saved sessions as well since they actually saved as bookmarks). - Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 12041720, 6 years agoI think it's a great idea to save sessions in bookmarks. Thank you so much for creating and working on this extension. I do have one issue and one suggestion.
- The issue is probably a minor one, but when I right click on a website listed within a session, the drop-down menu that is displayed by your extension is covered up by my normal right-click drop-down menu, so I can't see or click on the options on the Session Sync right-click menu.
- My suggestion is that you allow the user to set the date and time format for automatically naming sessions. I would prefer to use a date and time in the format: YYYY-MM-DD, HH-MM-SS because of the way that firefox sorts bookmarks by name. That would not be an issue when accessing my sessions through the interface of your extension, because you give the option to sort sessions by date, but it would be useful when accessing or organizing sessions through firefox bookmarks, especially if I for some reason lost the ability to use your extension (for purposes of storing sessions long-term).
I also want to note that the system you have for numbering sessions when the user saves multiple windows and they are saved as separate sessions presents a similar problem, even within your interface. In other words, when I sort sessions by name within your interface, window #1 is followed by window #10, #11, etc., and window #19 is followed by window #2, which is followed by window #20... you get the idea.
Otherwise, I kind of like that separate windows are saved as separate sessions, because I tend to have a lot of windows open with a lot of tabs and opening them all at once overwhelms my RAM and disk usage also skyrockets now with Firefox Quantum.Developer response
posted 6 years agoHi, and thanks for feedback.
- Regarding the right click issue... that's definitely really strange. It should not happen like that since I specifically wrote code to block the default right-click behavior. All I can think right know is that another addon might mix things up and and create this issue. If you have time try disabling all your other addons for 1 minute and see if the same it's happening (if it's an addon fault you should be able to spot it pretty easy)
- Configuring saving date format... That's really a good idea and I will have it done ASAP (I would say by the end of this week)
- Relating to the sorting issue... yes definitely makes sense. I will have to figure out a solution for this. From an alphabetical point of view seems that the sorting is correct but certainly not exactly what anyone would normally expect :)
Really great feedback. Thanks again. - Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 13451998, 6 years agoReally a great job, Gabriel ! MERCI for your efforts. I just gave you a little reward with paypal.
Do you know a way to import all my 160 sessions from Session Manager (used still on ESR) with each lots of tabs? Or is doing it manually the only way possible ?
I really appreciate your many responses to evaluations. But I allow me to advice you to forget sometimes some bad/unlogical evaluations. Focus more on your own pleasure for your very positive efforts and finding further your intelligent solutions !!
Thanks and a big smile!Developer response
posted 6 years agoThanks a lot for appreciation.
Regarding importing of session from Session Manager... I looked a bit into it. Sadly, it does not have any export option or at least I can't seem to find one. I also tried to look into the code to maybe find out where exactly and how sessions are stored but the code is not exactly friendly fast browsing. It would definitely be awesome to have an option to import Session Manager session. Not really sure who long it might take me to write the export function until after I take a look over how exactly sessions are saved. If you can know anything about this please contact me directly via email (or on the project's Github page) . I will be happy to try to find a solution for this.
Manual exporting should work... it's not ideal in your case because it means quite a work, certainly not impossible but still... 160 sessions require a lot of clicks :)
Regarding general evaluations and my responses to them. I think that user reviews reflect a lot about the overall quality of the addon. Of course Session Sync is not perfect, there are so many things to improve and missing features. I try to make sure not to leave any possible misleading information unanswered because it might be of help to others users in the feature.
Of course... can't tell that reviews don't matter. I would say that they are the primary reason for me to continue improving this because I realize that there are a few users that understand and care about this too. Good feedback is always welcomed and it certainly hopes a lot to identify what improvements and features I need to add. Yes, It's a little bit hard for me to get why would someone leave a straight bad review for something free but of course you can't ever please everyone.
Lastly, I think that responding to reviews it's a good indication that I take into consideration everything and although I might not have that much time to invest into updating it as fast as possible I still care about it and will continue to do so.
Again, thanks a lot. - Rated 5 out of 5by Kaleemseo, 6 years ago
- Rated 3 out of 5by Firefox user 14040896, 6 years ago
Developer response
posted 6 years agoIt would be nice to at least leave some feedback so that I can know what would you expect as improvements. Thanks. - Rated 3 out of 5by Firefox user 14081508, 6 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 14079663, 6 years agoone of the best add-on on the market and is absolutely good for people who use multiple devices to view resources.
Developer response
posted 6 years agoThanks a lot for appreciation. I promise that it will get even even better in the future :) - Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 14075976, 6 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Shanna, 6 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Nirmal Advani, 6 years ago
- Rated 2 out of 5by pjcamp, 6 years agoAuto save doesn't appear to work. It should be saving my session every 60 seconds but the only saved session is one I did manually.
EDIT: I don't see anything on the history tab except the current session. Is there a more efficient way to communicate?
I'm put out at Tab Session Manager for erasing my database when they updated last and looking for an alternative. If it doesn't autosave, then this isn't it.Developer response
posted 6 years agoLater EDIT: Please contact me directly via email (gabrielivanica@gmail.com) with any question you might have regarding the addon. For more direct ways of communication (if needed) I will send you an email after you contact me first.
P.S If the addons shows that "Current Sessions" entry most probably works as it should but might not work as you expect.
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I don't really understand why it would not be saved. I mean there's that tab called "History" where you should find the most recent saved sessions.
At this point the auto-saved function creates a new session entry only when the browser starts. Then every 60 seconds (or whatever you set) the same session will be overwritten. If you close the browser during those 60 seconds when you open it again you should find that specific session saved in the History tab.
Only manually saved sessions are stored in the Sessions tab since those are stored as bookmarks while the auto-saved one are stored in internal memory and can will be automatically deleted when the storage (that you also set) is full. - Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 14055812, 7 years agoGiving this 5 stars after initial use, looking for something to replace Session Manager. So far this has been relatively intuitive to get started with. (I wish addons had Quick Start guides, some are difficult to figure out.) One thing I'm wondering, is it possible to restore multiple windows at once? I work with about 20 tabs spread over 3 windows. I see that I can save all of them at once but it looks like I have to restore each window separately, is that right? I want to save all my open windows as a session and restore them all at once, if possible. Nice work.
Edit: I don't remember seeing the introduction tab but I found that tutorial/introduction through About, and it is nicely done. Thank you for pointing it out. I saw "about" previously but I thought it would give me a version number, not a tutorial, so I didn't click it. Oops.Developer response
posted 7 years agoThanks for the review. Regarding quick-start guide, I sort of have something in the form of those tutorial images that present all the main features of the addon (the Tutorial was suppose to be automatically opened after you installed the addon but you can always re-open it from the top-right addon menu button -> About)
Regarding opening of multiple session at once, sadly this is not possible right now but I do have plans to support with a future update. Sorry for not providing this feature yet.
(For more info regarding feature updates you can visit https://github.com/ReDEnergy/SessionSync/issues/40) - Rated 4 out of 5by Firefox user 13552796, 7 years agoLove the app, works exactly as expected. Syncing would be a lot more useful with mobile support, so I can save all the relevant pages for a job and push the session to my phone.