Review by Firefox user 14653332
Rated 4 out of 5
by Firefox user 14653332, 4 years agoTried because Onetab don't have a dark theme. TabMerger does what says, it's more kind to my eyes and make me feel more calm because there's options to undo mistakes and save my precious tabs. But I think it's over complicated, sometimes more is less. Some buttons don't need to appear or some information have a large size and isn't that important (like the day with seconds a group was created). One of the things I loved about onetab was the simplicity. Just when I move my cursor next to a link I see a X showing I could remove or how easy was using the extension without the need of a tutorial.
Developer response
posted 4 years agoThank you for the feedback. I will do my best to make the design more simplistic in future iterations.
14 reviews
- Rated 1 out of 5by ts9zz, 2 years ago
- Rated 4 out of 5by Artyom, 2 years ago
- Rated 1 out of 5by Firefox user 16039922, 4 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by TyFighter, 4 years agoSecond Edit: I decided to give it 5 stars, simply because the developer seems like a really nice dude and I also want to see this extension succeed(I see other people giving one stars, so hopefully this can counteract that). I've also had another similar experience with PocketTube, and that is the same pricing as this. I didn't realize that there are many extensions out there that are this expensive. Unfortunately, I'm not willing to pay the subscription, as I can't justify the price for what it does. I hope that updating this to 5 stars helps however, as it is easily the best tab management extension.
Edit: Your right that the review was made with a lot of frustration. I am sorry for that. I've updated my review to three stars since your right, it's a good extension.
That being said, there is no way I am paying for it. I understand you think the pricing is fair and that their isn't much competition in this market(namely OneTab), but I don't understand where this price is coming from. As far as I can tell, you don't use servers, so unless their is some other major expense that I'm not counting for in upkeep, all of this(besides maybe the hosting cost of the website) goes straight to you. Don't get me wrong, I think you deserve money and have every right to charge for the extension, it's just that other apps I can justify the price of the subscription while with this I can't. I think it's way too much for the features that you are offering.
For example, TickTick allows me to save websites as a note using their extension as well as having an entire task manager on top of it, with calendar, focus, markdown, due dates, priority, tags, and attachments(that upload to the cloud). All of this data has to be stored on a server, and that isn't cheap. Yet they are charging the same price(for everything) that you are asking for in your basic model, which doesn't even include all of the features, while TickTick has a much greater upkeep cost per user. It's easy to understand why they charge that much. I just don't understand that price here.
The main reason I'm keeping a star is taking features that were once free and locking them behind a paywall. I don't think that's cool. I also think it's entirely fair to criticize software based on pricing models. It's like buying a cake for $40 dollars while there is a cake that isn't as good(but decent enough) for $10 dollars. It's fair to criticize the $40 dollar cake since the value is clearly lower.
I wish you luck, but I don't think many people are going to subscribe unless you lower prices. Right now I think this pricing model would only appeal to those that have "fuck you" money, and I am certainly not one of them.
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
Sudden switch to subscription model is not appreciated in the slightest. I understand the developer wants to make money but the prices are absurd. $3 dollars a month is what I pay for TickTick, a task manager that has 100x more features and has a lot more employees then this single man operation. And that is just for basic, it's freaking $9 a month for the most expensive plan!! I don't believe there are any servers he/she has to run since it's using Firefox sync/local storage(if this money is going to servers, then the dev must have choose the most expensive servers on the planet). The pricing page is super scummy, as it seems like the free version has everything(just with limits) until you click the tiny little expand arrow at the bottom of the page. I don't mind the fact that the developer wants to make money off of this extension, and I wouldn't be this upset if the pricing wasn't so unfair. Really bummed too, as this was a great extension before this, but now STAY FAR AWAY!!Developer response
posted 4 years agoSecond Edit (response to TyFighter's second edit):
Oh that was unexpected - thank you so much 🤗
So far, TabMerger has had more than 10 paying customers, so it seems like the model is acceptable to some - but I understand that it is not perfect and will adjust accordingly in the future. This is my first commercial project, so I try to learn and grow from any mistakes I make.
Thank you for your understanding!
Edit (response to TyFighter's edit):
Thank you for your re-evaluation, although I think 3 stars is low, it is at least much more representative than the 1 star review - much appreciated!
"That being said, there is no way I am paying for it. I understand you think the pricing is fair and that their isn't much competition in this market(namely OneTab), but I don't understand where this price is coming from."
I completely understand. Not everyone will want to purchase a subscription and that is okay with me. As I said, the Free tier was designed to allow most users the freedom to use TabMerger without the need to upgrade. I believe TabMerger offers many unique features (all put into one product) which other products like OneTab simply do not possess. The pricing is in part due to the amount of work that goes into these features and the fact that I am very responsive, take user feedback seriously to make improvements, and willing to help out anyone at any time. You are right, servers are not considered when assigning the pricing, it is simply what I think my product is worth.
"For example, TickTick allows me to save websites as a note using their extension as well as having an entire task manager on top of it, with calendar, focus, markdown, due dates, priority, tags, and attachments(that upload to the cloud)."
I, respectfully, think that you are comparing apples to oranges here. TickTick is a TASK manager, while TabMerger is a TAB manager. These products are vastly different in nature, although they both improve productivity. Each creator is different - in their case they chose to monetize in a different way than I did, but that doesn't mean that everyone has to follow suit.
"The main reason I'm keeping a star is taking features that were once free and locking them behind a paywall."
Sure, I see your point but, as I am sure you know by now, TabMerger is open source and each release is made public (which is also a major point over competitors as TabMerger undergoes much harsher scrutiny from the open source community in terms of both quality and security) - so you technically can still use previous versions but these will not receive updates in the future. Additionally, the features that were "paywalled" are extra conveniences that do not hinder TabMerger operations or most users' needs/productivity. Additionally, they were mainly disabled since the logic improvements (local & sync backup) made them no longer necessary - but an optional feature that you can opt into.
"I also think it's entirely fair to criticize software based on pricing models."
Fair enough, I can see where you come from.
"I wish you luck, but I don't think many people are going to subscribe unless you lower prices."
Thank you, I will see how the first month under subscriptions goes and adjust from there.
PS, would a 2 week free trial of the Standard Tier be useful to you? If so, please send me an email.
Original Response:
Sorry to hear that you are not happy with subscriptions, but lots of work and time goes into making TabMerger a great product and subscriptions provide a valid incentive to put in this work.
The pricing page does not obscure anything in the way that you described. The very first thing you see is that there is a difference between subscriptions. For example, Basic says "Everything in Free tier" as the first item, then lists some 3 items that are updated, then 3 more that are new for that tier. The same for other subscriptions. The table below is simply provided for extra details and since there is a lot of information there, it is collapsed at first. It just so happens that "it seems like the free version has everything(just with limits) until you click the tiny little expand arrow at the bottom of the page" since this is exactly half way down the table - this isn't meant to trick anyone!
I am all for constructive criticism but I think your comments were made out of frustration. In my opinion the pricing is very fair for the features offered and the guarantee from me that I will continue to improve TabMerger - nothing is free in this world unfortunately. That being said, the free tier still offers many valuable features that anyone can benefit from.
Please reconsider your 1 star rating as TabMerger definitely is not 1 star quality "this was a great extension". - Rated 4 out of 5by Sammy Woodland, 4 years agoI came from OneTab, and at first really really liked this. But every once in a while, it deletes all my tabs for no reason. This isn't a huge deal the way I'm using it, but it's something that would be nice to fix.
I use Firefox on Pop!_OS (Ubuntu based) with the following extensions: Beagle Button - Sustainable Shopping, Dark Reader, Don't touch my tabs! (rel=noopener), Grammar and Spell Checker — LanguageTool, IPFS Companion, Kutt, NoScript, Plasma Integration, Reddit Enhancement Suite, TabMerger, Terms of Service; Didn’t Read, uBlock OriginDeveloper response
posted 4 years agoThank you for the honest feedback.
Would you mind sending us an email with more details? (https://lbragile.github.io/TabMerger-Extension/contact).
It would be great to know what actions lead to the event you described.
EDIT: This was caused by a bug in the logic for external merging (right click menu or keyboard shortcut). Essentially the merging process began prior to the TabMerger tab FULLY opening in these cases - something that was not happening in other browsers. This has been fixed in v2.0.0 😀 - Rated 5 out of 5by Bryce, 4 years ago
- Rated 4 out of 5by Firefox user 12519857, 4 years agoTabMerger is a very handy extension, but it has one big drawback. Let me explain what I mean. For example, I created a group of 3 tabs called Forums. On the first tab of this group, I added a forum with 8 pages, on the second tab, a forum with 30 pages, and on the third, with 50 pages at the time the group was created. One day passed and I opened a created group called Forums to read the news. During this time, the first tab instead of 8 pages began to contain 11, the second tab instead of 30, contained 32 pages, and the third instead of 50 began to contain 55. I read all the forums until the last updated page, ie up to 11, 32 and 55, respectively. The next day, I reopen the forums tab group, but my reading progress remains at its original level, i.e. 8, 30, and 50 pages respectively. It is necessary for the created group to automatically update the current state of the read forum pages and changed tabs within itself. At the time of creating the Forums group, I had 8, 30 and 50 pages in the corresponding tabs, and a day later I read them to 11, 32 and 55, respectively, it is necessary that when I open the Forums group, I see pages 11, 32 and 55, which I was reading, not the original 8, 30 and 50 when the group was created.
Sorry for my English, as I wrote through a translator.Developer response
posted 4 years agoThank you for feedback and letting me know about your experience.
What you described is very interesting and I will look into implementing it. However, you should note that TabMerger is meant for “backup” and organization of tabs. If tabs in TabMerger update when you manipulate them outside, that could have undesirable effects.
Nonetheless, point taken - thank you! - Rated 5 out of 5by t3pfaffe, 4 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Namsakhi, 4 years agoFound TabMerger really helpful in organizing several tabs according to specific customizable category, with cool colours, saving my time and memory.
Developer response
posted 4 years agoAwesome!
Thank you for the kind words. Glad you find TabMerger useful 😊 - Rated 5 out of 5by spamz, 4 years agoaesthetically it looks nice, and has a comfortable feel. there are clever implementations from within the "tab merger" tab itself, like changing the color and using the buttons to merge and add tabs. im assuming this is a new extension since there hasn't been that many downloads, so im sure there will be plenty of improvements as it matures.
so far my only gripe is the wasted space on either side of the screen. because its so compact it doesnt leave much space when naming the tab "group" . sometimes i use more than one word to label my groups, and it gets cut off. so i have to be creative and abbreviate, etc.
other than that bravo, i still give this 5 stars, its very clever, pleasant to use and look at and light on the "permissions".Developer response
posted 4 years agoThank you very much for your honest feedback!
You are right, TabMerger is relatively new and will continue to integrate new features in future versions.
TabMerger is also open source (https://github.com/lbragile/TabMerger) now and building a great community, so any input/suggestions that users provide can be looked at seriously and added promptly.
Stay tuned for User Interface updates (addressing your valid point).
Happy new year! 😊 - Rated 5 out of 5by Swastik, 4 years ago
- Rated 5 out of 5by Firefox user 15835907, 4 years agoSpeed improvement
Organization improvement
Your plugin is fucking AWESOME :D
Thanks a lot !!! 👩💻