There seem to be a lot of harsh reviews for this, probably because people expect "Group Your Tabs" from 2015 to work something like Chrome's more current day "Tab Groups" feature and API. It doesn't.
But that's not necessarily a bad thing. At least for me, I do find certain use-cases where this form of "grouping" (maybe read this as: "combination" or "compression" or "consolidation" etc instead for clarity?) is beneficial and has a particular place in my workflow.
For those complaining about the fact that this extension CLOSES tabs.. well, yeah. It's pretty obvious when you look at the first 2 screenshots alone. The first shows 13 tabs open, and in the second (i.e. after icon click invokes the extension and it does it's magic) only 2 tabs remain - one of which says 7 wikipedia tabs were "grouped" and 6 from microsoft as well.
If you'd rather keep them open but slap a color label on them and minimized, stick with Chrome's newer and native feature. Whatever floats your boat. I genuinely see no issue utilizing both approaches at various points of time depending on the situation, how many tabs I have open, how much memory I want to save, what is or isn't a priority right now, and other such considerations of that kind.
Oh and as for those suggesting that there's absolutely no way to resurrect lost tabs that are gone forevermore into the eternal depths of the cosmic ether or whatever such nonsense, um, there is a "Restore all saved groups" button in the options page. So even if you closed those "grouped" (read: "combined") tabs, or your whole window containing them closed, or your whole browser crashed and you reopen to a blank new empty canvas, or even if you happen to un/re install this extension, or whatever other such scenario -- all the data saved by the extension can still be restored. Just... hit the "Restore" button. And voila, your "grouped" (read: "zipped") tabs are brought back to the fore. From there, just delete or open individual items from those lists, or use the buttons at the bottom of those pages to open them all in the current window or in a new one.
For those complaining it takes all data with it to the grave upon uninstallation, that's pretty much how all chrome extensions work so it's a moot and pointless point to rage against the high heavens about. Install it (or any other extension for that matter) again and chrome-extension://unique-id-here/url-path-here will work once again. Which is why my prior tip about using /options.html URL to bring back all your old /group?website.com tabs works, even if your closed those tabs, windows, browser crashed, computer crashed, extension uninstalled, etc. Just reinstall, access those URLs, restore your data, then delete the extension if you don't want to use it anymore. But it's not broken or malicious, in any sense of those words.
For those complaining about it digging all the websites out of your history, I've no clue what you're talking about. I mean, what I said just prior in the last paragraph is probably what's happening (i.e. chrome-extension://chaoejepfhlcelgpicelfccoiojpiofn/ URLs no longer work once it's uninstalled - so all the website/tabs "grouped" within are now also unable to be viewed) is probably what's happening, but on the off chance any of your are suggesting this extension is malicious and mines data, you're going way over the line with unfounded speculative rumors. Show the reciepts or chill out.
For those also pointing to all the permissions required and using that to suggest it monitors E V E R Y T H I N G that you do on your browser - it's from 2015, Chrome's standards were different then and are more restrictive now, that's all. I'm certain that if this extension were re-written today almost a full decade later by Chrome's 2023 "Manifest Version 3" spec and standard it'd only require minimal permissions. Still, considering the fact that it seems to only utilize the chrome.tabs (developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/reference/tabs) chrome.storage (developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/reference/storage) and chrome.contextMenu (developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/reference/contextMenus) APIs in order to function, I'd say it's a fairly streamlined and straightforward little app. But if y'all are still intent on crying wolf, feel free to show the actual code or telemetry evidence which demonstrates how it's spying on your and sharing your info to china or evil corp or whatever, otherwise these vacuous but suggestive insinuations and baseless assertions remain unconvincing.
JTJoel Thomas·15 Oct 2023
