Sessions are instances which get created when you open a web browser’s window and browse different sites in its multiple tabs. It ends when the web browser is closed. That’s why once you have logged in to a website in any tab of your web-browser (For example, Facebook), you can access it from any other browser’s tab or window without logging in again. Even if the tab where you logged in to the website is closed or you opened some other link on that tab, you still find yourself logged in because of the session-management implemented by your web browser in your browsing session. And, if you tick ‘Remember Me’ or ‘Keep Me Logged In’ check box while login, your login session can be maintained even after you close the web browser.
However, session is not only about storing logins. It also includes multiple tabs and multiple windows of your web-browser which are currently open. Hence, the feature of save/restore browsing session comes handy if you want to save your current browsing session with all its tabs, windows and login access to restore them later when required.
There are many different session managers available for web browsers. Whether you search in Chrome Web Store or Mozilla FireFox Add-ons library just browse for “session manager” there and you will find numerous extensions for controlling/managing sessions but when sessions are very important for your work then you will of course want to use the session manager even if it is in different web browser.
So, here I am providing you details of best session managers available for FireFox, Chrome, IE and other web browsers. You can check their feature details below to compare on your own and decide yourself which session manager your should install.
Session Manager (FireFox)
Session Manager add-on (by Michael Kraft) is simple yet powerful session manager that allows a user to easily load/store sessions, rename them, group them and delete when requirement is over. You can also save your currently active tab/window with just a single click. It allows users to access its features both via “Session Manager” option provided at ‘Tools’ menu and blue save icon or Session manager beside the Firefox address bar.
Not only this, the FireFox add-on also keeps automatic backup of last 5 sessions that you can restore even when you haven’t saved those sessions in this session manager. You can find it inside ‘Backup Sessions’ option of the add-on.
Session Buddy (Chrome)
Session Buddy is another great session manager extension which is available for Chrome users. It was mainly developed to offer simpler browsing experience and avoid confusion when you browse with multiple tabs in multiple windows in Chrome. Session management feature is provided alongside to allow the extension to perform its task even better.
It allows users to see all their opened tabs & windows at one place. It can suspend tabs to free memory and minimize clutter which you can restore later.
You can save your current browsing session with the name of your choice and when you need to restore, just click session buddy icon available adjacent to chrome address bar and on the redirected tab you can see all your saved browsing sessions with number of windows and tabs and restore them with just a single click.
Session Manager (Chrome)
Session Manager for Chrome is different from Session Manager of FireFox as it comes from different developer. With Session Manager for Chrome you can quickly save your current browser state and reload it whenever necessary. You can manage multiple sessions, rename or remove them from the session library.
Each session remembers the state of the browser at its creation time, i.e the opened tabs and windows. Once a session is opened, the browser is restored to its state.
TabMixPlus (FireFox)
Tab Mix Plus is a very popular extension for the Mozilla Firefox browser that enhances Firefox’s tab browsing abilities. It includes such features as duplicating tabs, controlling tab focus, tab clicking options, undo closed tabs and windows, plus much more. It also includes a Session Manager with crash recovery that can save and restore combinations of opened tabs and windows.
It provides various tools to power-up your web browser. You can configure it to open all links in new tab or window, prevent blank tabs when downloading files, add important features to FireFox context menu and more.
Tabs Outliner (Chrome)
Tabs Outliner is an advanced tab management extension available for Google Chrome. The extension is provided with so many tools that you can easily & smartly handle hundreds of tabs in your Chrome which are distributed among several windows. Tabs Outliner make it able to view all the opened tabs in list order even if the opening of several tabs make each tab shrink to a centimeter in length which makes it impossible to know which webpage it holds.
Organize, reorder tabs, comment them, selectively save & restore, crash resistance, drag & drop feature are some of its many features. Watch the above video to know full features and capability of Tabs Outliner Chrome extension.
Tabs Backup & Restore (Chrome)
It is a smart auto-save session manager that allows users to set time interval for which they want their current browsing session to automatically get saved/overwrite. It’s like scheduled backup that we have on our server for our website’s files. If you or someone else accidentally closed your web browser or power shutdown/system crash happens, this smart Chrome session manager would have your browsing session backed up.
You can define the time interval for auto backup and number of backups to keep. Each backup will show important details about number of windows and tabs opened when the backup was generated.
Multifox (FireFox)
The main feature of Multifox is to allow FireFox users to connect to websites using different user names simultaneously by limiting session data to tab or window. You can save you session cookies separately in different Multifox profiles which when selected will instantly provide you the session along with logging you in to all the website that you logged in to before creating this multifox profile. You can choose separate Multifox profiles to either open in separate tabs or windows through Multifox options.
The add-on is useful for those who need to login multiple accounts in same websites frequently. Use it with any good session manager which allows bulk save/restore of opened tabs/windows and your productivity will get doubled. Download Multifox from Mozilla Addons Library Here
FreshStart – Cross Browser Session Manager (Chrome)
Available through Chrome web store but FreshStart is a cross-browser session manager which allow users to save multiple windows in single session or selectively save tabs/windows. It saves it in format of bookmark which can be accessed via any browser to restore session in any web browser.
It also has other important features like: crash recovery which it provides by auto-saving tabs in few minutes, export/import sessions, etc.
If you are looking for a good session manager for Internet Explorer then I recommend you to try IE Session Manager which saves, restores, and manages multiple Internet Explorer tab and instance sessions for IE 7 & 8. For those users who use Opera more often, they can use Chrome session manager on the Opera web browser too as both of the web browsers use chromium architecture so, all chrome extensions are supported by Opera desktop web browser too.
TIP – If you have accidentally closed tabs or windows in any web browser, you can press CTRL+SHIFT+T to restore them, even after you have closed your browser you are required to open it first though.
Please share your feedback about this list and do share if you know any better session manager app for any web browser.
