Organize, find, and manage your work in the browser
So many of us do our work in the browser. That means work, personal, side-project, school, and more browsing habits are all mixed into one. This often leads to a chaotic array of tabs open, and we lose our focus/productivity. Tab Suspenders are hugely popular for this very reason; people want to take back the unnecessary allocation of RAM to the inactive tabs they have open. In this article, we explore why a Tab Suspender isn't the solution to this problem -and instead, why you should be using a Tab Manager.
If you have so many tabs open that your computer is slowing down, you don’t need a tab suspender or tab snoozer — you need a tab manager. Address the problem at its root and get organized. Managing tabs in a browser doesn’t have to suck. In fact, if you do your work in the browser, you shouldn’t have to flip through 100s of tabs just to get some work done.
What is a Tab Suspender?
A Tab Suspender is a browser extension that ‘suspends’ (Removes from the browsers current active working memory) tabs in order to save your computer’s RAM (Its relatively available resources).
What is a Tab Manager?
A Tab Manager is a browser extension, app, or both that are designed to help you organize and manage your work in the browser.
Chrome is the most widely used browser. The most common problem users face when using chrome (In fact any browser) is that they eventually accumulate too many tabs and their computer — and work as a product of this — slows down. Having too many tabs open is a major distraction, makes it hard to get to the resources you really need, and of course slows us down. It is also a heavy psychological burden because you don’t know what to do about the tabs. Closing them isn’t so simple. Will you need the tab later? Will you be able to find it later? Will you even remember it?
Everyone has faced this problem. You are trying to get some work done in the browser and you inevitably accumulate too many tabs, start virtually running in circles, and don’t get any work done. Then came along Tab Suspenders: A seemingly perfect solution to your problem! Just enable a tab suspender/snoozer and it will automatically unload the tabs you aren’t using in order to reduce memory usage in chrome — all unimportant technical information that amounts to chrome pretends like that tab isn’t open so that you can use your computer as if you had less tabs open.
The problem with this however, is that it addresses the issue from the surface level consequence —a slower browser— and not the root cause, too many tabs open. So, how can we break this habit, get more organized, and work effectively in the browser?
Use a Tab Manager, specifically designed to help you, well, manage tabs.
Let’s first look at how Tab Managers are different from Tab Suspenders. Tab Suspenders are great, but they do not address the root cause of why chrome and our work actually slow down: too many tabs open. Suspending tabs is just a quick temporary fix.
You keep a tab open for 3 reasons:
Tab Suspenders unfortunately address none of these use cases, which, left to their own demise, will end up in tab chaos.
A tab manager can help you take proactive action when one of these use cases arrises, meaning that you don’t have to indefinitely keep a tab open just to serve one of these purposes. You can easily and effectively clean up your browser, keep only the tabs open that you need in that moment/for that project, and quickly access the resources you need. Staying focused on the task at hand and context switching becomes effortless.
Furthermore, Tab Managers can help with other issues that Tab Suspenders cannot, like: Restoring, sharing, and collaborating on work.
If you do any form of work in the browser, you likely regularly accumulate so many tabs that you don’t even know what to do with. Using a tab manager can help you partition your work (Keep your work, school, side-project, personal, and other browsing ‘profiles’ separate), find the resources you need when you need them, and become more efficient and focused.
The main difference between a tab manager and a tab suspender is that a tab manager is designed to help you organize your work and use the browser more productively. A tab suspender simply suspend/snoozes the tabs that aren’t in use, reducing RAM requirements. A tab suspender is definitely useful, it just doesn’t address the problem — you have too many tabs open and suspending them doesn’t really help you, or your productivity.
While you are saving some memory, you still have too many tabs open. Things are mixed up, overflowing, and work feels chaotic. You bounce between tabs and lose time trying to find / reference the tabs you need. Ultimately, a tab suspender is a temporary fix.
When you use a tab manager, your work is organized and efficient. Everything has a place — Including that interesting blog / video you want to watch later that has nothing to do with your work right now. Separating what you do (Work, Personal, side-project, school, etc.) is simple and further partitioning of sub-tasks and projects is as easy as saving a group of tabs together.
Your work is syncable, sortable, and restorable. All things that a Tab Suspender cannot offer.
We recently tried and compared a bunch of tab managers and made a comprehensive list of the best tab managers for chrome.
If you’re looking for a simple yet powerful, productivity and privacy focused tab manager try out Partizion.
