Lost my Windows machine, but all I miss are my Firefox extensions

November 28, 2007 5:31 PM

I'm trying to recover a session manager extension to Firefox. Problem is, I don't remember what it was called.

Ugly BSOD on my laptop was the first indicator that the boot sector of my HDD had gone belly-up. I had a session manager/storer/recovery extension in Firefox that I liked quite a bit. It saved sessions, and restored tabs after a crash or restart. All I remember is that it had a button that lived in the upper right hand part of my toolbars. It had a blue-green logo... aaaand I'm feeling pretty stupid here.

posted by Emperor SnooKloze to computers & internet (7 comments total)

Did you know that Firefox has a session manager built in now, that does everything you mentioned? Turn it on by going to Tools->Options->Main, and change the first dropdown to "Show my windows and tabs from last time." If you want more tab-related options, you can install Tab Mix Plus.
posted by cerebus19 at 5:37 PM on November 28, 2007

Session Manager?.
posted by wannalol at 6:03 PM on November 28, 2007

Tab Mix Plus is the way to go. It's session manager does what it is asked and you can control just about anything when it comes to your tabs. Gotta keep those tabs in line, or get lost in the tubes.
posted by B(oYo)BIES at 6:07 PM on November 28, 2007

It's Google's Browser Sync extension.
posted by Capostrophe at 6:14 PM on November 28, 2007

It was Google Browser Sync. I was able to recover my Firefox profile from the old laptop (Thanks Ubuntu LiveCD!) and went through the old registry keys and figured it out. Thanks for jogging my memory.
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 6:53 PM on November 28, 2007

also useful in situations like this, are the extensions FEBE and CLEO.

FEBE allows you to backup any or all of your Firefox profile. this is most useful for backing up extensions, as Google Browser Sync does not. CLEO turns that backup into an xpi file, that can be double-clicked, to install that backup on any other machine.
posted by ArgentCorvid at 8:57 PM on November 28, 2007

On the subject of FEBE and CLEO, I actually prefer another method, and I'll tell you why...

Back up your Firefox profile directory ( C:\Documents and Settings\B(oYo)BIES\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\this.directory ). This will backup all settings, bookmarks, extensions, etc.

Now, when you want to restore it, go to Start > Run > Firefox.exe -p

Choose 'Create Profile' and then point the profile to your backed up directory (I usually copy the backup back into the ...Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ directory first, but it can really be just about anywhere).



Now, the reason I do this is because I use Firefox on many machines and I like them to all be THE SAME. I can install a new version of Firefox on a computer, copy over the profile that I have slaved on over to this PC, and then add a profile to the new install of Firefox and BAMM, it looks just like the other PC.
posted by B(oYo)BIES at 9:06 PM on November 28, 2007