Google has removed The Great Suspender Chrome extension while Microsoft did the same last year – Here are 3 of its top alternatives.
In the last couple of days, several Google Chrome browser-related incidents involving malicious extensions have been reported including abusing Chrome’s Sync feature to steal user data. Now, Google has removed its highly popular The Great Suspender extension.
Google Removed The Great Suspender
On Thursday, Google removed one of its popular Chrome extensions called The Great Suspender from the Chrome Web Store because it was infected with malware. Google also deactivated it from users’ computers which is something the company doesn’t do often.
The extension was downloaded over 2 million times before being deleted. Its purpose was to suspend unused tabs and replace them with a blank gray screen until reloaded.
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According to the notification released by Google, the extension contained malware. It could sneakily add new features in the browser to execute arbitrary code from a remote server and perform functions like carrying out ad fraud and tracking users online.
The extension was quite famous among users as it helped them avoid memory issues on Chrome browser as it is often blamed for RAM hogging.
Extension’s Sneaky Behavior Was Noticed in November
Microsoft blocked the extension’s v7.1.8 on the MS Edge browser in November 2020 due to its shady behavior. This means the add-on was performing its malicious functions for many months. Its original developer Dean Oemcke is suspected of having sold the extension to an unidentified entity in June last year. Two new versions were released on Chrome Web Store- version 7.1.8 and 7.1.9 afterward.
What are the Alternatives?
You can use its latest version, ‘v.7.1.6,’ available on GitHub. To do this, you need to enable Chrome Developer Mode. However, this can have some consequences, claims security researcher Bojan Zdrnja. So, it is better to switch to better and safer alternatives to the extension. Some of which include the following:
OneTab
OneTab is one of the best alternatives to the now-unavailable Chrome extension. It effectively minimized tab clutter on your browser and reduces memory usage when you are browsing the web.
Tabs Outliner
Tabs Outliner is another superb add-on that helps you organize the browser tabs, and you can open and close the tabs quickly with just one click. The best feature is that after saving your session, it retains the original text to let the user revisit it later.
Session Buddy
Session Buddy is an outstanding session manager that lets you manage tabs on Chrome browser and bookmark them easily.
You can quickly save open tabs and restore them later, helping free up memory to reduce clutter. You can also recover open tabs if the computer crashes, so there’s no risk of losing a web page.
Chrome also has a built-in add-on called Tab Freeze that frees up the memory used by inactive tabs after five minutes.
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