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Update, 8 July 2024: Besser Pinned Tabs is now also available for Google Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers, in addition to the Firefox version released in May.

Besser Pinned Tabs is an essential tool for anyone who relies on pinned tabs. The extension protects your pinned tabs by intelligently managing how new web pages are opened.

Main features

1. Pinned tab preservation. If a pinned tab is accidentally closed with a keyboard shortcut, the extension instantly reopens it, keeping its URL and its position.¹
2. Smart link handling. When you click a link in a pinned tab that leads to a different website, the extension opens it in a new tab. Your pinned tabs keep their original content.
3. Navigation protection. If you type a new URL in the address bar of a pinned tab, the extension opens that site in a separate tab, again preserving the content of the pinned tab.

A smoother browsing experience. The extension works discreetly in the background and has no settings to configure.

Besser Pinned Tabs adds an extra layer of protection and functionality to your pinned tabs. It is the perfect solution if you want to keep an organised and efficient browsing experience — it makes tab management in Google Chrome as intelligent as it already is in Safari and Yandex Browser.

Demo

Read the video transcript

1. This is how “Besser Pinned Tabs” improves Google Chrome’s tab handling.
2. Without this extension, if you hit Command W or Control W on a pinned tab, the tab will just close.
3. When you click a link to a different website inside a pinned tab, the page will be replaced by the new one, and you lose the content of your pinned web page.
4. If you change the address of a pinned tab, the new page loads inside the pinned tab and replaces it.
5. But the pinned tab feature should not just make tabs smaller; it should permanently pin chosen websites to your browser’s tab bar.
6. Now let’s activate “Besser Pinned Tabs”.
7. I’m hitting Control W or Command W, and the tab immediately reloads.
8. Clicking on a link inside a pinned tab opens the new page in a new tab.
9. And when entering a new URL in the address bar, that page also loads in a new tab, thereby protecting the content of your pinned website.
10. Enjoy “Besser Pinned Tabs”, and if you like it, please give it a good rating.

Further information

• Besser Pinned Tabs does not collect any data.
• Besser Pinned Tabs is open source software; the code is available on GitHub.

My motivation for building this extension: I kept switching from Chrome or Firefox to Safari or Yandex Browser. Those two handle pinned tabs exactly the way I want — they protect them against unintentional closure, and against having the pinned page replaced by another one.