The Great Suspender has been the most popular tab suspension extension on Chrome since its release. However, the recent change in ownership at The Great Suspender has raised serious concerns about its security.

The popular Chrome extension called the Great Suspender having more than 2 million users on Google platforms was designed to make the usage of RAM better on the Chrome browser i.e. It worked as a lightweight browser extension to help reduce Chrome’s memory footprint on devices where the user had too many tabs open. The Great Suspender, a memory management extension for Google Chrome designed to help users that keep several tabs open at once, should be uninstalled as soon as possible following the discovery that it's contained malicious code since November of 2020.

Our recommendation: You should replace the extension if you want to be safe. If you need a secure alternative to The Great Suspender, we've made it easy to switch to Workona.

Workona can pick up your tab suspension where The Great Suspender left off. You choose how many tabs to keep in memory and how you'd like your tabs restored.

If the Great Suspender lost all of your tabs, don't panic — there may be a way to get them back. Our tab suspender has a built-in feature to repair any broken Great Suspender tabs that it finds.

How to recover lost tabs from The Great Suspender

1. Install the Workona Tab Suspender extension in your browser (for Chrome, Firefox, and Microsoft Edge users)
2. Choose your tab suspension settings when prompted
3. Uninstall The Great Suspender

Now that you've added the Workona Tab Suspender, it will look for any broken Great Suspender tabs and automatically repair them.

Even if you didn't lose any tabs from The Great Suspender, you can follow these instructions to replace the extension with Workona.

Is The Great Suspender safe?

Google and Microsoft have officially flagged The Great Suspender as malware. But even before the extension was disabled by Google Chrome and Edge, users were raising concerns about its safety.

Great Suspender App

These were the main issues:

• Some users were concerned that the new owner intended to inject malicious code into The Great Suspender — this is not an uncommon occurrence in these situations.
• Changes were made to The Great Suspender that were not disclosed, including the fact that the extension was now connecting to various third-party servers and executing code from them. The new owner also began tracking users without notifying them, which left them uneasy.
• After purchasing The Great Suspender and making these changes, the new owner was silent in responding to user concerns.

The combination of silence from the new owner, undisclosed changes to user privacy, and a history of buyers injecting malware into recently acquired extensions has caused many to deem The Great Suspender unsafe. We recommend erring on the side of caution and replacing the extension (here's how).

Why is this a big deal?

Before Google Chrome made the call, at least one browser (Microsoft Edge) had actually flagged the extension as malware. But even if that wasn't the case, the extension's new tracking abilities are a problem if you care about your internet privacy. A quick look at the original Github thread shows that this is a widespread worry among users.

The undisclosed changes to The Great Suspender include the ability to edit web requests. Because most users’ extensions automatically update, The Great Suspender can now “observe and analyze traffic and to intercept, block, or modify requests in-flight” for 2 million users. These are overly broad permissions, and The Great Suspender had previously functioned just fine without them.

We recommend uninstalling The Great Suspender. Here’s how:

1. First, unsuspend all suspended tabs. Click on The Great Suspender extension icon and select the “Unsuspend all tabs” option. Please note that not doing this could result in your suspended tabs being lost.

2. Then, right click on The Great Suspender extension icon and select “Remove from Chrome.”

3. Select “Remove” in the pop up.

Are there safe alternatives to The Great Suspender?

Available on Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, the Workona Tab Suspender can automatically suspend your tabs. It offers enterprise-level security, so you don’t have to worry about unauthorized access to your data. You can see Workona's commitment to user privacy here, or feel free to email us with any security questions.

Method 1 to recover lost tabs from The Great Suspender

1. Install Workona Tab Manager extension in the Chrome window you want to recover. If you're an Edge user, install the Edge version.
2. Press Cmd + Shift + T (Mac) or Ctrl + Shift + T (Windows) to restore each tab individually.

Mac shortcut

Windows shortcut

3. The tabs will look broken at first (see the screenshot below), but don't close them! Workona will fix them in a moment.

4. From the Workona tab, save the workspace (click the Save button in the top-right of the screen).
5. Click the x button next to the workspace's name in the sidebar to close the workspace.
6. Now, click the workspace name in the sidebar to reopen it. Your lost tabs should appear.

Method 2 to recover lost tabs from The Great Suspender

1. Quit Chrome and turn off your internet. Be sure to keep it turned off until you reach the last step!
2. Reopen Chrome and navigate to your extensions. You should still see The Great Suspender.
3. Enable The Great Suspender and launch all tabs from the previous session (or export a text file if you're uncomfortable launching all of the tabs).
4. Your lost tabs should appear.
5. Now, go back to extensions and disable The Great Suspender.
6. Turn your internet back on.

The Great Suspender Contains Malware

Google has forcibly uninstalled the immensely popular 'The Great Suspender' extension from Google Chrome and classified it as malware.

The Great Suspender is a Chrome extension that will suspend unused tabs and unload its resources to decrease the browser's memory usage. When a user is ready to use the tab again, they simply had to click it on to make it visible.

Google Chrome The Great Suspender

This extension was immensely popular with over 2,000,000 users and has consistently been a recommended extension due to its ability to reduce Chrome's memory usage.

When Google removed it on Thursday, users were left with a message stating that 'This extension contains malware,' but not providing any further context on how to recover their suspended tabs or why they removed it.

With the abrupt removal of The Great Suspender extension, users who had suspended tabs were upset that they could not access them again.

It is possible to see a list of suspended tabs through Chrome's built-in History feature and use that list to recover the URL of the suspended web page.

Instructions on how to do this, as well as other methods, can be found on this support page.

The Great Suspender's fall from grace

In June 2020, the developer of The Great Suspender sold the extension to an unknown entity as he did not have the time to properly maintain the project.

At the time, users were suspicious of the sale as why would a company purchase a free open-source extension that did not generate any revenue for the developer.

As free extensions have been purchased in the past and then monetized with malicious changes, such as injecting ads or stealing information, users were concerned the same would happen with The Great Suspender.

Unfortunately, the user's concerns were justified when the new maintainer updated the extension in October 2020 to release version 7.1.8, which included scripts that tracked the user's behavior and executed code retrieved from a remote server.

This malicious activity led to Microsoft removing the Microsoft Edge Store extension and a new 7.1.9 version to be released without the malicious scripts.

The extension, though, continued to remain in the hands of these unknown developers, who could introduce malicious code at a later date, potentially without users' noticing.

On Thursday, Google pulled the Chrome Web Store extension as malware but has not provided any reason for doing so. It is not clear if Google discovered additional malicious scripts or reacted to its history and the community's concerns.

For those who truly want to use The Great Suspender extension, the GitHub project page continues to offer version 7.1.6, which is the final release of the extension when owned by the original developer and does not contain malicious scripts.

To install the extension, you will need to do so through Chrome's developer mode, which is not recommended as it removes the security benefits offered by Google's extension review process.

Google Chrome The Great Suspender Store