Lock The Tabs

Lock a tab and two things become true. It asks before you lose it. Press ⌘W or click ✕ on a locked tab, or send it off its site — a link elsewhere, another address typed in — and Chrome asks first, with its own "Leave site?" dialog. Cancel, and nothing happens at all: the page is never reloaded and nothing opens anywhere else. Leave, and it goes, and the lock lets go of it. Going Back counts as leaving too, even to a page on the same site. Following links the lock allows never asks — anywhere on the site, or only on the page itself if that is what you locked — nor does a link that opens a new tab, which opens unlocked while this one stays put. A reload keeps the lock. Chrome only shows that dialog on a page you have clicked or typed in. So that it can ask on a locked tab you have not touched yet, the extension makes each locked page count as clicked as it loads, using Chrome's debugger — which is why Chrome shows a "Lock The Tabs started debugging this browser" bar for a few seconds when a locked page loads. If that ever cannot happen, the tab still holds: close it and it is put straight back where it was, with its history and scroll position, however often; send it elsewhere and it stays put. Try again and Chrome asks. Quitting Chrome is never fought, and never ends a lock. Chrome's own dialog appears on quit, once for each locked tab — Chrome cannot tell a quit from a close — and Leave there only lets Chrome close. Next time you open Chrome every locked tab is back, locked: if Chrome doesn't reopen it itself, the extension does. Closing just a window ends its tabs' locks. It stays on the site it is for. Three radio buttons, no syntax to learn: this page only, this site, or this whole domain. Each one shows the host or path it resolves to, so you can see what you picked. The toolbar button shows a closed padlock on a locked tab and an open one on any other, so you can see at a glance whether the tab in front of you is locked. A site the locked one relies on — a sign-in page, say — goes in the "Also allow" list. The popup is the entire interface. There is no options page, no Save button — every change applies the moment you make it — and no account, no sync and no network requests of any kind. Locks are kept when you quit Chrome, and your per-site preferences are remembered.