"Save current session" has been removed from context menus

[Hansifer]

Unfortunately, due to a recent notice from Chrome Web Store Dev Support, it was necessary to remove the permissions enabling the feature that allows sessions to be saved from any web page via the right-click menu.

This was previously a setting labeled Show "Save current session" in context menu of web pages that could be turned on or off. When turned on, it added an action to the context menu of web pages that looked like this:

I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and for the abrupt nature of this change. Ultimately, it was the only way to keep Session Buddy from being permanently removed from the Chrome Web Store.

I appreciate your patience and understanding as I consider alternative ways to offer a similar feature without the need for the particular permissions that raised suspicion.

For those interested, what follows is an outline of the course of events that led to this unfavorable outcome.

Two days ago on May 8, I received an email from Chrome Web Store Dev Support that Session Buddy was in violation of User Data Privacy policies.

Their notice read:

Your product violates the "Use of Permissions" section of the policy, which requires that you:

• Request access to the narrowest permissions necessary to implement your product’s features or services.
• If more than one permission could be used to implement a feature, you must request those with the least access to data or functionality.
• Don't attempt to "future proof" your product by requesting a permission that might benefit services or features that have not yet been implemented.

Please make the necessary changes within 14 days in order to avoid removal.

I promptly responded to this notice with a plea for additional details so I could effectively address their concerns. I provided a comprehensive justification of each permission that Session Buddy requested, explaining how it supports Session Buddy core features and user experience. I ended my response with the following:

I understand the importance of ensuring the quality and safety of Web Store offerings and appreciate your efforts to make that happen.

I am eager to make the changes necessary to bring my extension into compliance while maintaining its core features. In order to rectify the issue to your satisfaction, I respectfully request clarification of which permissions are in violation.

Roughly a day and a half later, I received this response:

Upon review of your Product,  "Session Buddy" with ID: edacconmaakjimmfgnblocblbcdcpbko , we find that it does not comply with the Chrome Web Store’s User Data Policy, and it has been removed from the store.

 

The message reiterated the bullet points from the original message verbatim. No additional detail was offered.

At this point I had no choice but to guess which permissions were considered in violation. I made the tough choice to remove the following two permissions: contextMenus and notifications. Both of these permissions were used exclusively in support of the right-click menu feature.

I also made the clipboardWrite permission optional, which means you will now need to explicitly grant Session Buddy access to write to the clipboard when exporting sessions via the Copy to Clipboard button. While a bit jarring, this is fortunately just a one-time prompt. For the record, there exists a separate permission that is required for extensions to read from the clipboard which Session Buddy does not request and therefore can never read the contents of the clipboard.

For reference, the clipboard write permission prompt looks like this:

There are two remaining permissions requested by Session Buddy that are absolutely fundamental to its core session management feature: tabs and unlimitedStorage. These two permissions allow users to view, save, search, and restore their browser sessions. Needless to say, without them Session Buddy would not function at all.

Much to my relief, Session Buddy was reinstated after submitting the changes. To the credit of Web Store Dev Support, their decision to approve the update was prompt.

If you have any questions about this situation or the permissions Session Buddy requests, please don't hesitate to ask.

Also, if you'd like to know more about how Session Buddy protects your privacy, please have a look at Session Buddy's privacy disclosure here: https://sessionbuddy.com/privacy-policy/

Again, thank you for your patience and understanding.

Hans

[Doncho Angelov]

Weird! Especially weird, considering the polite follow-up e-mail, and the abrupt "answer" you got.

On Sunday, May 10, 2020 at 10:31:46 PM UTC+3, Hansifer wrote:

I appreciate your patience and understanding as I consider alternative ways to offer a similar feature without the need for the particular permissions that raised suspicion.

Why do you have such a concern asking your users for the appropriate permissions? If the users deny the permission, you just do not enable the context menu, and that's it. 

I assume such permission might be asked "on the fly" (like with the clipboard thing), e.g. we don't need to consent to this permission when we'd like to download the extension?

Keep up the good work!

D.

[Hansifer]

Optional permissions are great, but unfortunately it's not at all clear that this would satisfy the CWS. 

The problem is a combination of factors: 1) conditions that trigger a policy violation are unpredictable, 2) rectification requires repeated guessing, and 3) the penalty for repeat offenses is dire (banning of app or developer from the Web Strore).

I hope you can understand that going forward, when additional perms are involved I'll need to very carefully weigh the value of features they enable against these risks.

Hans

[Cameron Wood]

Sorry to hear of this recent turn of events.

On Sunday, 10 May 2020 21:31:46 UTC+2, Hansifer wrote:

I also made the clipboardWrite permission optional, which means you will now need to explicitly grant Session Buddy access to write to the clipboard when exporting sessions via the Copy to Clipboard button. While a bit jarring, this is fortunately just a one-time prompt. For the record, there exists a separate permission that is required for extensions to read from the clipboard which Session Buddy does not request and therefore can never read the contents of the clipboard.

Even though it's only write permission, if I had to guess this would be my pick for what triggered this exchange.

Keep up the good work, really hoping you find a way to restore the context menu again.

Cameron.

[Session Buddy Support]

@Cameron

The interesting thing about the clipboardWrite perm is that it's not technically required to enable writing to the clipboard. There is already a clipboard write API that's openly available to any web page and it's just "recommended" for extensions to declare it.

I haven't been keeping it updated so the info may be outdated, but this web page demonstrates clipboard write: http://hansifer.com/clipboardCopyTest.html

All that said, I wouldn't be surprised if you're right.

Hans

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[Alexandre Nicastro]

Well.. I wonder, is that the reason the same function ("Save current session") disappeared from the list that appears when you right-click the extension icon?

[Alexandre Nicastro]

Just found out the answer here: https://groups.google.com/d/topic/sessionbuddy-discuss/lLHXz7RU2VI/discussion

[Alex Joss]

I just don't understand one thing: right now I have like 5 different addons in this menu, why haven't they been blocked?

PS: And using the chance: thanks for addon. Using it for many years.

[Frederik baht-hagen]

Would having a hotkey to save sessions be a viable alternative or does that violate the same rules?

It is a chore to have to open the extension to save sessions but, even though I'd prefer the context menu, having a hotkey for it would be the next best thing.

Best of luck figure this out

-Frederik

[Hansifer]

@Alex

The contextMenus permission by itself is not the problem. It's a combination of factors that is not clear.

What is known is that in Session Buddy's case specifically, removing this permission (along with the notifications permission) got the extension reinstated.

Hans

[Hansifer]

@Frederik

A shortcut key is one immediate solution I'm looking into. It does not require additional permissions, but has some shortcomings (it's not discoverable and requires user customization when other shortcuts conflict).

Hans

[Hansifer]

One potential explanation for the violation is that since the context menu feature was a Session Buddy setting, the permissions exclusively supporting it should have been optional permissions (those requiring explicit user opt-in). This seems somewhat plausible since in the case of users that choose to turn the feature off, the extension would technically be violating the rule "request access to the narrowest permissions necessary".

The counterargument to this theory is that the context menu feature was an opt-out feature, which doesn't fit the optional permissions opt-in model.

It would be nice to know the definitive answer, but as stated earlier the CWS discourages this kind of experimentation by imposing strong penalties for multiple infractions.

Hans

[Seann Alexander]

Really looking forward for this option to come back!!!

[John McCabe]

Will you be keeping this thread updated on any advances on this? I noticed the disappearance of the context menu on the toolbar icon yesterday; I use that feature nearly every day so wondered what was going on. The context menu on Clutter Free still works.

Cheers

John

[Bjoern Hassler]

Hello all,

Just to chime in on this. As Hans mentioned, the hotkey offers a partial work-around, esp. when combined with autohotkey / autokey / Keyboard Maestro or similar. Finding a key combo with chrome's limited combinations is an issue, but say you never print, and therefore use something like shift+ctrl+p. Then 

shift+ctrl+p

tab

s

enter

ctrl+w

essentially works to save the current session. Using autokey on Ubuntu I then bind that to another keyboard shortcut and can save sessions that way. Script is this:

import time

keyboard.send_keys("<ctrl>+<shift>+p")

time.sleep(0.5)

keyboard.send_key("<tab>")

time.sleep(0.5)

keyboard.send_keys("s")

time.sleep(0.2)

keyboard.send_keys("<enter>")

time.sleep(1)

keyboard.send_keys("<ctrl>+w")

I know, it's not great and fiddly to set up (unless you use something like autokey already), but it works for me. Just thought I'd share!

Björn

[Session Buddy Support]

@John

Yep I intend to post any relevant updates to this thread.

Hans

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[Fady]

@Bjoern Not sure I understand. In your example, what would "shift+ctrl+p" be bound to?

Regardless, anything that involves opening the Session Buddy tab is a no go for me, as it takes a very long time to load the couple of years' worth of saved sessions on my slow machine. I'm considering reverting to version 3.6.3 of the extension in developer mode as I consider the context-menu saving feature absolutely essential.

Fady

[TheLiasas]

I'm a long time user of the extension, and just bc of this matter this is my 1st time coming around these groups. really hope this can be figured out soon. I use(d) that menu option Daily, and really, without it, there wouldnt be Anything holding me with chrome. wonder if theres any way to manually/force enable it back up or if theres any analog in other browsers you could recommend me. would love to see session buddy on more platforms! 

Also, given what I've read from how you fixed the CWS threat, I understand you disabled 2 different permissions by guess; 1 being notifications and the other the thing that allowed the option... how about you try disabling the notifications thing only and see if they can live with that in the mean time? really looking foward to see the option come back or at least some workaround like a hotkey/command. thanks a lot for your work! much appreciated

[Jeff Benson]

Thank you for the update. This is also my first time in this group searching out an answer. I realize that I should be supporting the author's great work that I rely on every day. Donation incoming.

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[Karl Grabowski]

Why can't you add an option in the settings that is turned off by default, that the user would have to enable in order to use?

That way it's the users decision.

On Wed, May 13, 2020, 8:06 AM Session Buddy Support <sup...@sessionbuddy.com> wrote:

@Alex The contextMenus permission by itself is not the problem. It's a combination of factors that is not clear.

What is known is that in Session Buddy's case specifically, removing this permission (along with the notifications permission) got the extension reinstated.

Hans

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[Session Buddy Support]

@Jeff Thanks a ton for your generous donation. It's much appreciated.

Hans

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[Rad Sadri]

Please someone help me. i really need help on How to RESTORE MULTIPLE SESSIONS with TABS in more than one window after laptop restarting*******

I had several windows wth 80+ tabs opened in Chrome from previous browsing sessions months ago.and after restarting the computer the "restore" button showed up but didn’t work. All Ctrl-Shit-T does is restore the most recently closed tabs in order–and it only stores tabs you closed in browsing, not tabs closed as part of a reboot.

I guess I can go into History and see if I can find the tabs out of thousands and thousands of pages over many months, I guess, but I would really appreciate being able to restore the actual lost session.

How can I restore previous chrome sessions? I realllly need this help even i need to pay for that. please someone help me.

my email adddress is Rayan.a...@gmail.com

I am using Windows 8.Please help, I really need them back for my research paper, otherwise I will loose a lot of work. Many thanks!

[Rad Sadri]

Please someone help me. i really need help on How to RESTORE MULTIPLE SESSIONS with TABS in more than one window after laptop restarting*******

I had several windows wth 80+ tabs opened in Chrome from previous browsing sessions months ago.and after restarting the computer the "restore" button showed up but didn’t work. All Ctrl-Shit-T does is restore the most recently closed tabs in order–and it only stores tabs you closed in browsing, not tabs closed as part of a reboot.

I guess I can go into History and see if I can find the tabs out of thousands and thousands of pages over many months, I guess, but I would really appreciate being able to restore the actual lost session.

How can I restore previous chrome sessions? I realllly need this help even i need to pay for that. please someone help me.

my email adddress is Rayan.a...@gmail.com

I am using Windows 8.Please help, I really need them back for my research paper, otherwise I will loose a lot of work. Many thanks!