Disclaimer: I like Firefox and I like tabs.
Note: This languished in my site's Drafts folder for a long time (2013)
The only way I can manage my many tabs is to have them in a vertical stack on the left of my display. The tool that works the best for me is Vertical Tabs. I resize the tab stack so I only see the tab/site icon. I turn off any additional items like the close button.
TMP provides a high degree of tab management.
RAM Back is an ancient Firefox add-on extension. Frankly I'm not sure if it's doing anything. Someone I know and trust advised its installation, so here we are. It doesn't seem to cause a problem, but I'll say it is optional.
BarTab Lite provides a mechanism for unloading a tab from memory, especially at start-up. The tab is still there an visible, but it keeps Firefox from loading the tab until you click on it. Right clicking on a tab will give you an 'Unload Tab' option.
Session Manager keeps track of your tabs. It goes several steps beyond what Firefox offers by default and a bit more than what TMP provides.
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