Google Browser Sync extension clones Firefox settings (Linux.com) [LWN.net]

Linux.com looks at the Google Browser Sync extension. "Google Browser Sync provides more than just a simple method of syncing bookmarks. It syncs all your Firefox data -- bookmarks, cookies, passwords, history, tabs, and windows. So, not only are your bookmarks kept in sync, but you can even close a Firefox session with tabs and windows open, and reopen the same session on another PC."

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Google Browser Sync extension clones Firefox settings (Linux.com)

Posted Jun 19, 2007 6:55 UTC (Tue) by cevin666 (subscriber, #960) [Link]

Okay, I can just see me giving Google a look at my bookmarks. They save my searches anyway. But saved passwords? It's risky enough to trust ones own harddrive with saved passwords but Google? Thats even worse than the proverbial postit on the screen.

Google Browser Sync extension clones Firefox settings (Linux.com)

Posted Jun 19, 2007 8:09 UTC (Tue) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link]

Can't you choose what you want to store?

Google Browser Sync extension clones Firefox settings (Linux.com)

Posted Jun 19, 2007 9:28 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

If they're encrypted strongly enough that should be fine: but what `strongly enough' means when you have the computing power of the google cluster is another matter.

Google Browser Sync extension clones Firefox settings (Linux.com)

Posted Jun 22, 2007 20:22 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link]

I believe the OP's point is that he doesn't trust Google. So a promise from Google to encrypt the data is worthless.

Google Browser Sync extension clones Firefox settings (Linux.com)

Posted Jun 19, 2007 9:33 UTC (Tue) by jfj (guest, #37917) [Link]

From the article it seems that you can encrypt what's stored in sync.

However, note that by using sync you are doing google a very big favor. Google will give higher page-rank to user bookmarks and will be able to refine the search to give better results. So this makes google a better search engine. A different search engine that starts now may index the entire internet, but it's the user feedback (either through past searches or sync, etc) that give google the advantage. User's bookmarks is gold!

Google Browser Sync extension clones Firefox settings (Linux.com)

Posted Jun 19, 2007 8:53 UTC (Tue) by gren (subscriber, #3954) [Link]

I was delighted with this when I first met it. For most things, it still is great. One word of caution though. Keep backups of your bookmarks. Sync software is always difficult and I probably tested the limits a bit with 4 computers and re-organising things into different folders but I ended up at one point with virtually no bookmarks and a load of empty folders. A comment on the article plus other stuff on the web would indicate that I'm not alone...

Google Browser Sync extension clones Firefox settings (Linux.com)

Posted Jun 19, 2007 13:07 UTC (Tue) by zzxtty (subscriber, #45175) [Link]

Fantastic, how long before someone writes a filesystem plugin that allows me to upload my entire hard disk on to googles servers? Is there a quota in place? :)

Google Browser Sync extension clones Firefox settings (Linux.com)

Posted Jun 19, 2007 16:15 UTC (Tue) by pflugstad (subscriber, #224) [Link]

basically there already:

http://richard.jones.name/google-hacks/gmail-filesystem/g...

or for windoze:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Internet/E-mail/Mail-Utiliti...

both seem kind of like a toy to me...

Google Browser Sync extension clones Firefox settings (Linux.com)

Posted Jun 25, 2007 11:10 UTC (Mon) by sitaram (subscriber, #5959) [Link]

All I have to do is keep the "sessionstore.js" and "bookmarks.html" files synchronised using unison. All the not-really-private stuff (session history, bookmarks) gets synced, while the really private stuff (cookies, form fields, or, worse, passwords) stay where they are.

Unison is easy to setup to do this automatically and as often as needed. I do this inside a custom script that then runs firefox.