Firefox comes over all cloudy Firefox Weave has become Firefox Sync, and will be part of Firefox 4 in a cloud-based future. Firefox Sync is basically a server-based store which holds your bookmarks, passwords, preferences and history, providing a consistency of experience that will eventually extend even to the iPhone. Sync is available now as an add-on …
Assuming you don't want someone else having even your encrypted browser settings...
If you know your way round a webserver, you can set up your own repository The instructions are at the link below and the process was pretty painless.
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Labs/Weave/API
I have to disagree with the general thrust of this. Being able to move between machines and have everything the same is really handy. For example, being at work and then going home, firing up the browser and having everything as it was.
However, I think you will find people browse on mobile phones entirely differently. Partly because of the screen real estate and partly because of the nature of being mobile. I really don't see any benefit to being able to synch open tabs between your desktop and mobile. Bookmarks, kind of. Though, frankly, I have hundreds of bookmarks for the desktop. Maybe a dozen for my mobile. It tends to be news, sport, facebook, weather, bank and a couple of reference sites (imdb etc). I don't want to have to wade through the hundreds I have on my desktop where the extra screen space and fast searching make large numbers of bookmarks manageable.
They are different devices used in different scenarios for different purposes. Just because they are both called "browsers" doesn't mean they should be treated in the same way.
Chrome already does a lot of this, and one can only imagine a lot more to come
Microsoft currently have Mesh and the shiny new Live Sync that ... gasp ... allows you to sync anything (including your favorites folder) between machines, not just a couple of browser settings
not sure why the article felt the need to take a dig at IE ... a combination of that, and thinking that Firefox has any sort of future, doesn't make for good reading
This tendency lately of random companies to expect you to send them the passwords belonging to accounts with other companies, WHAT is the idea with this? We've spent YEARS teaching people to check the URL matches the site whose password they're typing in, now people come along and say 'it's fine to give [randomcompany] your password!'
Losers. The lot of em.
Firefox devs: A hint. Fix things that are actually broken, like, say, the form filling autocomplete search order in firefox 3.6, broken by design. Or, maybe, the memory leak that's been in firefox since 1.0 and is STILL there?
Just a suggestion :-)
The data is encrypted on your system before it's ever sent to the server. As someone earlier posted, you can run your own server if you'd rather not send even encrypted data to Mozilla's. And you can choose which things to sync, so if you *still* don't want to sync passwords, you can leave them out.
Name me anything microsoft or google or apple their browsers have come up with themselves?
Firefox was always slow to adopt new functions because they want to see which add on's are the most popular i suspect given they are OPEN source... They dont force you to use their browser they dont collect your browse habbits to map your browse patters so they sell them on later for targeted advertising and well Apple is as propriety as can be... imho created to satisfy the followers of the prophet Jobs their desire for using only soft and hard ware approved by their uberlord.
Something else storing passwords in cloud? That sounds more like an idea of the google, microsoft or apple uberlords.
Am slightly loathe to post this, as I appreciate that for the OP it's infuriating when software doesn't work, but feel I must address this comment. Xmarks (née Foxmarks) has always worked well across the various PCs I've installed it on... have been a happy user for (perhaps) a couple of years now.
Because Firefox Sync syncs your browsing history, which for me is by far the most important thing. I don't bookmark stuff any more, I just tend to remember some key word from the URL or page title and when I type that in, the awesome bar finds it for me. That's what I need to have synced between my machines.
... because FIrefox's built in password manager is laughably insecure if anyone gets direct access to your machine. The bookmark sync facility is great though and I swear by it.
For passwords, LastPass is my choice. Works across ALL browsers, doesn't store anything locally and works on mobiles without needing any app to be installed. It's very clever.
Oh, unless you're running one of those cutting edge broswers like Opera that still hasn't got the ability to support even rudimentary add-ons.
"The service works, though we couldn't get open tabs or passwords synchronised "
Can't tell you about passwords (I keep mine in a separate app), but tabs are synchronized. However, this doesn't mean the tabs that were open on one machine automatically show up on another. Instead you can click the down arrow at the right hand end of the tab bar and click 'Tabs From Other Computers', and it'll show you the open tabs from other systems.
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