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Google Browser Sync

By barneyb on July 24, 2007

If you're like me you use Firefox on a bunch of different computers, and often multiple profiles on a single computer.  Most of my settings I want to keep separate, but I wanted to keep my bookmarks synced across all my instances.  Enter Google Browser Sync, a little plugin that'll sync all kinds of settings between Firefox instances, but most importantly bookmarks.  I'm running it on WinXP, OSX, and Linux (CentOS) without issue, and keeping everything all in order.  Only thing missing is being able to set an arbitrary folder as the Bookmarks Toolbar Folder per instance, but that's a very minor annoyance for the savings.

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6 responses to “Google Browser Sync”

  1. Steve Judd
    Steve Judd
    July 24, 2007 at 3:30 pm |

    I've been using the delicious extension, which just pulls your bookmarks from there. It also allows you to quickly tag a page, and it's available any computer you configure for your account. The bonus is that all of your bookmarks are on-line, so you can get them from any computer, not just your own. You can also import all of your existing bookmarks to get started.

    Steve

  2. Chris Dawes
    Chris Dawes
    July 24, 2007 at 4:16 pm |

    Not sure if I want Google knowing my favourite sites and indexing them. This is another grain of salt in web ranking I guess, I'm not so sure that this monopoly is a good thing anymore. One company controlling what sites you see. Sounds a bit like censorship really.

  3. Big Mad Kev
    Big Mad Kev
    July 24, 2007 at 11:37 pm |

    I've been using Browser Sync since almost the first day it came out, and I have to say I love it. The fact that I could be sent a link at work click it and then while at home its in my history is great, and of course vice a versa.

    The one thing I do turn off the the last tabs open feature if I open a new browser I want it empty like a canvas where I make my surfing mark ;)

  4. Douglas Knusen
    Douglas Knusen
    July 25, 2007 at 4:22 am |

    I've been using this for quite awhile, it simply rawks. Privacy issues aside, not to be brushed aside lightly mind you, it really is sweet. Besides sinking your bookmarks, can synch saved passwords, history, cookies, etc. What is synched is configurable. The piece I like best is saving your current open tabs. So, close FF on computer 1, start FF on computer 2, and you can begin in the same state you were on computer 1.

    DK

  5. Boyan
    Boyan
    July 25, 2007 at 5:23 am |

    I've been using 2 separate tools but I'll give this a try. Until now I used Foxmarks for syncing my bookmarks and MoZBackup for backing-up/restoring my complete Firefox profile between different PCs.

  6. barneyb
    barneyb
    July 25, 2007 at 7:40 am |

    Chris,

    How it is censorship? And you can encrypt your data before sending it to Google, so they can't do anything with it. Google's all about information access, and this is a perfect example of making it enormously easier. I don't use the service for syncing anything but bookmarks (e.g. I don't store passwords there), so I don't have a great concern about them (or anyone else) having access to my stuff.