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Firefox Sync actually works

howtogeek.com

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Re: Firefox Sync actually works

#11

Post by sherr »

herdcall wrote: post #8

Yes, it just works; but a few days back all my devices suddenly lost almost all of the passwords. Not all but most of them, couldn't make out any pattern or reason. Luckily a Linux laptop that I don't usually use had the full set and I had to export them, sync, and import them back to restore everywhere. Very scary, any ideas why this could've happened? I immediately backed up for the future, but this kind of loss sh…

No idea. I've been using Firefox and Sync for years, currently on 5 devices (one android). Never had a problem. Firefox 121.0 (64-bit). This is the "release" channel. Maybe you're beta testing?

Re: Firefox Sync actually works

#12

Post by xrd »

sherr wrote: post #11
herdcall wrote: post #8

Yes, it just works; but a few days back all my devices suddenly lost almost all of the passwords. Not all but most of them, couldn't make out any pattern or reason. Luckily a Linux laptop that I don't usually use had the full set and I had to export them, sync, and import them back to restore everywhere. Very scary, any ideas why this could've happened? I immediately backed up for the future, but this kind of loss sh…

No idea. I've been using Firefox and Sync for years, currently on 5 devices (one android). Never had a problem. Firefox 121.0 (64-bit). This is the "release" channel. Maybe you're beta testing?

Me too. It is so flawless that I had forgotten how good it works until seeing this article pointing that fact out.

Re: Firefox Sync actually works

#13

Post by hiatus »

mempko wrote: post #3

This! I set up everyone in my family with Firefox because of sync that just works. I prefer reading content, especially PDFs, on my computer over my phone. One useful feature Firefox has is the ability to just send a tab to a device. When I am out and about, I would queue up reading papers by sending them from my phone to my computer. When I get home, my browser would have the tabs right there, ready for me to read.

I would add that chrome has a "send tab to device" feature that does as you describe.

Re: Firefox Sync actually works

#14

Post by [deleted] »

mempko wrote: post #3

This! I set up everyone in my family with Firefox because of sync that just works. I prefer reading content, especially PDFs, on my computer over my phone. One useful feature Firefox has is the ability to just send a tab to a device. When I am out and about, I would queue up reading papers by sending them from my phone to my computer. When I get home, my browser would have the tabs right there, ready for me to read.

[deleted]

Re: Firefox Sync actually works

#15

Post by xnzakg »

ugjka wrote: post #5

It can be a pain when you do large random deletes from browsing history, then sync can hang up for 20 minutes with lot of IO/Cpu. You can trigger this by doing "Forget this website" and if that website is a lot in your history

I suppose it probably has to rewrite your entire history in that case? Deleting lines in log-like files isn't exactly easy. Actually, I wonder how that's stored in order for the search to stay responsive, some kind of bloom filter? Or just a normal database?

Re: Firefox Sync actually works

#16

Post by ilayn »

Why would anyone need a reason? I mean it seriously. Chrome users on this platform really baffling for me. They know what the consequences are, they know quite well what the icon with their picture on the corner does. Still being OK with this is super interesting.

Most products are often get grilled here for having closed code parts or similar concerns but when it comes to giving complete audit of their online existence, "meh...". Same folks who criticize canonical (which I disagree strongly with their late practices) only to install chrome as their browser on their systems.

Insert "statistically speaking" wherever needed.

Re: Firefox Sync actually works

#17

Post by Filligree »

ilayn wrote: post #16

Why would anyone need a reason? I mean it seriously. Chrome users on this platform really baffling for me. They know what the consequences are, they know quite well what the icon with their picture on the corner does. Still being OK with this is super interesting. Most products are often get grilled here for having closed code parts or similar concerns but when it comes to giving complete audit of their online existe…

Firefox stutters. Every couple of seconds, if I'm doing anything active on the page, it freezes up for a fraction of a second. I have no idea if that's a garbage collection issue or what, but it makes it painful to use.

That being said, I'm on Safari instead. Chrome doesn't make me happy.

Re: Firefox Sync actually works

#18

Post by gausswho »

I've avoided FF sync because I don't want my browser history on the cloud. I only really want my profile configuration, such as my addons and userjs flags. Unfortunately the FF directory in my .config is intermixed enough between config and content that I don't try to back it up. Am I missing something?

Re: Firefox Sync actually works

#19

Post by rrdharan »

Firefox on iOS randomly changes the order of new bookmarks, adding new ones to either the top or the bottom of the list. I assume they're assuming ordering in some underlying platform data structure that doesn't support it?

EDIT: I guess it was this, though I think it's been broken again more recently? https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/firefox-ios/pull/11895

At any rate I've found Firefox on iOS/iPadOS to be surprisingly buggy.. tabs hang and need to be closed, not all bookmarks are synced and/or the ordering changing per above, showing sponsored ads in the new tab shortcuts list and needing a force-close until they go away after being disabled, etc. etc.

Re: Firefox Sync actually works

#20

Post by _lqaf »

Configuring browsers to mirror each other across machines makes a big soupy mess. I understand why surveillance capitalists like the idea, makes their lives a little easier. But I really don't get why I'm supposed to want it.

I use different machines differently. The laptop I'm typing this on is my "main" browser, I have lots of bookmarks set up in a specific structure. I only use my phone browser when I have to, and it is rarely the same thing I've done before. It has a couple stale bookmarks, I don't care. I use the browser on my iPad even less. My big desktop is where I play with recreational software development, it has lots of bookmarks, but a very different set than my laptop. And my work phone/work laptop are their own things.

It just seems like making every closet door in your house open the same closet, if that where physically possible. There are reasons different things go in different buckets.

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