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Firefox Sync actually works

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Re: Firefox Sync actually works

#181

Post by yesimahuman »

robinhood wrote: post #71
yesimahuman wrote: post #50

It’s too bad that Firefox has such a great UX and privacy-focused cloud features like this, yet is being held back by its engine. As a heavy FF user for the last few years it’s become more and more clear that the world just doesn’t care about making sites work on FF and I’m more frequently having to switch to Chrome. My dream is that FF would switch to Chromium while keeping all the great features around the browser…

I have the exact opposite experience. I've been using FF for a very, very long time, and I have yet to encounter a site that doesn't work on it. Also, what modern web APIs Firefox doesn't support?

It’s a lot of little things. Just yesterday I was on vanguard and a select box wouldn’t display at all on FF. You start to notice these rendering differences all over the place. Gone are the days a site just flat out won’t work unless it’s specifically using an API FF doesn’t support, but it’s all the small stuff like wondering if a form is working correctly because something seems broken for FF

Re: Firefox Sync actually works

#182

Post by mdaniel »

dark-star wrote: post #149

Chrome's sync also "just works" for me shrug

Or rather it will until you step on some mysterious Google ToS violation and they nuke your Google account, without any recourse. I'm cognizant that's always a risk with cloud hosted things, but I can't recall seeing any amount of front-page posts of "Mozilla nuked my account and won't respond to my emails halp!1"

FWIW, I think Brave(?) has an implementation of the Google sync server that they use, so it's not totally ludicrous to self-host, but I don't suspect it would be easy or that Chrome would make any such thing easy to pull off

Re: Firefox Sync actually works

#183

Post by JohnFen »

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #175

Dunno, I’ve been using Firefox since before it was Firefox as my primary browser and I’ve never used sync. I don’t think that’s the most compelling feature.

Sync is not a feature useful to me, either (along with most of the other newer features). Lots of people do find it very useful, though, and despite it not being for me, it sounds plausible that it could be the most compelling feature for the majority.

Re: Firefox Sync actually works

#185

Post by avg_dev »

bloopernova wrote: post #169

Firefox has multiple compelling reasons to use it: Sync Containers Tree Style Tabs uBlock Origin on Android Open Source since 1998! Not based on Chromium Be wary of sync on a fresh Linux install, it might sync the default bookmarks and merge them with your own. Not a huge deal but definitely an annoyance.

I’ll have to look into containers and tree style tabs. I have never knowingly used those.

Re: Firefox Sync actually works

#186

Post by GeekyBear »

hackernewds wrote: post #171
Forgeties79 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s honestly things like this that make me respect (more than I already do) and stick with Firefox. They do not need to do that and in a lot of ways it’s just sticking their neck out for other developers/their users for very little gain on their part. Obviously, there are some benefits for them, but I think most people would agree that it’s mainly a risk at the end of the day.

with enough market share, if Google did this they would be cursed with numerous lawsuits for preferential selection and sued successfully

> with enough market share, if Google did this they would be cursed with numerous lawsuits for preferential selection and sued successfully

Google already has featured products on the Play Store, so preferential selection doesn't appear to be an issue.

However, the likelihood of Google paying human beings to go over the code of a free extension looking for security and privacy violations is about zero.

Re: Firefox Sync actually works

#187

Post by zero0529 »

One of my biggest gripes with Firefox sync is the way they have divided the mobile bookmarks from the pc ones. It makes the ux kinda weird as a lot of the bookmarks I use on my desktop I also use on my phone and vice verca. But when I add a bookmark on my phone it ends in a separate mobile bookmark folder.

Re: Firefox Sync actually works

#189

Post by mdaniel »

Vinnl wrote: post #130
briffle wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tab containers are a huge bonus once you start using them that makes it very hard to look at other browsers again.

For the uninitiated: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/multi-account-conta...

and its companion, open in container https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/open-url-in-c... which allows forming links that open in the container of choice without having to pre-define rules for the container

I use it every single day for spawning AWS SSO urls into their dedicated containers, since each url is always of the form console.aws.amazon.com which makes writing rules for it stupid hard

Re: Firefox Sync actually works

#190

Post by djbusby »

KANahas wrote: post #80
robinhood wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the exact opposite experience. I've been using FF for a very, very long time, and I have yet to encounter a site that doesn't work on it. Also, what modern web APIs Firefox doesn't support?

The only roadblock I’ve found has been the webserial API, which enables users to flash ESP32/8266 or other devices from webpages. It’s super handy for flashing WLED or ESPHome to devices because you don’t have to install any extra software. As far as I know, it has been marked as a “wontfix” in the Firefox bugtracker as they consider it a harmful feature [0] [0]: https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/…

Big blocker for me too. Would love to see support, perhaps behind some buried flag.
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