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Firefox Sync actually works

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Re: Firefox Sync actually works

#261

Post by billyzs »

nickdandakis wrote: post #158
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #143

Passwords belong in a dedicated password manager. Besides those, I don't understand what I'd want to sync. I've even disabled syncing tabs between sessions on the same machine. The last thing I need is for what I was doing yesterday to distract me from what I'm trying to do today. What I want in a browser is a dumb box that starts up as a blank slate every time, renders HTML and JavaScript, and is indistinguishable f…

I actually wish Mozilla put out a dedicated password manager. They have Sync, and they have SoPS (or well, used to?). I'd gladly pay extra for it

There used to a standalone Firefox Password app for mobile but it got the axe.

Re: Firefox Sync actually works

#262

Post by latexr »

thecopy wrote: post #44

I love Firefox. It is a mystery to me why it is not more popular.

In all HN Firefox threads with a sufficient number of comments you’ll see a variation of this comment, and people answering how Firefox fails as a daily driver for them.

Firefox is missing a ton of very useful stuff for some people, such as some audio API or AppleScript¹. The latter absolutely kills it for any kind of automation on macOS. It’s the sole major browser on macOS without support for AppleScript but Mozilla people think that’s just a power user feature. I know because I talked with devs at various points, in person and online, and was given the same answer. Thing is, power users create automations for non-power users. When the latter want to use a tool from the former and the answer is “you can’t, Firefox doesn’t support it”, there’s another user lost.

On a personal anecdotal level, I also don’t find it that stable. Just recently I wanted to try an extension and decided to do so on Firefox. After a while it just removed the extension from the list and it was seemingly impossible to get back, even after reinstalling. Every time I give Firefox a try, I am disappointed.

I’m glad it works for you and many other people, but the answer as to why it isn’t more popular is that your experience is far from universal.

¹ Whose bug report has been open for 22 years: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=125419

Re: Firefox Sync actually works

#263

Post by mhaberl »

duskwuff wrote: post #199
ryandrake wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is great, but... As the meme goes, "why do we even have that lever" to disable a mouse click? More evidence that browsers are out of control, and have given over way too much agency to web developers. If a user doesn't want to right click on a page, they can just... not right click. Why does the developer even have a say?

> As the meme goes, "why do we even have that lever" to disable a mouse click? So that web pages can implement their own behaviors for right-click, e.g. web applications which have their own contextual menus, games which use right click as an input, remote desktops which pass right click to the remote host, etc.

This.

We actually need the override right-click functionality in some cases. Most of the abused functionality had some normal use case at some point. It's a shame that bad actors make everyone's life harder.

Re: Firefox Sync actually works

#264

Post by chuckadams »

nottorp wrote: post #193
marcosdumay wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why does it try to sync things without my permission? It doesn't. (The interface for enabling it is even a little anxiety-causing.) It doesn't add extra icons anywhere either. You have some additional software doing that. Do you use a fork from the Mozilla code?

Nope, whatever they had me download. It's Macs so maybe they autoattached to handover or whatever Apple calls that feature. Which I like, but only for texts and phone calls. The devices I mention are all in the same local network so maybe they discover each other. Anyway, there's a post in this thread that explains perfectly why I (or that poster) don't need or want sync. Basically my different machines are used for…

It’s probably handoff. On chrome I get the extra icon as well, but it also has a phone mini-icon over it and a tooltip saying “from Safari”. You can disable handoff, just goo—er, duckduckgo it

Re: Firefox Sync actually works

#265

Post by latexr »

barkerja wrote: post #58

For all its issues, I wouldn’t say iCloud syncing is one of them for Safari. I’ve had nothing but a good experience over the past couple years when it comes to syncing tabs, bookmarks and passwords.

> I’ve had nothing but a good experience over the past couple years when it comes to syncing tabs

There was a period where it sucked at syncing tabs for me, as it repeatedly showed tabs from other devices that no longer existed. Quitting them from that interface would not work as they would soon be back. I found many reports of the same problem online.

Fortunately it’s been working consistently well for long enough that I can rely on it again.

Re: Firefox Sync actually works

#266

Post by butz »

I wish Firefox took RSS more seriously. Imagine, if Firefox Sync not only supported RSS feed synchronization between devices, but also would keep updating them in the cloud, so one wouldn't miss any news from busy websites.

Re: Firefox Sync actually works

#267

Post by latexr »

zeta0134 wrote: post #111
vehemenz wrote: post #109

I'm surprised one can write an entire article on browser sync and not mention Safari, Chrome's main competitor.

Safari works great if you run 100% Apple devices, and breaks the moment you want to mix and match with even one non-blessed device. Firefox will happily sync to everything, and so will Chrome.

Doesn’t that just mean “every browser syncs great between different versions of itself”? It just so happens that Safari is not available on as many operating systems as Firefox and Chrome. “Breaks” doesn’t seem like the right characterisation.

Re: Firefox Sync actually works

#268

Post by TrisMcC »

Krssst wrote: post #249
TrisMcC wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox has its own profiles, which are separate from containers. `about:profiles` shows you a window for creating and switching to a different one. I add that as a bookmark on the bookmarks toolbar of the two profiles I use I believe there is a `-P` option to open a new window with a specific profile. I do not use it. I usually just open the browser and then go to the aforementioned bookmark and open the other profi…

IMO containers are easier to use than profiles. The main issue is that history seems to be shared across containers, but being able to mix tabs from multiple containers in the same window is very practical. Though I guess it increases the risk of accidentally opening some website in the wrong container if this is one concern. (though there is a feature to make some website always open in a given container)

I like maintaining a work/clean profile and a personal one. It is very annoying to mix histories when something like screensharing happens are you do not want to advertise what sort of messageboards or forums you post on.

Re: Firefox Sync actually works

#269

Post by kobiguru »

pzmarzly wrote: post #23

Can some long-standing user of iOS Firefox say if the sync issues there have been fixed? Halfway-broken sync on iOS version of Firefox (as well as a general lack of love for it and the UI that kept getting redesigned every other month) was the reason why I switched to Safari 4 years ago.

I have used Firefox sync in my new Mac M3 and it flawlessly synced everything from my older mac, my Android phone, my Linux workhorse, and Windows machine. Really love firefox.

Re: Firefox Sync actually works

#270

Post by dv35z »

leetcrew wrote: post #233
PontifexMinimus wrote: post #78

My favourite feature of Firefox is multi-account containers -- great if you have multiple online identities.

this is absolutely a killer feature if you follow the one account per stage per region guidance with AWS accounts (which you really should).

Can you say more about this?
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