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Ask HN: How do you sync ongoing browser work between desktop and laptop?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you sync ongoing browser work between desktop and laptop?

#41
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no good alternatives on Linux Maybe I misunderstand what this refers to but there are RDP software for Linux. I've used remmina [1] on Linux for a few years (now I am using VMWare Horizon at work). [1] https://remmina.org/

There are decent clients, but no decent rdp server software yet that I've found. That said krdp looks promising, but I haven't gotten it to work yet.

What was the problem with Xrdp? I use it every day from both Windows and Linux clients and haven't had issues.

Re: Ask HN: How do you sync ongoing browser work between desktop and laptop?

#42
I am not sure of the point of using both. A laptop is a desktop when sitting on a desk.

If OP need a faster machine for specific stuff like faster compilation times, I would suggest using it as a headless build machine. Browser sync wouldn't be needed.

Also what is that silly story about battery drain on ff?

Re: Ask HN: How do you sync ongoing browser work between desktop and laptop?

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are decent clients, but no decent rdp server software yet that I've found. That said krdp looks promising, but I haven't gotten it to work yet.

What was the problem with Xrdp? I use it every day from both Windows and Linux clients and haven't had issues.

VNC-like performance, so functional but not really what I consider usable in day-to-day work.

Also, IIRC, it didn't support seamless local vs remote sessions.

That is, if I started a session remotely, I couldn't resume it when I got back home. Or vice versa, if I started the RDP server on my logged-in session, I couldn't start a new session remotely in case the desktop rebooted (updates, power loss etc).

With Windows I just log in regardless.

Granted it's been a couple of years since I last took the rounds to evaluate the field, including Xrdp, so I'll give it another whirl soon.

Re: Ask HN: How do you sync ongoing browser work between desktop and laptop?

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are decent clients, but no decent rdp server software yet that I've found. That said krdp looks promising, but I haven't gotten it to work yet.

What was the problem with Xrdp? I use it every day from both Windows and Linux clients and haven't had issues.

Xrdp can't give you a console interactive session.

On Windows I can log into a local session on my console. Then lock the screen and walk away.

On another machine anywhere on the planet, I can then log back into that same local session, and do a bunch of work. Locally, the screen remains locked and secure.

Then I can eventually walk back to that machine, and log back onto the local console and continue exactly where I was.

There is no performance penalty for this - my local session runs exactly as it normally does. The remote session is very fast and efficient.

There is no way that I know of on Linux to replicate this: you have to commit to either a session being "virtual" and running through remote desktop (x2go is the best at this) or "local", in which case you get a less performant screen-scraping session but worse while you're using the session remotely the screen is unlocked and visible and usable by anyone with local physical access (i.e. in a shared office perhaps).

It's a problem which should be treated as a massive, ongoing embarrassment for desktop linux, and a substantial impediment to any notion of wider enterprise adoption: I've been in office's where the standard way everyone worked was remote desktop'ing to their office PC workstation via a VPN and seamlessly going from remote to local sessions was a crucial part of the experience.

Really we probably just need to solve the screen lock problem: but getting the experience (i.e. resize, resolution and app sessions) working properly is also important.

Re: Ask HN: How do you sync ongoing browser work between desktop and laptop?

#45

I am not sure of the point of using both. A laptop is a desktop when sitting on a desk. If OP need a faster machine for specific stuff like faster compilation times, I would suggest using it as a headless build machine. Browser sync wouldn't be needed. Also what is that silly story about battery drain on ff?

I'd second this comment.

The best sync is one you don't do at all!

If you're doing devops, I can't imagine you have a particular performance constraint that is tying you to a big desktop - like a requirement for a GPU, etc.

The current lineup of Mac laptops is fast. I have a M2 Pro work laptop and an AMD 5800X personal desktop. The laptop is faster at single threaded tasks and it's basically as fast if not slightly faster (depends on workload) for multithreaded tasks. Plus the Pro and Max laptops have reasonable external monitor connectivity.

And I'll also echo the parent poster and say that I haven't seen FF draining battery more than other browsers for a long time on macOS - I use it as my primary browser on my work laptop.

Re: Ask HN: How do you sync ongoing browser work between desktop and laptop?

#46
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was the problem with Xrdp? I use it every day from both Windows and Linux clients and haven't had issues.

Xrdp can't give you a console interactive session. On Windows I can log into a local session on my console. Then lock the screen and walk away. On another machine anywhere on the planet, I can then log back into that same local session, and do a bunch of work. Locally, the screen remains locked and secure. Then I can eventually walk back to that machine, and log back onto the local console and continue exactly where…

Interesting, my problem was exactly the opposite - I wanted a multi-seat access system with ability to work locally independently of other sessions which is somewhere between painful and impossible to set up on Windows. But I see your point, this is something I hadn't considered. Maybe attaching to the remote desktop system from localhost could work, although the slight decrease in performance would probably drive me nuts.

Re: Ask HN: How do you sync ongoing browser work between desktop and laptop?

#47

Use https://raindrop.io/ It's a wonderful (free) cross-device bookmark manager but ... you can save all open tabs in two clicks (click save icon and click "+ tabs"). It even automatically tags tabs w/ the date or you can save them with any collection and/or tags you choose. In addition, you can add notes, attach up to 100MB of files per month (on free plan). It runs on and syncs between Mac, iOS, Android, Chrome, Saf…

I love this product. Earlier I was using onetab (https://www.one-tab.com/) to de-clutter my tabs and revisit later (this product doesn't sync across) devices. But in different occasions - Chrome Browser Crash, MackBook Crash I have lost 2K+ links. After that incident I came across raindrop, and that made my life easier. I have tried Brave Browser Sync Chain to sync tabs and data across devices. But I still went back to FireFox - I tried xBrowserSync(https://www.xbrowsersync.org/) to sync the data across browsers, but lost the key after one browser update and left it.

Re: Ask HN: How do you sync ongoing browser work between desktop and laptop?

#49
I use Vivaldi browser and this does it very cleanly for me. I can see the tabs that are open on my phone, my laptop, or my desktop from the other devices.

I can choose to open one tab from there or all of them.

Works very well for me.

Re: Ask HN: How do you sync ongoing browser work between desktop and laptop?

#50

Probably not going to be very useful to you, but since I use Windows I just use RDP to my desktop computer. This way I don't care about the laptop. Specs don't matter much, it can get stolen or scanned by border control without issue etc. I always pick up exactly where I left with zero hassle, don't have to install and configure tools twice etc, and it's virtually "native" feel unless I'm on some very dodgy cellular…

> There's no good alternatives on Linux yet though, which is a bummer.

https://kasmweb.com/

Works fine for me, I use it to host a number of applications as well as a few desktops. Access goes through a browser so as long as you have one of those it doesn't matter which platform you use for the client.

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