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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?

#51

Post by magicalhippo »

hagbard_c wrote: post #50
magicalhippo wrote: post #16

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.

That only supports connecting to a centralized "workspace", from what I can see. As such it seems more like Microsoft's DevBox.

That could certainly be usable, assuming the performance is there, though for me I want to remotely use my desktop session.

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

#52

Post by yard2010 »

baxtr wrote: post #18

Both, Safari and Chrome offer tab sync. Safari through iCloud on device and Chrome through browser login. Chrome works more reliably. Safari has some random reload issues from time to time.

Google is blocking the Chrome adblockers that won't take money for whitelisting their ads. So much for "don't be evil".

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/08/chromes-manifest-v3-...

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

#53

Post by yard2010 »

dijksterhuis wrote: post #6
wtcactus wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's a totally different concept. Brave lets you check which tabs are open in another machine and open them on the current machine if you want. Edge and Arc always keep your tabs in sync between devices and inside their respective workspaces. It's a seamless transition between devices.

> Edge and Arc always keep your tabs in sync between devices and inside their respective workspaces Maybe try Vivaldi? https://vivaldi.com/ I’ve got about 5 different workspaces and can flip between any of them on windows/linux whether that’s desktop or laptop. Has a ton of features I always wanted in Firefox, but never knew I needed (I think that statement makes sense?) OSX app is a bit meh, but might be because I’v…

I'm using Vivaldi mobile on my Android phone and it changed my life for the best. It has a builtin ad blocker (like every browser should have, unless there is a conflict of interests). No more cancer when casually browsing the web. It's priceless really, and it's free.

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

#54

Post by kiyanovsky »

Try TabXpert extension. It has session tracking (the latest version is saved automatically, no duplicates), supports tab groups, and has real-time sync with the Cloud. You can even work in the same session on different profiles (PCs) simultaneously, it will sync your work bi-directionally. And it has import from Workona.

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

#55

Post by XorNot »

PhilipRoman wrote: post #46
XorNot wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's a licensing issue - Windows 10 is perfectly capable of doing this, but it's tied to having a Windows Server instance and remote desktop licenses and blah blah blah . But if you have all that it does work! And it works the same way - multiple users can come back to the same console and resume their session or whatever.

RDP on Windows works really, really well - to the somewhat absurd outcome of course that because of that, it is easier to run Linux locally and Windows remotely when you can use Remmina to connect to the Windows machine so easily.

But the remote Linux experience really should be better.

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

#56

Post by Malidir »

ehnto wrote: post #32

I run a linux laptop, which I hook up to a USB dongle and hdmi cable each day. At work it's all sitting there ready. At home I have a USB hub with all my peripherals which I simply unplug from my "fun personal" desktop and into my laptop. It's all on extension leads so it's at desk level, an easy swap. I think working between two separate machines would be too much hassle, since I end up with multiple workspaces that…

Even better if you have a modern monitor with a built in hub and USB-C to Thunderbolt.

Connect stuff to monitor, plug in a single usb-c to laptop and done.

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

#57

Post by dijksterhuis »

dotancohen wrote: post #24
dijksterhuis wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Edge and Arc always keep your tabs in sync between devices and inside their respective workspaces Maybe try Vivaldi? https://vivaldi.com/ I’ve got about 5 different workspaces and can flip between any of them on windows/linux whether that’s desktop or laptop. Has a ton of features I always wanted in Firefox, but never knew I needed (I think that statement makes sense?) OSX app is a bit meh, but might be because I’v…

> Has a ton of features I always wanted in Firefox, but never knew I needed Like what? I might try it.

Really nice tab/windows side bar

Syncing between devices (does require creating a free Vivaldi account)

Built in mail client (I haven’t used thunderbird for months now)

Chromium, extensions and themes out the box

Bunch of UI customisation options like moving the address bar and stuff

Probably a bunch of others I don’t use or can’t remember being features.

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

#58

Post by szszrk »

Sarky wrote: post #34
jkh1 wrote: 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/

I tried a few solutions a few years ago to see if there are any alternatives to MS RDP, but at that time i found them all to be lacking. Mostly remote screen was not as responsive as RDP. A simple test was to play Youtube video on remote machine and compare results of all Linux solutions with MS RDP. None came close. I hope things changed in past few years if anyone knows?

Me and a few people made ourselves some weird "VDI"-like workstations as VMware virtual machines, not that long time ago. Those run Ubuntu. I was fine with plain ssh, but my boss pushed his setup to the limits and used that as his main computer. He even gave away company laptop and used only private one to RDP into that (through some corporate vdi auth, but still RDP).

On that vm side it was xrdp. He had multimonitor setup working, sound, video, he even used zoom daily.

Client was windows, it passed through camera and so on.

I could not tell I was using something remotely, even if I was just using mouse and keyboard, sitting directly in front of those monitors.

One gotcha was that these were very fast VMs on fast network.

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

#59

Post by leros »

One of the best things I did for my productivity was ditching my desktop. Having to sync between my desktop and laptop slowed me down. Having to learn how to work on two different devices (different keyboards, monitor setups, etc) slowed me down.

Yes, a laptop is inferior to a desktop in many ways, but I've actually found myself much more productive now that I only work on my laptop. As an example, I used to get frustrated only having a single screen on my laptop instead of my desktop's dual screens. Now I've learned new workflows for a single screen and it's 90% as productive as having two screens and I make up for that by not being slower when I switch to my laptop like I used to be.

Just a thought for you.

Also, if I really need the power of a desktop, I try do it over the network from my laptop (CLI or remote desktop).

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

#60

Post by hagbard_c »

magicalhippo wrote: post #51
hagbard_c wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That only supports connecting to a centralized "workspace", from what I can see. As such it seems more like Microsoft's DevBox. That could certainly be usable, assuming the performance is there, though for me I want to remotely use my desktop session.

No, it also supports connecting to remote sessions via several mechanisms (RDP, RDS (marked as 'to include' in Kasm, already supported by Guacamole), SSH, and VNC, handled by Apache Guacamole [1] as described in the documentation [2]). I use this to access desktop sessions running on Linux hosts, both 'bare metal' workstations as well as sessions running in Proxmox-managed containers. This uses Xrdp to serve X11 sessions from Linux hosts and direct RDP connections to Windows VMs, proxied through the Kasm server which presents these in a browser interface. Performance is good enough not to be bothered by the connection being remote.

If all you are after is getting access to desktop sessions through a browser it may be overkill to run Kasm, in that case you can also opt to run Guacamole directly on your desktop hosts. Another - more performant - option would be to run an X2Go server on the desktop host to which you connect using SSH from a machine running the X2Go client. This is less flexible since you need to have that client installed but performance is better. As stated performance through Kasm is good enough for my applications so I mostly use that nowadays even though I do have X2Go installed on all relevant hosts.

[1] https://guacamole.apache.org/

[2] https://kasmweb.com/docs/latest/guide/windows/connection_pro...

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