Nelson's Weblog: tech / googleBrowserSync

Google browser sync

I just got a laptop, so now I have the hell of synchronizing multiple machines. Yes, 20 years after the Network is the Computer I still can't transparently get from anywhere to my data and software. Google Browser Sync is one tool to solve this problem. It syncs up your Firefox settings, cookies, passwords, etc to a Google server. No matter where you launch Firefox it will sync your data, in theory giving you transparent access to browser state.

It mostly works, but it's got rough edges. Syncing is transparent and effective although I have mysteriously lost a couple of cookies. It syncs most of the data you care about except extensions and toolbar layout. Data is encrypted on the client, an essential feature. It's kind of ugly: the browser button is too big and it pops up annoying alerts if you run simultaneously on two machines.

But there's one crippling flaw; it adds about five seconds of startup time everytime you launch Firefox. They must be getting a lot of complaint because it says right on the download page "we're working on it". Seems simple enough to fix, just don't sync every time.

What I find most interesting about this is if you squint, Google Browser Sync looks a whole lot like another piece of Microsoft's Passport/Hailstorm vision. I have no idea what Google's planning in this area, but it seems obvious to me that people want to centralize a lot of personal data. Google's proven they can build products that scale and I'd trust them with my data more than any other company. More like this please!

A couple of days after I put this on my weblog, Google fixed the startup time problem.

tech
2006-08-02 20:21 Z


Mastodon @nelson@tech.lgbt Linkblog Sun 2024-12-29 Reed meat smoke Moon mechanics Fri 2024-12-27 Reddit male harassment Hon. Frank Murphy Measuring Starlink users Mon 2024-12-23 Helen Corbitt Texas Caviar Sun 2024-12-22 SimonW's linkblog Sat 2024-12-21 License Plate Game Fri 2024-12-20 The Loves of my Life Musk + AfD Thu 2024-12-19 Another $2B Wed 2024-12-18 mail-tester.com Kenji and alcohol Amazon Time Sync hydroxychloroquine fraud withdrawn Tue 2024-12-17 A New Social Tacticalgramma Sun 2024-12-15 Drone nonsense Sat 2024-12-14 OK Nintendo 64 Fri 2024-12-13 Unix Windows Search Archives 2023 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2022 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2021 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2020 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2019 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2018 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2017 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2016 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2015 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2014 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2013 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2012 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2011 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2010 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2009 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2008 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2007 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2006 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2005 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2004 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2003 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2002 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 2001 12 11 10 09 08 07 One good site MDN Nelson Minar nelson@monkey.org Blog licensed under a Creative Commons License		Google browser sync I just got a laptop, so now I have the hell of synchronizing multiple machines. Yes, 20 years after the Network is the Computer I still can't transparently get from anywhere to my data and software. Google Browser Sync is one tool to solve this problem. It syncs up your Firefox settings, cookies, passwords, etc to a Google server. No matter where you launch Firefox it will sync your data, in theory giving you transparent access to browser state. It mostly works, but it's got rough edges. Syncing is transparent and effective although I have mysteriously lost a couple of cookies. It syncs most of the data you care about except extensions and toolbar layout. Data is encrypted on the client, an essential feature. It's kind of ugly: the browser button is too big and it pops up annoying alerts if you run simultaneously on two machines. But there's one crippling flaw; it adds about five seconds of startup time everytime you launch Firefox. They must be getting a lot of complaint because it says right on the download page "we're working on it". Seems simple enough to fix, just don't sync every time. What I find most interesting about this is if you squint, Google Browser Sync looks a whole lot like another piece of Microsoft's Passport/Hailstorm vision. I have no idea what Google's planning in this area, but it seems obvious to me that people want to centralize a lot of personal data. Google's proven they can build products that scale and I'd trust them with my data more than any other company. More like this please! A couple of days after I put this on my weblog, Google fixed the startup time problem. tech 2006-08-02 20:21 Z Nelson's Weblog • tech → ago, bad, bittorrent, blosxom, dotnet, good, hqnx, iphone, mac, phone, photo, python, webservices