Google Browser Sync is the best tool of its kind I’ve seen, and it’s a problem that has been my own personal pet peeve for a REALLY long time. It looks like Google is going to be the one to finally unify desktops. For pure-bookmarks sync, Foxmarks actually much smoother, and lets you use your own FTP server for the tin foil hat crowd.
I just started using delicious…why wouldn’t you use that, instead? I hardly use FF bookmarks.
Delicious isn’t a menu in my browser, doesn’t have folders, etc. Many of the URLs in my toolbar are private server stuff.
i started using del.icio.us with flock, which is sort of similar. but at this point, i have so many del.icio.us links, that google couldn’t replace it unless they had in import tool.
What I would really love is a Bookmark Synchronizer that also keeps track of history… here’s why.
I use Sage which pulls from one of my firefox folders.
When I sync my bookmarks, it messes up the history so I don’t know which sites actually have new content.
Has anyone heard of something that works like that?
Sheldon, this syncs bookmarks, history, logins, cookies, etc.
My tinfoil hat wearing head would feel a little more comfortable if they let out what encryption algorithm they use. What’s the use of encrypting info if there is a backdoor, so someone can later poke into saved data? The question, I guess is do I trust Google enough. The answer at this point in time is No.
Smart stuff from Google to make you store private data on their servers 🙂 (private links, passwords, all kind of cookies etc…) Or can you configure the thing to use a user specified repository ?
Duh. I was busy reading about Foxmarks and didn’t even look at Google’s. Thanks Matt.
I prefer FoxMarks, this extension has been running without any problems on my home and work computers. It is great to be able to have the same bookmarks at my home and work pc. I really do not see the benefit of synching cookies and passwords, it actually gives me the creeps to store this kind of information on an external server.
…when it actually works. I don’t think it has been able to synchronize once since the first time I installed it.
Heavy demand? Possibly. Bad error messages? Definitely.
This is definitely one of those small things that is a real pain in my arse. I’ve been looking for a workable solution for some time now.
While I’m a big fan of Firefox, making it my *only* browser just isn’t an option. Otherwise this looks great. We develop websites and provide managed services to a large number of clients and need access to our bookmarks from all sorts of machines and browser combinations.
At the moment our solution is that we’ve customized a version of the OpenSource server for SiteBar (http://sitebar.org) and host it for our own purposes. Unfortunately no automatic sync to IE yet (you can in firefox) but you can configure the sidebar in basically any browser to show your online bookmarks. Being able to access URL and Feed links from within a browser, embedded in a webpage, as a RSS feed, from my mobile phone, or to directly access as a webpage is the closest we’ve found yet to working for our needs. Usability took a big leap forward with the recent release that included ajax, drag and drop, right click context menus, etc.
Documentation is shoddy, but the code is very well-written, and solid, and there is a responsive developer at the other end so it’s relatively easy to get it up and going if you want to host yourself. If you don’t need that kind of control or customization they offer a hosted version at the same URL above. Same features as self-hosted version it says but I’ve never used the hosted version.
Hopefully we’ll either come across a solution at some point that meets all of our needs (or just customize this further if we get tired of waiting for someone else to build it I guess).
Cheers,
-Matt
I should point out, per Sheldon’s comments above, that Google Browser Sync *does* seem to mess up Sage, which is my RSS reader of choice too. But not all the time. If you need an alternative, Torisugari’s Bookmarks Synchronizer extension will work with Sage if you set the prefs correctly. (Although it will only sync bookmarks, not history, cookies, etc.).
I haven’t been able to get GoogleSync to work. Every time I try to synch it times out. 🙁