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Google Browser Sync Source Released

Posted by timothy on Mon Jun 30, 2008 04:03 PM
from the how-every-orphan-should-be-treated dept.
Businesses Google The Internet
AySz88 writes "Google has made an official announcement of their decision to discontinue Google Browser Sync. But it comes with a brighter side — its source code is now open and available."
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[+] Google Browser Sync To Be Discontinued 195 comments
Dude With An Afro writes "What could have been a great Google project is now history. For those who never used it, Google Browser Sync was a Firefox extension that synchronized your bookmarks, web history, browser sessions and passwords across multiple computers by temporarily saving them to Google's servers. According to the Google Browser Sync team: 'It was a tough call, but we decided to phase out support for Browser Sync. Since the team has moved on to other projects that are keeping them busy, we don't have time to update the extension to work with Firefox 3 or to continue to maintain it.' For all of those who fell in love with Google's Browser Sync, our only hope now is to resort to poorly maintained 3rd party extensions without Google's blessing." While it was undoubtedly a useful utility, the argument can also be made that it wasn't the most secure extension in the world, what with having your personal data kept on Google's servers and shot around the internet.
Submission: Google Browser Sync Source Released by AySz88 (1151141)
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Google Browser Sync Source Released 33 Comments More /

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  • privacy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by iMaple (769378) * on Monday June 30 2008, @04:09PM (#24007289)

    One of the reasons why the browersync was popular is that people trusted Google with their setting and passwords and bookmarks( I mean they already have my email, my calender, my photos, my IM history, my cc number).

    Now its not easy for someone to convert this into a generic extension, unless everyone trusts that person already. What the source could be useful for, is syncing it to your own server (or say a university server). The extension can be modified so that the sync server could be made customizable.. that way your data remains with you.

  • WEAVE (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Use Firefox Weave. It's by the mozilla developers and does everything Google Browser Sync does, with support from mozilla.

    • Re:WEAVE (Score:5, Informative)

      by trash eighty (457611) on Monday June 30 2008, @04:33PM (#24007637) Homepage

      Weave is ridiculously in alpha, i couldn't even create an account using that without it crashing, Google Browser Sync just worked. Foxmarks seems to do the trick for now anyway.

      • Foxmarks does extremely well for addition of bookmarks, plus it even has a history of previous modifications so you can restore your own mistakes.

        Wish I could have seen browser sync but its the same idea overall.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by dissy (172727)

          Foxmarks does extremely well for addition of bookmarks, plus it even has a history of previous modifications so you can restore your own mistakes.

          Wish I could have seen browser sync but its the same idea overall.

          If only. I wish there was a plugin even close to the functionality of google browser sync (and now there might just be one)

          Foxmarks comes up short because all it can sync is your bookmarks and nothing else. Same with everything else that isn't google bookmark sync so far, sadly.

          I need syncing of not just bookmarks, but saved passwords in the encrypted store, saved cookies, and form data.
          Having url and search history synced has been handy too, but not a feature i personally would complain about lacking.

          • Hey, not so much.

            I want google sync too but honestly it's too much of a security risk on its own. Honestly, encrypted passwords? Come now.

            Form data? Plenty of stuff out there for that,although not all in one combination.

            Encrypted passwords? bring them on Keepass. http://keepass.info/download.html [keepass.info]

            works on linux, windows, everything, free. Notably that you can require a key stored on something in addition to password to decrypt. So USB key + password to unencrypt. Works flawless and smooth. Go ahead and store

            • I'd only trust an addon that lets me upload my info (passwords) to my own server and encrypted while you're there. Foxmarks allow you to do that, just the bookmarks, I use FM in 3 Pc and I have nothing to whine about, well, In FF3 you have to allow the cookie from foxmarks.com, thats all. I store the db in the foxmarks service, If they start to offer password sync I'll take my info to my server but I still will be using foxmarks it's very nice.

            • I want google sync too but honestly it's too much of a security risk on its own. Honestly, encrypted passwords? Come now.

              Form data? Plenty of stuff out there for that,although not all in one combination.

              Encrypted passwords? bring them on Keepass. http://keepass.info/download.html [keepass.info]

              I fail to see how this synchronizes cookies, bookmarks, passwords among multiple computers that I am using at the same time which is what Google sync solves for me.

              I think they use blowfish algorithms for the encryption

              Google brows

              • It doesn't, but Google sync wasn't secure. Or at least it wasn't the last time I checked. The main problem was that the updates were done without notifications and didn't use a secure server either.

                I never trusted Google sync to handle anything beyond just my bookmarks.

                Carrying around the passwords on a USB stick or similar is a much better choice. I personally use Keepassx and the Win version when necessary.

                But if you trust an add on that uses that type of update procedure it's you're information to do wit

                • It doesn't, but Google sync wasn't secure. Or at least it wasn't the last time I checked.

                  It does use a secure server (HTTPS), it also encrypts the content with RSA encryption (some of it optional) that it stores on the server, so even Google can't just directly read it (you could find this out easily just by analyzing the extension).

                  The main problem was that the updates were done without notifications and didn't use a secure server either.

                  I consider the spinning synchronization icon to be a notification.

                • But if you trust an add on that uses that type of update procedure it's you're information to do with what you wish.

                  That was my overall point. I have multiple servers in collocation for hosting and other such services, and one of those is my applications server, which is where I personally would like to use as the data store for the plugin.

                  While I too wouldn't want google to have my saved passwords and such, their plugin at least gave the appearance of best practices security wise at the point i started using it till right up to when they shutdown the back end server.
                  SSL for https, RSA security for the encryption of you

          • I agree there is nothing like GBS, it was a terrific piece of software. It just got on with it's job without interfering with what you were doing and now i can't use it i really miss it!

            Though for me bookmark syncing was the main use so Foxmarks is OK for me.

      • You're right, Weave is pretty alpha. That said:

        • Bookmark syncing works.
        • Running multiple simultaneous browsers is explicitly supported.
        • Your data is encrypted before it's ever sent to the server.
        • If that's not enough, you can run your own. All you need is a WebDAV server.
        • It's getting better. Passwords, history, cookies, forms, extensions, and tabs are all on the way. Most of that has been working at some point or another, just ... poorly. But they're not quite at 0.2 yet, so I think we can cut 'em a little
        • Haven't used Weave for a while, but I'll start using it again once it can sync add-ons. All I need are my bookmarks, add-ons and add-on settings (don't use history because I just use bookmarks, don't use search plugins because they're all in bookmarks, don't use saved passwords, etc.).

          I'm also waiting for the ability to change/recover your Weave password since I have managed to forget mine.

        • Well all very nice but unfortunately it crashed when trying to verify the account i made so i couldn't try these goodies, something to keep an eye on though.

    • Weave does not, in fact, do everything that Google Browser Sync does. Aside from bookmarks, GBS synced passwords and cookies. Weave does neither.

  • I don't know, I once was an avid user of Google's extension, but then I found out that the feature I used most was synch'ng my bookmarks, and everything else was just overkill. Not only that, but Google's tool did not allow you to have 2 instances connected at the same time, whereas Foxmarks did. I never went back, and never cared too much about cookies or any of the rest not being synch'ed.

    • At least now, there's hope that this will be fixed and improved upon.

      This is a really responsible way to "end of life" a product. Release the source code to the community so that the dedicated users aren't stranded hopelessly.

    • but then I found out that the feature I used most was synch'ng my bookmarks,

      I seem to be in the minority on this, but that's the one part of GBS that I cared the least about.

      What I relied upon it for was keeping browser sessions synced between PCs. Very handy to be able to shut down Firefox at work, go home, and have all the same web pages show up. Saved me countless hours of redoing google searches in the time I used the plug-in. Sadly, I've not found a replacement that offers this functionality. (Weave sounds promising, but I just installed the update that is supposed to incl

  • GMarks plugin never mentioned? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by renbear (49318) on Tuesday July 01 2008, @03:07AM (#24012939)

    While I recognize that Google Browser Sync was significantly more comprehensive than just bookmarks, I am surprised that no one bringing up bookmark-syncing replacements has brought up GMarks [mozilla.org], a Firefox plugin that syncs with Google Bookmarks.

    The link above is its addon page. Its features are listed here [google.com], and the project's homepage is here [google.com]. I've used it for quite some time, and am satisfied with it. It's not amazingly earth-shatteringly innovative, but it gets the job done.

  • I stopped using it because it was unreliable. I would have to keep re-bookmarking web sites that would disappear.

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