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Google Businesses The Internet Privacy

Google Browser Sync To Be Discontinued 195

Posted by CowboyNeal from the going-gently-into-that-good-night dept.
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.
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Google Browser Sync To Be Discontinued More

Google Browser Sync To Be Discontinued

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  • Fear not... (Score:3, Informative)

    by msauve ( 701917 ) on Saturday June 14, 2008 @09:20AM (#23790971)
    the newly released Opera 9.5 [opera.com] has introduced a sync'ing capability.

    • Re:Fear not... (Score:5, Funny)

      by schon ( 31600 ) on Saturday June 14, 2008 @10:04AM (#23791205)

      the newly released Opera 9.5 has introduced a sync'ing capability.
      Cool! But I looked at your link, and there's no mention of a Firefox extension.

      Could you provide a better link for it?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by patro ( 104336 )
      Here's the link to this feature: http://link.opera.com/ [opera.com]

      Why not https?

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by freakxx ( 987620 )
      Use Gmarks [mozilla.org]. It lets you export your Firefox-bookmarks to the Google-bookmarks [google.com] and then access it through a Firefox-menu. Once you have exported your present Firefox-bookmarks, use this GMarks menu for adding new bookmarks or deleting old ones. It seems to be a better option than the Google-sync because Google provides you a web-interface [google.com] also to access the stored bookmarks. It means, u can access it anywhere, even if you are not using Firefox.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by flappinbooger ( 574405 )
        I gave up on GBS when it began to work horribly, and started using foxmarks.

        When they messed foxmarks up for a few weeks I tried GBS again, but it insisted on blowing away the local bookmarks instead of, you know, syncronizing them. No matter what setting I used.

        I used some other kludge which was terrible but now foxmarks works again. Personally I don't want or need my history or other stuff synchronized.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Fear not... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Ambush Commander ( 871525 ) on Saturday June 14, 2008 @11:45AM (#23791895)
      I have mod points, but I have to point out here that Opera Sync currently only works with your bookmarks and your speed dial, making it Opera's built-in equivalent of Foxmarks (which I myself have been using happily). It is no Google Browser Sync replacement.

  • This makes me cry... (Score:4, Funny)

    by NekoXP ( 67564 ) on Saturday June 14, 2008 @09:20AM (#23790977) Homepage
    Browser Sync was so awesome, I'll miss it *slits wrists*

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by thsths ( 31372 )
      I am sad, too, because this was a really useful utility. Something similar would be very much appreciated, and it is not just about bookmarks, but also because of the cookies. Now to be honest, I do not need them synchronised every time, but every once in a while would be nice.

      I guess one for the problems with Google Browser Sync is that it had quite a few issues. I lost my cookies several times (in combination with my laptop running out of power). Also it did not work well with some other extensions (AdBlo

      • Re:This makes me cry... (Score:4, Funny)

        by Escogido ( 884359 ) on Saturday June 14, 2008 @10:42AM (#23791465)

        I lost my cookies several times (in combination with my laptop running out of power).
        Oh, you should really watch what you eat. If you do, not even your laptop running out of power will make you lose your cookies.

      • Re:This makes me cry... (Score:5, Informative)

        by i.of.the.storm ( 907783 ) on Saturday June 14, 2008 @12:12PM (#23792067) Homepage
        Mozilla is actually working on an extension called Weave that essentially does everything it sounds like GBS did. At least, I know it syncs bookmarks, history, and cookies, and other things.

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by pgn674 ( 995941 )

          Mozilla is actually working on an extension called Weave that essentially does everything it sounds like GBS did. At least, I know it syncs bookmarks, history, and cookies, and other things.

          Google Browser Sync did: cookies, saved passwords, bookmarks, history, and tabs and windows. You could have it all be encrypted too, using an encryption key that Google would not know (you had to type it yourself at each computer when setting up).

          I've been using it for years now, since it first came out. I've gotten quite dependent on it; this is very sad news for me. Best part was I could be browsing on my desktop, then swing to my laptop and pull up a page I'd visited on the desktop from the laptop's h

  • The only part of it I use actively is the bookmarks sync, which is, although slightly buggy, very useful

    So what other bookmark-sync should I switch to?

    I'm not intersted in thos bookmark sharing services, just having my own bookmarks synced between the computers I use regularly.

    • Re:Alternatives? (Score:5, Informative)

      by seriv ( 698799 ) on Saturday June 14, 2008 @09:30AM (#23791031)
      Look into foxmarks [foxmarks.com] (assuming you use firefox). It works decently well, and it has firefox 3 support. I never switched to Google's thing, because foxmarks seemed better.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by dissy ( 172727 )

        Look into foxmarks [foxmarks.com] (assuming you use firefox). It works decently well, and it has firefox 3 support. I never switched to Google's thing, because foxmarks seemed better.

        From the URL there, it appears all foxmarks can do is sync your bookmarks.

        The reason googles sync is/was better is because it not only does the one thing (everything) foxmarks does, but it also syncs your firefox cookies, saved passwords (very important one that!) and your history.

        What I would like is a firefox extension that does basically what google browser sync does, except you can point it to a server of your own, and the backend software is available to install.

        There are a few extensions that can syn

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Bieeanda ( 961632 )

          From the URL there, it appears all foxmarks can do is sync your bookmarks.
          ...and from the question the grandparent post asked, bookmark synching was all that he wanted to do.

        • Re:Alternatives? (Score:4, Informative)

          by FishWithAHammer ( 957772 ) on Saturday June 14, 2008 @11:40AM (#23791865)
          Did you even bother to read the grandparent post?

          The only part of it I use actively is the bookmarks sync, which is, although slightly buggy, very useful

          So what other bookmark-sync should I switch to?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gathas ( 588371 )
      Yahoo! Bookmarks has had this feature for a long time. Well before the more "innovative" Google (at least since 2001).

  • Foxmarks is great (Score:5, Informative)

    by JoelMeow ( 740794 ) on Saturday June 14, 2008 @09:27AM (#23791015) Homepage
    I think it's a little mean to refer to Foxmarks as a "poorly maintained 3rd party extension." I've been using it since before Google's browser sync existed, and I never bothered to try out Google's extension because Foxmarks worked perfectly. If you need a replacement, I would recommend checking them out.

    • Re:Foxmarks is great (Score:4, Informative)

      by AySz88 ( 1151141 ) on Saturday June 14, 2008 @09:57AM (#23791165)
      Indeed, the Google message actually recommends Foxmarks, if you read the article. It also recommends Mozilla Weave and Google Toolbar as bookmark-syncing alternatives (well, once Google Toolbar gets Firefox 3 compatibility). Mozilla Weave might not even be considered "third party".

      That terminating single quote in the summary is awfully easy to miss... (Bad submitter, bad!)

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by PLBogen ( 452989 )
        I used to use Google Bookmark Sync and I was constantly fighting mis-syncs, and link duplication. When I switched to FF3, I needed a replacement and found Weave. It has been fantastic. I have none of the troubles I had with Bookmark Sync and I am glad I switched.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by pugdk ( 697845 )
      I fully agree. While I have never used Google browser sync I have used Foxmarks for quite some time with no hassle at all.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by rearden ( 304396 )
      My issue with Foxmarks is that it does not do everything that Google Browser Sync does. Having an encrypted copy of my passwords and bookmarks and cookies was nice. I dont save banking or high-security passwords anyway, but all of those fourm and other site usernames & passwords- nice!

      Google Browser Sync you will be missed!

    • Re:Foxmarks is great (Score:5, Informative)

      by Niten ( 201835 ) on Saturday June 14, 2008 @11:23AM (#23791757)

      I think it's a little mean to refer to Foxmarks as a "poorly maintained 3rd party extension."

      Yeah, that comment reeks of spite and ignorance. It also glosses over the privacy issues that kept many from using Google Browser Sync to begin with, but which aren't an issue with Foxmarks.

      And anyway, I'm much more willing to trust Foxmarks to store my private data than I am Google -- unlike Google, Foxmarks is not one of the world's fastest-growing advertising companies; and unlike Google, Foxmarks is founded by Mitch Kapor, one of the co-founders of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Better still, the Foxmarks extension allows you to use your own server for synchronization, if you're so paranoid that you don't even trust your data in the hands of an EFF founder.

      If anything can be called a "poorly maintained 3rd party extension" here, it would have to be Google Browser Sync -- which, I suppose, is why it has fallen out of favor.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Omestes ( 471991 )
        Foxmarks is good, and I agree more trustworthy than Google, but... It lacks most of the functionality of the Google version, such as cookies, history, and passwords. Bookmarks isn't the only thing I like synced between browsers, I like all of my installations of Firefox (3 or 4, currently) to be pretty much clones of each other.

        Someone is going to jump in and suggest Mozilla Weave, which is pretty much the same thing as Google's, but much more buggy and slow. I've had it take 30 minutes to sync between t

    • Re:Foxmarks is great (Score:5, Insightful)

      by samkass ( 174571 ) on Saturday June 14, 2008 @11:30AM (#23791797) Homepage Journal
      Indeed, Google Browser Sync is itself a "poorly maintained 3rd party extension" at this point, so I don't know why that distinction was made between GBS and the other plug-ins that do the same thing.

  • Sync and Sort? (Score:4, Informative)

    by PontifexPrimus ( 576159 ) on Saturday June 14, 2008 @09:28AM (#23791021)
    I've been using Bookmarks Sync and Sort [mozilla.org] for quite a while now - all you need is a FTP/WebDAV server on which you have an account, which I guess every slashdotter should have...
    The extension does everything I need, and it works like a charm; the only problem is that is not (currently) FF3 compatible.

  • Third party extensions (Score:5, Insightful)

    by langelgjm ( 860756 ) on Saturday June 14, 2008 @09:30AM (#23791033) Journal

    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.

    Um, wasn't Google browser sync also a third party extension?

  • Google Sync, Del.icio.us, etc. are spiffy, but I want to control my own data. I have a webserver and the willingness to get in over my head, so what's a geek to do to host this for himself? I'd settle for just keeping the bookmarks.

    I have a Drupal 5 site up and running. Ideally, I'd like to be able to add a bunch of bookmarks to it, then make an RSS feed of them. Then I could let my browsers turn that feed into bookmark folders. Unfortunately, I've only been able to get an RSS feed of links to pages [drupal.org]

    • Re:I want my own (Score:4, Informative)

      by goaliemn ( 19761 ) on Saturday June 14, 2008 @09:36AM (#23791063) Homepage
      check foxmarks you can tell it where to ftp your bookmarks to if you don't want to use their servers.

      • check foxmarks you can tell it where to ftp your bookmarks to if you don't want to use their servers.

        That's not a bad idea. My only problem with it is that it's very Firefox-centric. Opera and Konqueror (and Lynx and Links) can do useful things with RSS without getting an FTP client involved.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by slashgrim ( 1247284 )
        ftp puts the 's' in secure

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by maxume ( 22995 )
      How worried are you about control (i.e., is your concern that you have continued access, or is your concern that others not have access)?

      If you are only concerned about continued/full access to your data, delicious has what I find to be a very acceptable statue quo:

      https://api.del.icio.us/v1/posts/all [del.icio.us]

      That doesn't mean that they won't change something down the line (though I don't think they will...), but it makes it pretty easy not to be left in the lurch, just pull down all your data at comfortable interva

      • How worried are you about control (i.e., is your concern that you have continued access,

        Very. Actually, that's my entire motivation. I don't really understand people who meticulously build giant forests of del.icio.us links, hoping that it never turns into a pay site or goes offline.

        or is your concern that others not have access)?

        Not so much. If you want to look at the weather radar in my area, more power to ya. :-)

        If you are only concerned about continued/full access to your data, delicious has what I find to be a very acceptable statue quo:

        That's better, but then you still have to deal with the fact that the system you're used to using is no longer available. Hence my desire to run my own: once I get it working, it'll keep going as long as I want to mai

  • So why not open source it? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by molo ( 94384 ) on Saturday June 14, 2008 @09:31AM (#23791037) Journal
    Google should know better. Abandonware? Open source it! Then if people care they can upgrade it for FF3.

    -molo

    • Re:So why not open source it? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by BPPG ( 1181851 ) <bppg1986@gmail.com> on Saturday June 14, 2008 @09:35AM (#23791055)

      How good is your server?

      And how do we know we can trust you with our bookmarks?

      • Re:So why not open source it? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by positive ( 12069 ) on Saturday June 14, 2008 @10:05AM (#23791209)
        Presumably, one of the first things open source developers would do would be to uncouple the extension from Google's servers. Seems that substituting in as the data store would work pretty well.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by cdrudge ( 68377 )
        How do we know we can trust Google with your bookmarks? If you have "secure" bookmarks, you probably shouldn't be using a service like this.

        • How do we know we can trust Google with your bookmarks? If you have "secure" bookmarks, you probably shouldn't be using a service like this.
          if you have "secure" bookmarks you probably need to find a dictionary and find the definition of the word "secure". Now saved passwords and browser history and cookies are another matter.

          -Em
        • With Google's browser sync you had to encrypt your data with a key before sending it off unreadable to Google. Stop your BS scaremongering.

      • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday June 14, 2008 @10:42AM (#23791467)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by barzok ( 26681 )

          Companies could put it on their own servers for their employees.
          Wasn't that a feature of Netscape at some point in the distant past?
          • This was _always_ a feature in Netscape. It got dropped in the transition from Netscape to Mozilla. It's one of those problems with open source development: there's no guarantee that useful, widely-used features are carried forward into new versions.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by niceone ( 992278 )
        And how do we know we can trust you with our bookmarks?

        You don't! It's exactly like google!
    • I'd use this on my own server, privately with a few friends perhaps... I wouldn't submit password info to a 3rd party repo, though.

    • Google should know better. Abandonware? Open source it! Then if people care they can upgrade it for FF3.
      Considering the product relies on google's servers - it may not be enough to open source it for it to be usefull. That being said, it would be really nice if you could run your OWN servers for this - I might consider sync-ing things like passwords and browsing history.

      -Em

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Zadaz ( 950521 )
        I would be great to run this on my own trusted server, and would the be only way I might run the extension.

        However I don't think Google should open source it in this case. Mostly because of my own needless paranoia. (But this is Slashdot so no one will notice.)

        Why? What percentage of FF's user base runs their own server? We can only guess, but probably somewhere in the realm of 0.001%. Or less. (There are 1.4 bil [internetworldstats.com] internet users, you do the math.) So virtually no one is going to run their own server.

        What
    • Actually, we don't usually open source stuff that for whatever reason isn't actually considered "Good Enough". If there's no one left to work on it, then who will handle the commits, security notices, etc.?

      Whether it should've been Open Source before is a different question, where a community might have built up that could take it over. But I don't know this product at all and can't guess at how much special sauce is in there.

      (obDisclosure, I work in Google's Open Source Programs Office)

  • Mozilla Weave is working great for me (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 14, 2008 @09:35AM (#23791051)
    http://labs.mozilla.com/featured-projects/#weave

    Syncs lots of things, including bookmarks.

  • Mozilla Weave (Score:5, Informative)

    by beezly ( 197427 ) on Saturday June 14, 2008 @09:36AM (#23791061)
    Mozilla Weave does similar stuff... http://labs.mozilla.com/2007/12/introducing-weave/ [mozilla.com]

    I've been using it for a while and it's pretty good, even though it's still under lots of development.

  • Meh (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Conspiracy_Of_Doves ( 236787 ) on Saturday June 14, 2008 @09:39AM (#23791079)
    I use del.icio.us

    Granted, it only saves bookmarks, but I wouldn't be comfortable with all that other stuff being anywhere else but my machine anyway. My passwords I don't even like being on my machine. I keep them in my head.
  • cp --preserve -r ~/.mozilla/* /mountpoint (a usb thumbdrive)

  • Obligatory conspiracy theory (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bokmann ( 323771 ) on Saturday June 14, 2008 @09:57AM (#23791169) Homepage
    In a manager's office at Google -

    Employee: "You know boss, we really should devote some time to updating the Browser Sync tool to work with Firefox 3..."

    Manager: "I have been meaning to talk to you about that... You see, we have been thinking about it, and there really isn't a way to make ad revenue from that tool. While it is cool and useful and all, I don't think people would be happy with ad links showing up randomly in their bookmark menus."

    Employee: "Um, yeah... I agree with that. I didn't reslize..."

    Manager: "The ad revenue thing? Yeah... well something has to pay for that 20% self-directed time since ad revenues are down. The good news is we think that the Google Toolbar can replace it, and we have a plan for monetizing that."

    Employee: "Well, can I work on the FF3 upgrade in my 20% self-directed time and open source the tool?"

    Manager: "We thought about that too - first, the Google Toolbar doesn't need the competition. Second, we can't release the code in the shape its in... people would throw our 'do no evil' slogan back at us and slashdot would be all a-titter. It would take as much to clean it up as it would just to get it to work with FF3, so we think it is at its end-of-life."

    Employee: "um... o..k... thanks."

  • Strange that there are no good solutions (Score:4, Insightful)

    by smartin ( 942 ) on Saturday June 14, 2008 @10:04AM (#23791199)
    I've been using browsersync since it came out and it worked reasonably well except for the periodic trashing or losing of my bookmarks. It just seems really strange to me that there is not a good solution in this space as most people user multiple machines between home and work.

    Is this because its a hard problem or is it because there is no opportunity to make money from it?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bokmann ( 323771 )
      Agreed. My first ideal solution (for bookmarks, anyway) would be a plugin that let me use my browser's bookmark manus, shortcuts, etc. but just stored them at del.icio.us.

      My second ideal solution would be something like google browser sync that let me provide the path and credentials for something like an svn repository, and stored and synced from there. That way, I wouldn't be relying on some unknown server to keep things like passwords and cookies secure.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sasdrtx ( 914842 )
      Good God! Does the CEO of Foxmarks have to come over to your house and personally demo it for you? Slashdot is not meant as an output-only forum. Read a couple of posts!

      I use Foxmarks 1.0.1 with my home server using WebDav. It's fantastic.
  • I use Google sync on three computers. Unfortunately, it frequently leaves my bookmarks unsync'ed - keeping old bookmarks on one computer, even though I've deleted them on another, and failing to include new bookmarks that I've added. I still use it because it's better than nothing. It's not much better than nothing, though.
  • A brilliant idea shot down before it could really grow wings. :-(

    Oh well, FoxMark it is... Google will have to find a different way to have my information.

  • Bookmark sharing without using third party servers (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ck_808 ( 1302625 ) on Saturday June 14, 2008 @10:22AM (#23791321)
    Its kind of amazing how the ability to share bookmarks between multiple computers by simply using the same bookmarks.htm file has been removed with the new bookmarking system in Firefox 3.

    I've tried sharing the places.sqlite file between Linux and Windows and it doesn't seem to work correctly and it seems like Mozilla doesn't care at all about this regression.

    Having bookmarks stored on third party servers
    (Mozilla weave, Foxmarks, Google browser sync, Opera's Bookmarks sync,etc ) will always suffer from insecurity mentioned in the last line of the summary.

    At least Opera still has the ability to share the bookmarks file between multiple profiles/OS's/PC's.
    • i am disappointed in firefox-3.x new features, (just useless feature bloat to me) i went back to using Seamonkey which is the original Mozilla browser code released to the FOSS community to keep developed and maintained, i like it...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by norton_I ( 64015 )
      Foxmarks will let you store bookmarks on any webdav server, including with https.

      Sharing the bookmarks.htm file doesn't allow multiple access at the same time.

    • Having bookmarks stored on third party servers (Mozilla weave, Foxmarks, Google browser sync, Opera's Bookmarks sync,etc ) will always suffer from insecurity mentioned in the last line of the summary.

      No, not always. There is an embarrassingly simple solution. Encrypt before send. There is no reason the server even needs to see the plain-text data. I would be surprised if this hasn't already been implemented into the open source extensions.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Daimanta ( 1140543 )
      "Its kind of amazing how the ability to share bookmarks between multiple computers by simply using the same bookmarks.htm file has been removed with the new bookmarking system in Firefox 3.
      "

      What the ...? I'm using FF 3 and this still works. Mod parent overrated.

  • So just go back to the "old school" solution... (Score:3, Informative)

    by pla ( 258480 ) on Saturday June 14, 2008 @10:22AM (#23791323) Journal
    At least in FireFox, your bookmarks just exist as a plain ol' HTML file in your profile directory. You don't need any special tools to sync that across multiple machines, you just copy it between machines (or better, use FireFox Portable off a thumbdrive).

    However, for those who really need their bookmarks accessible from anywhere, an old and simple method will completely solve your problem - Keep your bookmarks on a live website and set that to your homepage. When you want to add new ones, add them to the online version rather than locally. Problem solved, no help from Google required.

    • At least in FireFox, your bookmarks just exist as a plain ol' HTML file in your profile directory. You don't need any special tools to sync that across multiple machines, you just copy it between machines (or better, use FireFox Portable off a thumbdrive).

      But without a syncing mechanism, you have to be meticulous about making sure you always to it. What if you add 20 bookmarks at home and a different 20 at work between copies? You'd have to decide which 20 was more important so that you can overwrite the others.

      I'm kind of opposed to native Firefox solutions on general principals, though. That doesn't work so well if you also want to use your bookmarks from IE at the office and Safari on your iPhone (disclaimer: I have neither - work with me here). Sites like del.icio.us are a much better idea, in my opinion, although I don't like the idea of giving up control over your own data.

  • Great... which project is next? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by merreborn ( 853723 ) on Saturday June 14, 2008 @10:26AM (#23791343) Journal
    I hate to sound a bit alarmist here, but which project can we expect to see go next?

    I'm just that more hesitant to use google products, if they're prone to axing them without warning.

  • Check out bookmarks on the Google toolbar (Score:4, Insightful)

    by LaughingCoder ( 914424 ) on Saturday June 14, 2008 @10:32AM (#23791397)
    Google toolbar has a bookmarks button that is a nice and easy way to make your bookmarks available wherever you browse (even across browsers).

    As to the note in the OP about Google having all our personal data on their servers ... I laughed out loud when I read that. S/he is living in some parallel universe if s/he thinks Google doesn't have plenty of information about our browsing history or tendencies. Do you use Gmail? Do you use Google to search? Do you use the Google toolbar? Adding my bookmarks to the mix doesn't seem to make my "personal data" any less secure.
  • There are tons of bookmark sync sites, but what I'd really like not to lose is the ability to restore whatever tabs I had open when I closed my browser. Like session restore but without a crash. Doing that across different machines is cute but I'd settle even for a local one. Anything else that does this out there?
    • That's built into Firefox.

      Options->Main->Startup->"When firefox starts"-> "Show my windows and tabs from last time"

      Doesn't sync across other machines though, that'd be cool.

  • 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.

    As opposed to something like gMail, where all your data is keep on your personal system and never shot around the internet... oh wait.

  • I wanted to create an extension once that uses ssh to store and sync files on a personal shell/sftp account. Never got around to figuring out how to do it, seeing as ssh isn't supported in Firefox's javascript. Now I know it could probably be done with an XPCOM component, but I've started using del.ici.us since then. Then I realized I pretty much don't use my bookmarks anymore. Google works better.
  • "undoubtedly a useful utility "???

    Slashdot couldn't say anything nice about it when it came out. You ranted about privacy issues over and over. Now it's dead and you helped kill it.

    I found the program extremely useful and now it's gone.

    Thanks.
  • http://labs.mozilla.com/featured-projects/#weave [mozilla.com] - though still in beta, was impressive last time I tried it. Just wish there was a similar feature for Safari on Mac and IE on Windows...
  • That should cover the scaling issues. There is still the need for a good look at security, but that shouldn't be too hard to do -- encrypt/decrypt all data on a password, or maybe even a public/private key pair. You'd have to copy the password or private key to another machine, but you'd only have to do it once.

  • Interesting tool, but flawed... (Score:4, Informative)

    by shanen ( 462549 ) on Saturday June 14, 2008 @12:10PM (#23792055) Homepage Journal
    I was a heavy user of GBS for a while. Very nice tool, but they never did fix very problematic bugs in the bookmark syncing part of it. I almost immediately gave up on the windows syncing, and I had fairly quickly stopped using the cookie-syncing part when I discovered the cookies were breeding like coat hangers in a closet. Essentially there was too much state information that wasn't been tracked but which was needed to make things work properly, especially for the bookmarks.

    As noted by many others, Foxmarks does a good job of the bookmark part of syncing. The heuristics are kind of flawed, but it's never caused the kinds of bookmark disasters that were frequent with GBS.

    The last feature of GBS that I abandoned was the password syncing. This was an extremely useful capability and (AFaIK) unique to GBS. I'm not sure it was working correctly, but rather it may have had some of the same problems as the bookmark syncing, but less severe, perhaps because of the absence of dividers or more consistency in the way different versions handled the passwords. However, this may have been the security-related problem that caused Google to abandon the idea. The security model was actually very good (if I understand it properly). The encryption and decryption were handled on the client side, and Google's servers actually had no access to the data, just storing the encrypted files. You were the sole owner of your security key--and many people then proceeded to lose it and then complained to Google about the 'lost' data. (I think Google should have tried to set up some kind of key escrow service, but I don't blame them for steering clear of that difficult business.)

  • 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.


    I, for one, feel safer knowing that my browser bookmarks are no longer kept on remote servers and shot around the internet.

    Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go do some online bill payments and check my G-Mail.
  • For almost every build of GBS there was problems, quirks and annoying weird stuff in general.
    However the final 2 builds (IIRC) were absoloutely fine for me, worked perfectly and saved me a heck of a lot of trouble and time, between Vista, XP, Ubuntu, work, desk, laptop I must've had 5 fully sync'd installs - it was great :/

    The best part was, when it did work smoothly, history, passwords, cookies, bookmarks - the whole lot went - it was fantastic! - It'll be sorely missed.

  • Damn it, it did more than just sync bookmarks. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Bookmarks, bookmarks, bookmarks. Foxmarks and other add-ons will sync bookmarks. BFD.

    It was the sync'd web sessions/cookies and passwords that made Google's add-on unique and incredibly useful for someone who had to use multiple computers at multiple locations throughout the day.

    It's too bad all of you who are pushing Foxmarks as a replacement don't know that.

  • Common Problem (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Salamander ( 33735 ) <jeff@ p l . a t y p.us> on Saturday June 14, 2008 @02:16PM (#23792953) Homepage Journal
    They make it sound like the decision not to support FF3 was a recent one. Bovine excrement. They'd lost interest months ago, and never intended to add such support. I got tired of waiting a while ago, and even wrote about [pl.atyp.us] my switch just this past week. The same thing is happening with lots of other extensions too, such as S3 Organizer which I've also abandoned. There's an old saying that nobody sees the bodies until the tide goes out, and a major release of something like Firefox is the tide going out. That's when you get to find out about all the projects whose developers actually wandered off months ago, but nobody had noticed because nothing had broken yet. Now it's broken. It's not a big surprise in most cases, but it is a little disappointing from an organization with the resources and reputation of Google.

  • Why does this have to be so complicated (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SnapperHead ( 178050 ) on Saturday June 14, 2008 @04:04PM (#23793953) Homepage Journal
    Seriously, why has nobody solved this problem in a good way. I have multiple computers and devices that I want to sync my bookmarks with. I don't use just 1 browser, I generally use 3. Safari for those things tied into the OS. Like bring up Google maps from an address. Firefox 3 for daily browsing and use. Opera for some sites I visit that render ultra fast on it.

    I know I am not alone. Many people (especially developers) have this problem and there isn't many choices. On the Mac you have services like .Mac that only work for Safari. On Windows there are many utilities that handle syncing bookmarks. (Hell, IE saves bookmarks as files ... not a bad idea) Firefox is a bastard when it comes to this because bookmarks.html isn't reliable. You can read from it, just not write to it. Some services use a plugin, but aren't ported to Firefox 3 .. also no ETA. I haven't looked at Operas bookmarks, so I dunno how it is.

    I just want all of my bookmarks to be centralized. I don't want social bookmarks, I want them private. They can be stored on a "public" system, I have nothing to hide in them. I just don't want them exposed to the general public, I like privacy and I don't want to be part of a data mining experiment.

    There are also some sites that you can post your bookmarks to, but I want them locally. No real reason other then I like them in the browser it self.

    I have also tried to solve this in the past, but Firefox really makes it difficult to pull off because of how they handle bookmarks.html If you know a way to solve this feel free to contact me.

  • I was really excited when this came out, but after using it for about a week I gave it up. It kept mangling my bookmarks and password. Which meant that my local copies got screwed up too. Maybe it got fixed later, but I got burned didn't want to try again. I wish they would have open sourced it, then maybe someone could have fixed it.
  • Google closed down Hello [hello.com], which I used a lot, a few days ago. Now GBS, which I also used (afaik no other system can sync sessions which is why I used it), is being wound up too. What's next? I'm pretty sure Gmail is safe, but I'm wondering if Picasaweb is going to be binned soon. Not that popular but I'm heavily invested.

    This is why online webapps have no future. If someone shuts down the service you're using, you're completely screwed.

  • Really? (Score:3, Informative)

    by sentientbrendan ( 316150 ) on Saturday June 14, 2008 @08:59PM (#23796089)
    >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.'

    That hasn't stopped google from keeping *every other items in googles product lineup*.

    Seriously though, google has *way* too many products, many of which are buggy, feature incomplete, and in perpetual beta status. It is about time they trimmed the fat in a big way and focused on improving their successful products, rather than trying to have a dinky and ignored entry in every category.

    Personally, I use:
    1. Search
    2. Ads
    3. Gmail (still in beta and now falling behind the competition...)
    4. Reader (which, in terms of design, is probably the best google app ever)
    5. Google groups (pretty good, but could see a lot of improvement)
    6. Youtube (which has also fallen *way* behind the competition in terms of video resolution).

    These are the products they need to improve, instead of letting every engineer scratch his personal itch.

  • Why should they keep it?
    They can't serve advertisements that way.

    I've put Feedburner.com, another Google non-advert-serving venture, on my dot-com death watch list, too, for the same reason.

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