How about syncing extensions ?

1) History, passwords, open tabs and windows
2) cookies
3) Form data, extensions ( Delete or Edit)

1. Extensions
2. History
3. Passwords (although personally not needed as I use Roboform which I LOVE and hence don't need anything else to sort out passwords. Roboform uses Goodsync to sync the files needed when using USB sticks etc.
4. All the rest, no particular preference ( Delete or Edit)

Extensions, extensions, extensions! ( Delete or Edit)

Synchin open tabs would be great. Usually have about a dozen tabs open in firefox at work (if I close 'em I forget em!!!) - Joe. ( Delete or Edit)

Joe, you could just do a "Bookmark all tabs" and save in a predefined folder - "Open Tabs" seems like an obvious name. Foxmarks will sync it and then you can just go to another machine and "Open all in Tabs" on that folder. Of course, this is a manual process. Also, you lose page navigation functions ("Back" button), so it's not like recreating the session. ( Delete or Edit)

I would put these in this order :
Bookmarks
Extensions/Add-Ons
Themes
Form Data
Cookies
Passwords
Search History
History
Open tabs
Open windows ( Delete or Edit)

extensions and its options!!! ( Delete or Edit)

1) Extensions, hands down.
2) General Firefox settings (how tabs behave, security settings, home page, application behavior, etc)
3) Search History
4) History
5) Bookmarks / passwords
6) Other stuff. ( Delete or Edit)

1. Open tabs (absolutely must for me, work-home issue)
2. Extensions
3. Cookies
4. Passwords ( Delete or Edit)

I found this tread while looking for a way to synchronize the NoScript extension automatically.
(mainly the whitelist info stored in the file prefs.js)
1)NoScript data. Finding a way to automatically synchronize these settings between different computers and different users would be gold and tops my list.
1) NoScript data.
2) Bookmarks (already done)
3)Extensions
4)History
5)Passwords (done)
6)Cookies
7)Form Data
8)Open tabs
9)Open windows
10)Search History ( Delete or Edit)

Extensions is number one on my list. I like the other suggestions, too, and I'm not partial about their order. Thanks. ( Delete or Edit)

Priorities for backup and synchronization:

(1) Bookmarks (DONE). Essentially impossible to recreate in toto from scratch.

(2) "Non-extension" Firefox customizations (non-default settings in Firefox Options, about:config, userChrome.css, search engines, etc.). Very difficult to remember and time-consuming to replicate from scratch.

(3) Extension options. A time-consuming hassle to replicate manually.

Priority of individual extensions' options:
(a) Speed Dial. Custom groups and dials can be almost as hard as bookmarks to remember and recreate from scratch.
(b) NoScript. Site permissions are a major, time-consuming hassle to re-enter manually.
(c) GreaseMonkey. Scripts can be a major, time-consuming hassle to re-install manually.
(d) Tab Mix Plus. "Muscle memory" of tab behavior is highly dependent on customized settings; a moderate hassle to remember and recreate manually.

(4) Extensions. A potentially time-consuming hassle to remember and install from scratch.

(5) Cookies. A moderate hassle to re-enter passwords and rebuild things like site preferences and shopping carts from scratch.

(6) Passwords (DONE). A moderate hassle to retrieve and re-enter.

(7) Open tabs and windows. Inconvenient or impossible to recreate manually on a second computer; manual workarounds exist (session bookmarks), but automation is better.

(8) History. Sometimes useful to have on hand.

(9) Form data. Inconvenient to re-enter manually.

(10) Search History. Sometimes useful to have on hand.

(11) Themes. Slightly inconvenient to remember and install a non-default theme from scratch.

Many thanks for a great extension and for the Foxmark team's exemplary responsiveness!

-- Peter ( Delete or Edit)

I absolutely love this extension. I now have Firefox and IE sync up on my PC what I would really appreciate is a Safari version for the PC.

Also I agree with PCMartin's requests but if you can't do them all here are my preferences.

1) History, open tabs and windows
2) cookies (This is a maybe)
3) extensions

I use RoboForm and have for years wouldn't know what to do without it considering I manage over 100 websites for clients. Not sure if it would be wise to trust all my passwords to an online service. (no offense). ( Delete or Edit)

Synced history is crucial to me. I use GMane and Nabble to read mailing lists and they rely on browser history as the only mechanism to determine what messages I've already read. ( Delete or Edit)

I agree wit comment above in everything, open tabs sync is a MUST HAVE. ( Delete or Edit)

FEBE's only a partial solution to the problem... The best way is saving the data somewhere online, allowing you to access it anywhere. ( Delete or Edit)

I would add form data to your list. ( Delete or Edit)

The new FEBE supports automatic box.net backup and storage but where I live box.net CRAWLS. It's a good site, but needs better mirroring management. ( Delete or Edit)

I really think it would be overkill to sync everything. Just to much data; history comes to mind.

Bookmarks, passwords, search engines. These are the most important things. Saving extensions and settings would also be great :) ( Delete or Edit)

I second that. Also, being able to search browser history is incredibly useful. I have been trying to find something that does it well for firefox for ages (Infoaxe does it, but not well). It would be really great if you implement this feature soon as well. As for these extra features being too much for some people, there is already an option to turn certain syncs off so there is no problem there. ( Delete or Edit)

Hi Nacho,

I disagree with you, not only is it not a must it is not required. All I want is for my list of extensions to be named. I would let the normal firefox extension update mechanism take care of the rest.

Ideally, it would be nice to be able to remove some extensions from being used. Let's say you use a dubious extension at home (for say downloading films P2P), well it would be nice to tell the sync mechanism to NOT sync that one extension. ( Delete or Edit)

Hmm. Is it really likely that Google will ever enable messing with ads and banners and such? Doubt it.
Chrome is developed and handled by a firm that profits solely from web ads. Enabling script/iframe/ad blockers seems like their worst nightmare.
So, slick as it may be, the only truly & fully open-source and therefore user-biased browser would be Firefox. ( Delete or Edit)

Hi Dee,

I don't quite agree with you on this one: let me explain:
Google profits massively from ads, this is true, in fact I would love to know their daily income from ads, but one thing puts google far above the competition. They pride themselves on having non-intrusive ads, so no banners and no flashing gimmicks just a line of text placed smartly on a webpage, or a text column dedicated to paying subscribers (on google search). The number of times I have used GMail and simply not noticed the ads is amazing.

As such I do not believe they have anything against blocking banners, in fact if they suppress the blocking of banners they might lose customers.

Just my two pennies... ( Delete or Edit)

John, I don't think that extension synchronization at that level is even worthwhile. Someone on another thread suggested this, and this is what I do. I have a bookmarks folder that contains links to the download sites of all of the extensions that I use. When I go to a new machine, I just download Foxmarks, sync, then "open all in tabs" on that folder. Pretty simple to quickly plow through the installation that way. But extensions like Tabmix Plus introduce quite a few configuration options, and that is what can become time consuming. And, of course, I can never remember which options to check, so I end up with the browser behaving differently. So I think the real value is not just automating the install of the extensions but also the configuration of those extensions. But syncing just the install would be a good place to start. ( Delete or Edit)

Hi John and JD,
That was an interesting point made, JD, in fact the answer is simpler than you think. The thing to sync in this case is NOT the extension or its settings rather you want to sync the ENTIRE set of variables within firefox. Whilst this might seem daunting at first, it really is (AFAIK) just a list of key/value pairs in text form. If THAT could be synced (and there is no reason why not) you can sync the entire browser in one fell swoop. Great idea actually.

So don't attach that level of syncing on a per-extension level, just do it globally and make the tool separate from Foxmarks as it really IS a new tool... ( Delete or Edit)

Phillo,

I see what you are saying. You are talking about the values that are displayed in the about:config page are you not? I wasn't even aware that extensions stored their configuration data in there, but I checked a couple and found the extension configuration options in there. This is apparently stored in the prefs.js file in the profile folder. Hmmm..... ( Delete or Edit)

Ok, I just stumbled across FEBE (Firefox Environment Backup Extension). This might just perform the extension synchronization functions inasmuch as it will export your preferences. It lacks the capability of making them available on-line and automatic syncronization. See also the description of the companion extension, CLEO: "CLEO will package all your backed up extensions and themes into a single, installable .xpi file."
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/fire... ( Delete or Edit)

FEBE 6.1 beta has an online integration agreement with box.net for online backup/restore. so this can solve the online sync across multiple devices for FF extensions. ( Delete or Edit)

Thanks dekky1. I installed it and dug into it's capabilities a little bit. It looks like it holds some promise. The companion extension, OPIE, is the piece that syncs extension preferences. As Phillo pointed out, these are typically stored along with other FF variables in the prefs.js file. I need to spend a little more time with it. One thing that seems to be lacking is automation. With FM, I pretty much configure it and forget about it. It just happens. FEBE is a manual or scheduled process. However, it does show that syncing extensions along with preferences is very possible. Ideally this functionality would be integrated with FM and happen automatically, just like bookmark synchronization. ( Delete or Edit)

Using a list of bookmarks to remember what extensions you have isn't a bad idea, but it's not really a solution. I use Foxmarks because I'm lazy :).

I don't try to remember my passwords or my bookmarks and I'd probably forget to keep the bookmark folder that contains the extensions updated.

The FEBE way is ok, but it might turn into a mess. Some extensions don't work on Windows, some don't work on Mac OS. What if you accidentally install an extension that does not work in one OS? You might crash Firefox; you might just break something and not even know it's not working correctly (for instance, some themes stop showing different elements of the UI if they aren't designed for a particular version of Firefox or for a particular OS). ( Delete or Edit)

Well, just because you don't want it doesn't mean it isn't a good idea to have it as an option. For Form Data I would really recommend Roboform, as it very securely stores passwords and links username, website and password in one file (encrypted). So if I click the Ebay link, it starts a new tab, opens the login page for Ebay and logs me in, all from the one click... genius!! And the personal data function is way better than the others I have seen.

As for syncing only some bookmarks that is already implemented in the profiles part of Foxmarks, set up two profiles, one for work bookmarks and one for private ones and then just use different profiles at different locations. Personally I don't mind mixing both and just collapsing the folders I am not using. Of course if you have some really dirty bookmarks... ;) -- I can see the need.

And until extensions are synced I can only suggest doing what another user here suggested. Bring up all the install pages of your add-ins and save them into one bookmarks folder. If you get to a fresh computer setup foxmarks to get the bookmarks and then open that folder to new tabs and install them all. Simple!! ( Delete or Edit)

lq, I don't think that anyone is suggesting that the add-on itself be stored in a Foxmarks DB. ( Delete or Edit)

agree :-) ( Delete or Edit)

agree :-) ( Delete or Edit)

Even just a list of extensions would be very useful for me. Adding extensions is easy; the hard part is remembering what extensions I use. ( Delete or Edit)

I agree with this view, in fact mozilla recommend when migrating profiles that if there are any problems the first thing you do is remove prefs.js. I think for security reasons only urls from addons.mozilla.org should be synced and installation should take place through the normal firefox UI, nothing happening without user intervention.

My list:
History
Search plugins including keywords and menu order
Extensions

Don't care about:
Cookies
Forms
Seatch history
Tabs / windows / sessions

About history, I used to keep my history for one day only, since the awesomebar I keep it for 90 days and use it more than bookmarks now. It's become utterly indispensable. ( Delete or Edit)

Profiles should help in keeping home and office tabs separate. ( Delete or Edit)

Good point. But most of us don't have more that one home computer or more than one office computer, so you wouldn't need to remember the tabs on the same computer. ( Delete or Edit)

Good point. But most of us don't have more that one home computer or more than one office computer, so you wouldn't need to remember the tabs on the same computer. ( Delete or Edit)

I've been monitoring this thread for some tie now, and apparently many people seem to yearn for session syncing ("open tabs").
Unlike the other items on that priority list, this is already partially solved once you can sync bookmarks.
It may require a small manual labour, but all you have to do when you're done with your workday (or whatever) is to save all tabs to a bookmark folder (an option that comes with Firefox from the box) - and that's that. Since bookmarks are automatically synced with Foxmarks anyways, you can go back home and re-open everything.

Now here;s the thing - some people (me included) might have two (or more) Firefox sessions open on different computers, with Foxmarks sync working in the background and compare the two.
Syncing open tabs, however, would probably turn out to be quite a problem to maintain with this type of workflow. The only possibility (except havng random tabs appearing and disappearing during work) would be to do so at browser shutdown only - which would only be able to save the tabs from the browser that was closed *last*.

I hope I'm not blabbering. If I am - sorry for wasting your time. I'm only trying to avoid a state in which developers would waste valuable time over something that can be worked around quite easily. ( Delete or Edit)

Thanks for the quick tip, Eric!
However, it seems that it doesn't support add-on's definitions/settings (as far as I see in its homepage) + yet another potential privacy hogger.
Oh how I wish for Weave to develop already. ( Delete or Edit)