Wuzhatnin

Google has announced that they will include a browser sync function in the latest version of the Chrome browser. Google introduced their first bookmark sync program in 2006 as a Firefox extension, which they unceremoniously dumped when they released their own browser. Since then, many Firefox users have tested Mozilla’s own Firefox extension for browser synchronization, called “Weave.”

I had also become hooked on Google Browser Sync for Firefox because it did a great job of keeping my bookmarks uniform from one computer to the next. There was a 3rd party Firefox extension called Foxmarks but it had a bad habit of locking up my Firefox Window during its sync process.  After Google ended the Browser Sync project, I switched to  Mozilla Weave in one of its earliest alpha versions. Using this extension quickly became troublesome when Mozilla decided to update to a new version and totally wiped the account data from their servers of everyone (including myself) who had been testing the product.  We were invited to continue testing the product but were required to create new accounts. The new account creation wizard was very tedious due to a draconian captcha procedure and after the product failed to knock my socks off, I stopped using it.

Now nearly two years later, Mozilla has updated the Weave extension to version .8.  Since this version was somewhat prominently announced and the buzz had it that the product was fairly mature now, I decided to try it again to see what progress had been made. I used it for 2 weeks starting the middle of October. I installed it on my Intel Core2Quad desktop computer at home and on my Dell Studio 17 laptop which goes to work with me daily.  The results?  In a word, disappointment.

Some of the bookmarks on my laptop appeared on my desktop. Some of the bookmarks on my desktop appeared on my laptop. Some bookmarks made redundant copies on both systems and worst of all, some bookmarks disappeared all together. For example, my desktop had a large categorized bookmark folder called “Shopping,” which had sub-folders such as Computer Manufacturers, Computer Parts Retailers, Electronics, Food/Wine, Clothing, Books, etc.  Both computers had this folder but the laptop had essentially a subset of the desktop’s “Shopping” folder.

One day I went to the Shopping folder on the desktop to click my Amazon.com bookmark and noticed that half of the sub-folders were gone. After some investigation, I found that the other half of the missing folders had suddenly moved to the folder underneath the “Shopping” folder called “TV & Radio.” I opened the bookmark organization tool and moved them back to Shopping. When I looked in the Shopping folder on the laptop, the Shopping folder had the individual bookmarks but no folders.  Then, my “Gaming” folder simply vanished in a proverbial puff of smoke.  Gone were all my bookmarks for clan servers, cheat codes, game walk-throughs, and download sites. Without my having moved this folder at all, it simply disappeared from both computers.

I continued to use Weave for another week hoping that it would stabilize after both systems contained synchronized data and that it would work with no further hiccups. Unfortunately, this did not happen. The bookmarks continued to move around. I would move folders together at the top of a sub-menu only to have them dispersed into random order when I rebooted the computer or restarted Firefox. My orderly, alphabetized lists would routinely be shuffled like a deck of cards. Folders would move around to different parts of the hierarchy or just disappear.

In summary, my experience with Mozilla Weave was sheer pain. Fortunately, I made backups of my bookmarks in both locations before installing Weave so about 1 week ago, I disabled Weave and restored my bookmark backups on both systems.

Once you get used to sync’ed browsers, it is hard to go back to the old ways of doing things. I was unwilling to give up the convenience of sync’ing browsers completely so I installed the latest, critically-acclaimed sync tool Foxmarks in its current incarnation, now called Xmarks. I believe the name change is owed to the tool’s availability on several platforms now including Windows, Mac, & Linux including versions for I.E., Firefox, and Safari.

After the nightmare that was Weave, I must say that Xmarks is positively miraculous. If you have not installed this extension and you use more than one computer, you need to stop whatever you are doing and install this add-on immediately. I started the Xmarks sync process from the exact same position as I did Weave. Its wizard is simple and promises you that no matter what, it will not delete any bookmarks. The folders on the two computers that were identically named were merged. Those folders that had no counterpart were copied over from one computer to the next. I combined the folders that were redundant on the desktop and pruned where necessary. This was a one-time process. After doing that, when I logged on the laptop again the bookmarks mirrored the changes I made on the desktop exactly.

Since then, the bookmarks have remained in sync. Additions or modifications on the one are quickly mirrored on the other. Name changes are carried over and any reorganizing or repositioning of folders or bookmarks are carried over perfectly, whether alphabetical or not.

Another great thing is that when I added a third browser under Linux,  the wizard asked me if I wanted to merge the current folder into the other two or to over-write one location completely. Since this was a freshly installed version of Ubuntu Linux, I did not have any bookmarks in the virgin browser worth keeping so I told it to just mirror the server. By the time I could close the wizard and navigate to a new page, the Bookmarks Toolbar had filled up with my usual set of icons. I opened the menu, and was very happy with what I saw.

Here is the golden rule on browser synchronizing that even a caveman can understand:
Weave bad; Xmarks good.

Xmarks can also synchronize your passwords with an encrypted connection. Add this to Mozilla’s add-on Collector and you have everything you need to make your browsing experience identical on every platform. Of course the add-on collector is only for those using Firefox. Isn’t it funny how it doesn’t occur to me that someone may not be using Firefox until now? That’s because even thinking about someone going online with some other, less secure, less capable browsers makes my head hurt. So if you haven’t tried it you are not only missing out, you are giving me a headache too.