CNET Editors' review
There are several excellent bookmark-syncing extensions for Firefox, but Weave is the first one designed by Mozilla. As you might expect from the company that produces Firefox itself, the appeal of Weave is that it synchronizes more than just bookmarks, and also supports syncing open tabs, history, passwords, preferences, and Firefox 3's advanced Location Bar data.
The add-on lives in your Tools menu and in your Options menu. From there you can check your syncing log, create a user account and password, and toggle sync settings. The default is to sync all. But in practice, Weave has had a rough development history, and the road ahead hasn't yet been smoothed out. All the features that it is supposed to sync worked in our tests except for tabs, and the add-on still has compatibility problems with certain high-profile security add-ons such as AdBlock Plus and NoScript. These are easy to disable and then re-enable to get a one-time sync of key data such as passwords, but prevent Weave from being a reliable tool. Also note that the tab sync is only supposed to work with 25 or fewer active tabs.
Mozilla says that future versions will sync add-ons, personal tweaks including any changes made to the about:config, and across mobile devices. Weave will be a great tool for Firefox once it's working flawlessly, but it's not there yet.
Publisher's Description
From Mozilla:
Firefox Sync (formerly Weave) is a Firefox add-on that is aimed at exploring this opportunity. Some of the key functionality enabled by Firefox Sync includes a synchronization engine to securely transport your browsing experience across all your devices, a cryptographic engine to provide default client side encryption for all your data, and the Firefox Sync server, and a secure storage location for all your encrypted data.
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All versions:
2.2 starsout of 4 votes
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Current version:
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Results 1-4 of 4
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"Careful, might make a mess of your bookmarks..."
Version: Firefox Sync 1.6.2
Pros
Nice idea. Give users a free service for backing up their data and sync it between devices and systems, via Mozilla's servers or via your own server(s).
Cons
Terrible execution. As can be seen in the user reviews on the home page of this add-on:
https://addons.mozilla.org/nl/firefox/addon/firefox-sync/#reviews
A two star rating from the users on it's own add-on page, it speaks volumes about the quality.Summary
Mozilla developers clearly dropped the ball, here. At present, the service is unreliable, could make a complete mess of your bookmarks and if you do not have a recent back-up of your bookmarks, you are toast...
And even apart from the reliability (if that's not bad enough), there's also much left to be desired in the field of personal configuration, the User Interface, available features and performance in general.
The irony could not be greater (a backup add-on from the Mozilla company that actually fails at it's job), and it baffles me that this add-on, and at this stage, will actually be incorporated within the new upcoming Firefox 4.
If you are going to use (or should I say, Beta-test) this add-on, make sure you've made an off-line backup of all your bookmarks! Otherwise, steer clear from this product.
How to make a (off-line) backup copy of your bookmarks? Yes, that's a somewhat hidden feature, but that's explained in detail here:
http://www.ehow.com/how_1000389_export-save-bookmarksexport-save-bookmarksexport-save-bookmarksexport-save-bookmarks.html -
"Keeps getting better, great stuff."
Version: Firefox Sync 1.5.1
Pros
Almost everything.
Cons
Still misses the odd bookmark and I need to read up on what it means by 'Pref's'.
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"It would be nice but it does not work (for me)"
Version: Firefox Sync 1.4.4
Pros
It would be very nice if it was working.
Cons
Unfortunately, it does not work for me on WinXP machines with FF 3.6. This is what I am getting: "Sync encountered an error while syncing: Unknown error", or (on another machine) "Server misconfiguration..."
Summary
It would be very useful, except, it does not work (for me).
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"haven't had time to take notice. Sorry"
Version: Firefox Sync 0.7
Pros
Don't know
Cons
Don't know
Summary
I neither like nor dislike the product. At the very least it is not sticking its 'thumb' in my eye. I have not had the opportunity to analyze, much explore the program. Give me another month or so.
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