Mozilla launches beta of Firefox sync service

 

Gallery

By Barry Collins

Posted on 30 Jul 2009 at 17:40

Mozilla Labs has unveiled a beta service that synchronises bookmarks, passwords and web history across multiple browsers.

Dubbed Weave Sync, the service is intended to keep your home and work PCs, as well as mobile browsers, synchronised with the same data.

This is particularly handy for Firefox's "Awesome Bar", where you only have to type the first few characters of a web address before the browser auto-suggests previously visited sites. Using Weave, you'd have access to the same address bar data and bookmarks at both work and home.

Users will also be able to pick up from where they left off on another PC, with the option to open a tab that's also open in another browser.

Mozilla Labs claims all the data sent via Weave is encrypted, so that passwords and other sensitive data aren't compromised.

Weave steps on the toes of existing Firefox plug-ins such as Xmarks (formerly Foxmarks), which synchronises bookmarks and passwords across multiple browsers.

You can download Weave 0.5 from the Mozilla Labs site.

You'll find Xmarks and nine other superb Firefox Add-ons in PC Pro's Firefox Essentials Pack.