Syncing firefox bookmarks and passwords

[juergen_harms]

I am sharing my firefox bookmarks and passwords between several machines on my LAN. In the past, xmarks (foxmarks) - using my own server - has been an ideal tool. But xmarks has now withdrawn the support for password-syncing on private local servers: Lastpass company policy imposes to use the remote server operated by Lastpass - and it is against my principles to trust my passwords to "some stranger" - moreover, who tries to impose his service.

Firefox sync would be an alternative - but when I first explored this question some time ago, I saw remarks about very negative experiences with the reliability of Firefox sync (like "I now and again lost all my boomarks").

Is there experience with Firefox sync in the community? Are there other solutions to be explored? First priority is syncing bookmarks and passwords between Mageia systems, but second priority would be to also include a Windows machine.

[House]

But xmarks has now withdrawn the support for password-syncing on private local servers...

As recently as this morning, Xmarks current version (3.9.9) works just fine with a local server.

And even if that changes at some point, you can always use an older version of Xmarks to sync locally.

[juergen_harms]

current version (3.9.9) works just fine with a local server

Are you sure? No question about syncing bookmarks. But for passwords the checkbox in the "Sync" tab has gone and is replaced by a link suggesting to install LastPass. Although the URL for the password storage still can be set in the "Advanced" tab, I have not seen any password syncing.

Older versions: firefox 4 support does not go back very far (and firefox 5 will come in a couple of weeks) - according to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/xmarks-sync/versions/ password support has been removed at version 3.9.5 (february).

At the moment, I have ended up with a quite satisfactory workaround: I continue to use xmarks for syncing bookmarks, and synchronize my passwords by using rsync on the key3.db and the signons.sqlite files in the mozilla profile folder.

[House]

No question about syncing bookmarks. But for passwords the checkbox in the "Sync" tab has gone

Ooops. I don't sync passwords (except in my head), so I don't honestly know what XMarks' status is in that regard.

Older versions: firefox 4 support does not go back very far (and firefox 5 will come in a couple of weeks)

From where I sit, this whole business of "add-on compatibility" has become a joke. Most reports of "incompatibility" aren't actually true. It's mostly a bookkeeping thing. And, as you so correctly point out, the situation will only become worse with the newly aggressive release schedule. I put an end to it all by installing this extension. It disables the alarmist "incompatibility" reports, and lets the user decide if an add-on is truly incompatible.

Anyway, glad you found a workaround you like.

[ahmad]

From where I sit, this whole business of "add-on compatibility" has become a joke. Most reports of "incompatibility" aren't actually true. It's mostly a bookkeeping thing. And, as you so correctly point out, the situation will only become worse with the newly aggressive release schedule. I put an end to it all by installing this extension. It disables the alarmist "incompatibility" reports, and lets the user decide if an add-on is truly incompatible.

Anyway, glad you found a workaround you like.

A bit off-topic:
Not necessarily a bad thing, they probably prefer to err on the safe side, as an addon can't be broken with a new firefox version.

FWIW, you can do away with that addon and add the pref manually: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Extensions.checkCompatibility
(though it's mostly useful for when using Nightly/Aurora builds and the compatibility addon itself isn't "compatible" and needs an update :)).

[House]

In what is almost certainly my last contribution to the Mageia forums, I thought I'd share this cautionary note about security at LastPass:

http://blog.lastpass.com/2011/05/lastpa ... ation.html

(Apologies to those who already saw it on /.)

[House]

FWIW, you can do away with that addon and add the pref manually: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Extensions.checkCompatibility

The disadvantage to that workaround is that it's version-specific (as noted on the Mozilla KB page above). In contrast, the add-on is version-agnostic.