How reliable is firefox sync
Is firefox sync very very very reliable? It's difficult to get an index on how it's doing for people, as there does not seem to be any central location where people post with any support issues for it. There are reports of some issues here, but I still can't get a handle on how the current ff sync is doing for folks.
I have been using xmarks for quite a few years. A half year ago, I fault xmarks for really fouling up my bookmarks, though it's hard to be sure it was the root of the issue. Recently I reformatted my notebook and I can't get xmarks to run the initial sync from it on the server. I've been curious about ff sync and thought maybe this would be the time to check it out. However if it is not extremely reliable might stick with xmarks. With xmarks the only usage pattern I'm confident in now is to always sync one way up to the server from my main pc, and only download full sets to the other pcs that I use.
All Replies (19)
There is a search engine in the upper-right of every page in the forum. Search for Sync to see what you can find in this website. Or use the Advanced Search feature here:https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/search?a=2&q=
Also, you could use Google to search for Sync; this forum software doesn't prevent Google from searching this forum and then indexing those search results. Then you would be getting search results from across the internet.
If you're looking for a personal opinion from another Firefox Sync user; if you are the same person who asked about this over at mozillaZine on July 6th and then again this morning - don't use Sync, I think you'll be disappointed with it.
Yes I'm the same person. It's very difficult to interpret 'some' postings about how sync works, since the product has been in existence for years, and has just had was is purported to be a major revision.
I suppose there is some chance that you're the same the-edmeister that responded to me on mozillazine <g>. There, you didn't post any negative comments about ff sync. But here you're guessing that I might be disappointed by it. Can you explain?
The kind of feedback I'm hoping for is something like: there are 2 million users of the current ff sync, and very few report issues with it. Since ff is an open project I'd hope that someone in the know might be willing to offer that kind of information.
In your case, what you posted 'over there' is that you don't organize your bookmarks, and don't save many new ones these days. To me that means you might not be the best benchmark user for a case like my intended use.
I don't expect to hear 'facts' about ff sync, good or bad, but do hope that someone somewhere has either extensive personal experience with it, or has insight into how the project works for the probable many thousands that use it day to day.
There are millions of Firefox Sync users, and honestly, the amount of complaints we get is fairly low. It's a reliable service, and get's more reliable with every release. The state of Sync pre-29 was pretty sad, it's far better now and just keeps improving.
I'm not sure why ed says you'll be disappointed, but on the user feedback side we've a significant increase in positive feedback about Sync since 29.
Thank you Tyler that is exactly the kind of feedback I was hoping for.
I will try ff sync.
Do you know if it would be safe to use ff sync for my main sync, and keep xmarks on board only to sync up to the xmarks server? Not knowing how either system works in detail, I have been guessing this would be safe. I have heard many times that the two sync tools ought not to be used together, but am hoping that one way sync from one pc to the xmarks server might be safe.
I wouldn't use two Sync tools, there are just too many chances for something to go wrong.
What is the appeal of Xmarks for you? If you have multiples computers and android devices, Firefox Sync can connect all of those devices. Give Firefox Sync a try, remove xmarks, and see if it works for you. You can always re-install xmarks later if you don't like it.
The main benefit for using Firefox Sync is that it is likely to less negatively impact performance than xmarks since it's built into Firefox.
The main reason I might want to keep the one way sync to the xmarks server is that the links are available on my account there in a browser. But that feature is rarely used by myself, so I can live without it. A theoretical advantage of xmarks is that it can sync between browsers, but I've never done that because it didn't work for me whenever I did try it (a fair while ago) and there are many issues reported around cross browser sync.
I wasn't sure from your post that I'd made it clear that I would never sync firefox bookmarks with xmarks. I'd only use it to update the xmarks server. So it's not exactly using two sync tools, and yet it is.
Your input is much appreciated.
So I've uninstalled xmarks on the pcs and enabled ff sync on two of them. I have not had any issues with bookmarks being scrambled which is good.
But ss far as I can deduce, ff sync DOES interfere with ordinary operations in firefox. Since enabling ff sync, and no other ff config changes, I've noticed general lag times with bookmark and browser operations.
- A change to a bookmarks name property can take up to 10 seconds to be applied to the bookmark name in the list, after clicking "Save" - Dragging an open tab into the Bookmarks sidebar can seem to not work, until the new bookmark suddenly shows up after a delay (10 seconds max) - The browser can become unresponsive for some time.
I have about 21k bookmarks. Maybe it works better if you have 2-3k bookmarks?
There is also a lack of control with ff sync. With xmark I can turn off auto sync and invoke when I want to. ff sync works automatically and I don't see a way to push a sync. I have seen talk of controlling the interval between sync ops but don't see a control point in the UI and didn't investigate further.
I hope the hanging/delay thing is not something one is expected to live with?
Modified by sparrowtwo
Type about:config in the URL bar and hit Enter.
Type autoconnect in the "search" field at the the top.
services.sync.autoconnect - double-click that pref to toggle it to false
Then restart Firefox.
Sync is now a manual operation.
Thanks for the tip. But at least in my ff (windows 7, ff 30) there is no autoconnect setting. I don't recognize anything under services.sync that is like that.
That pref will only appear in a Profile where Sync has been setup, so if you have multiple Profiles look in the Profile where Sync is setup.
This is the profile that has sync enabled.
Then create that as a new preference in about:config, by right-click on any preference and select New and select Boolean for the type. Type in that pref name and set it as false.
OK, I have that config option set to false in both ff that have sync. I restarted both browsers.
I noticed that they browsers still sync at least at startup, and maybe at other times. Is a startup sync still enabled if services.sync.autoconnect is turned off?
The other thing that concerns me was uncovered when I moved two bookmarks to a new folder. First, the two ff sync'd, and second, one of the two bookmarks didn't make it. I searched for that link and found a copy were I had not moved it to. This makes me think that I had that bookmark twice and when I moved one of them it simply deleted it. I'm not positive about this behavior, but if I recall earlier versions of ff allowed multiple copies of the same bookmark (different folders or not) and at some point ff started eliminating 'duplicate' bookmarks by default. I use an add on to defeat that behavior. Does ff sync kill duplicate bookmarks?
Also ff is still super laggy, mostly bookmarks stall a lot, navigating through them I mean.
Modified by sparrowtwo
I'm not seeing any references in the Firefox source code that this pref is supported in current releases.
cor-el, that looks to be correct - that pref is no longer supported.
I have taken a look at the actions of the 4 Profiles (one for each "Channel" version) that I am using with my 3rd Sync test account, and have discovered that Sync works upon Firefox launch and every 4 minutes thereafter - even on the Profile where I (thought I) had autoconnect disabled.
Then...I am not sure that ff sync is going to work for me. Combined, the negative factors appear to be substantial. I hope Tyler or some other mozilla sync engineer can provide a little more input on this matter. I can't really understand how ff sync is viable for anyone who is 'serious' about bookmarks.
- there is little control over the sync process - ff sync makes firefox far less responsive as a browser - ff sync may automatically 'de-dupe' bookmarks
Does anyone know about the possible removal of 'duplicate' bookmarks?
It is probably best to unlink (disconnect) temporarily from Sync if you perform such actions to clean up bookmarks.
- Bookmark Deduplicator: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/bookmark-deduplicator/
- Bookmark Duplicate Cleaner: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/bookmark-duplicate-cleaner/
If you think about using Sync as a backup then best is to forget about that as Sync isn't designed to work that way and it can fail at any time. Best is to backup your personal data yourself locally or one reliable cloud service on internet.
No I don't use any de-dupe add ons. In my post up above I believe I saw ff sync remove a link that it may have regarded as a duplicate (since an identical bookmark existed in another folder.)
No ff sync for backup, just keeping 2 or 3 pcs in sync.