Jun 10, 2006

Browser To Go!

If you are a FireFox & Google fan, then you sure will like this. Whatever Google says about Microsoft, its MSN search box and IE7, it doesn't matter because Google is also sailing almost in the same boat with respect to Firefox.

Well, I sure am a FireFox fan. So, I do wish my "Favorites" (Bookmarks) to walk with me and ofcourse, the same set of links arranged in the Firefox's Bookmarks Toolbar in all the systems I'm using:). Till now, the route I used is export & import. Probably, it's time to move over & start using some tools from Google and try to avoid such workarounds. What Say? It seems, Google Browser Sync is the solution provider - If this is installed in the machines, where I would like to browse then MY FireFox walks with me with my predefined settings! Okay! Sounds good!

And added to that, user has a choice of opening the same set of tabs/web pages too, which he/she had kept opened when FireFox was last used in probably a different system. Well, that brings up a new set of questions. Before using the Browser Sync, here are some privacy-security concerns.

  • If Browser Sync is installed in a public computer, is FireFox browser going to show up differently for every new Google user?
  • Are the user IDs and passwords (if I have set FireFox preference to store them), going to be stored in some central Google Database that is accessed over the net - once again for every different user going to use the system?
  • If I have logged into a bank account at one system's FireFox, go to another system with Browser Sync and open Firefox, is this new browser going to automatically log me into my bank site?
I know! I'm yet to go over the Privacy policies, the Terms & conditions of using Google Browser Sync. May be my concerns are addressed. Can you think of any others? - Something like people were so worried when GMail introduced Ads based on 'reading email contents'!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey, u r also a firefox fan. great coz i juz discovered how to hack firefox to make it faster. the method i discovered a week ago to make firefox faster didn't seem to work, but this one is a sure one. its easy and simple. i'm giving the method in the comment to follow.

Anonymous said...

Here is a small set of changes that has to be made to make your firefox browser upto ten times faster.

1. Type "about:config" into the address bar and hit enter. Scroll down and look for the following entries:

2. Alter the entries as follows:

Set "network.http.pipelining" to "true"
Set "network.http.proxy.pipelining" to "true"

set "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once.

3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and set its value to "0". This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it recieves.

Try this and you can see the difference ………..

Anonymous said...

Well I tried Google Browser Sync. You can configure what you want to sync. I choose bookmarks and open tabs alone. Works OK but startup takes a lot longer.

Anyway now I uninstalled it and went back to Foxmarks. This is an extension to sync just the bookmarks. It works more seamlessly. It also has an option to store the data in your own FTP servers.

http://www.foxcloud.com/wiki/Main_Page

Jagan M Narayanan said...

Hmmm... Got to give those 2 options a try!