Firefox Sync vs. Xmarks
The "Mozilla Weave" extension was recently brought out of beta testing and renamed Firefox Sync. I decided to try it out, and compare it to the add-in that I currently use for browser sync, Xmarks. 
First, the similarities: Both Xmarks and Firefox Sync work basically the same. You install a browser extension, and your bookmarks, passwords, and open tabs are kept in sync across all your browser instances (each browser on each computer that you use). This is accomplished by keeping a master copy on a server. Both Xmarks and Firefox Sync will host your data, or, for advanced users, will allow you to set up and use your own server.There are a number of differences between the services, however:
First off, Firefox Sync doesn't work with Chrome, MSIE, Safari, or Opera, at least not yet. Xmarks works in pretty much any browser. I don't anticipate that this will be the case for too much longer, but it is worth mentioning at this stage.
The major difference between the two services is encryption. Both services encrypt the data that you send to their servers so that no one can snoop in on the traffic as it's sent over the Internet. The difference is that Xmarks can read your data on their server, and Firefox Sync cannot.
Firefox Sync encrypts your data on the client side (before it leaves the browser), and therefore its servers have no access to the data that it stores. The obvious advantage to this approach for the user is that you don't need to worry that they will sell your data, or analyze it, or do anything with it other than store it for you and allow you to retrieve it. If the servers get hacked, there won't be anything usable on them. If Mozilla turns evil and wants to snoop on you, they can't: they don't have the decryption key. You do, and it was never sent to them.
This is not to say that Xmarks' approach is a bad one. Yes, Xmarks can read your data. Therefore they can enable you to easily share portions of it. They can also provide you with easy access to your bookmarks on their website, for those instances when you don't control the browser you're using. They also keep a history of changes, so you can restore from back before you shortsightedly deleted that folder a few months (or even years) ago.
The Xmarks approach isn't all good, though. They have "discovery" features that I prefer to turn off, since their business model relies on "recommending" links, their extension will alter search results pages by default in order to show you their recommendations. Still, you can turn them off, which prevents it from being a real negative in my book.
So, what am I going to use going forward? Both, at least for now. As you can see from the screenshots above, I have disabled password and tab syncing with Xmarks, and only use that for bookmarks. This enables me to easily share certain content, use profiles, and manage my bookmarks from the web interface. There's no reason for me to have my passwords on anyone else's server in an accessible form, or my currently open tabs, for that matter, so I'm using Firefox Sync for that. Firefox Sync is also set up to sync my History, Preferences, and Settings, which is something that Xmarks can't do.
I'm syncing my bookmarks to Xmarks on my Linux box only (which is always on, and usually has Firefox open), that way it will keep up-to-date with changes that happen over Firefox Sync which is enabled and syncing everything on all of my Firefox browsers. I'm currently not doing much with Xmarks profiles, but if I want to use them in the future, I can have Xmarks handle bookmarks sync on the browsers with non-default profiles. I use Firefox by default, but I also occasionally use other browsers, so I have Xmarks set up on non-Mozilla browsers as well.
Posted by burndive at 6/10/2010 12:33:00 AM
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