crowning
Well-known member
...and while I'm at it at Google as well.
And when I'm done I'll do it again just to make sure I didn't miss anyone.
The task: synchronize bookmarks, settings and passwords to my OWN(!) server so nobody can get their filthy hands on it.
Solution 1: anno 2002 or so: upload stuff to own sftp-server, download where needed. Worked with Firefoy until they decided to introduced sqlite persistence and hashes to avoid a simple copy to a different Firefox installation.
Solution 2: ca. 2005: someone wrote a Firefox plug-in which used the plug-in API to synchronize everything. Also via sftp. Poor guy was a bit busy, though, because Mozilla changed the API every other month. But still, it worked like a charm until:
Solution 3: ca. 2010: Mozilla offered their own synchronization, so the guy from solution 2 went out of business. But, hey, you could setup your own Weave server (not trivial), but it worked. Life was good, until:
Solution 4: Mozilla decided to trash sync 1.0 with Firefox 29, and introduced sync 1.5. Which is not compatible to sync 1.1. Of course they offered again a solution to host your own server: you just have to install a sync 1.5 server, a Firefox Accounts server (which consists of the Firefox FXA auth-server and the Firefox FXA content-server) and be done. A major PITA to set them up and get them running. But they synchronize. Or not, depending on the current moon-phase. Mostly not. But hey, they have great manuals and Howtos. Howtos which start with (no kidding, see http://docs.services.mozilla.com/howtos/run-fxa.html):
I started to ask around a bit, and so far I couldn't find anyone who got that thing running.
Solution 5: forget Firefox, I'll use Google Chrome. And because Google Chrom is a bit verbose I use its open source brother, Chromium, which does not phone up Google with everything I do. And there's a nice little Python server available for those people who don't want to put their passwords into Google's cloud. Okay, the Python script is part of Google's Chrome repository, and it has a couple of dependencies to the rest of the repository. Actually, it has dependencies to EVERYTHING in that repository. After a bit of evaluation it looks like you have to set up a complete build-environment for Chrome just to get that script running. Repository is just 1.3 GB, so what could go wrong...
I seriously think now about implementing my own plug-in...for the browser which is the least annoying. Until they change the plug-in API to avoid long-term usage.
I wonder where the old engineering goals (make things better and easier to use) are gone...
And when I'm done I'll do it again just to make sure I didn't miss anyone.
The task: synchronize bookmarks, settings and passwords to my OWN(!) server so nobody can get their filthy hands on it.
Solution 1: anno 2002 or so: upload stuff to own sftp-server, download where needed. Worked with Firefoy until they decided to introduced sqlite persistence and hashes to avoid a simple copy to a different Firefox installation.
Solution 2: ca. 2005: someone wrote a Firefox plug-in which used the plug-in API to synchronize everything. Also via sftp. Poor guy was a bit busy, though, because Mozilla changed the API every other month. But still, it worked like a charm until:
Solution 3: ca. 2010: Mozilla offered their own synchronization, so the guy from solution 2 went out of business. But, hey, you could setup your own Weave server (not trivial), but it worked. Life was good, until:
Solution 4: Mozilla decided to trash sync 1.0 with Firefox 29, and introduced sync 1.5. Which is not compatible to sync 1.1. Of course they offered again a solution to host your own server: you just have to install a sync 1.5 server, a Firefox Accounts server (which consists of the Firefox FXA auth-server and the Firefox FXA content-server) and be done. A major PITA to set them up and get them running. But they synchronize. Or not, depending on the current moon-phase. Mostly not. But hey, they have great manuals and Howtos. Howtos which start with (no kidding, see http://docs.services.mozilla.com/howtos/run-fxa.html):
Idiots!
I started to ask around a bit, and so far I couldn't find anyone who got that thing running.
Solution 5: forget Firefox, I'll use Google Chrome. And because Google Chrom is a bit verbose I use its open source brother, Chromium, which does not phone up Google with everything I do. And there's a nice little Python server available for those people who don't want to put their passwords into Google's cloud. Okay, the Python script is part of Google's Chrome repository, and it has a couple of dependencies to the rest of the repository. Actually, it has dependencies to EVERYTHING in that repository. After a bit of evaluation it looks like you have to set up a complete build-environment for Chrome just to get that script running. Repository is just 1.3 GB, so what could go wrong...
I seriously think now about implementing my own plug-in...for the browser which is the least annoying. Until they change the plug-in API to avoid long-term usage.
I wonder where the old engineering goals (make things better and easier to use) are gone...
