Google Browser Sync

For the majority of my Internet browsing life, I have been the user of multiple computers. I use a browser at work, I use a browser at home, I use a browser at the university, and I use a browser at other people’s computers. Managing the cookies, passwords, and bookmarks between these various locations has been difficult, if not downright annoying.

For example, I have some web sites that I use that require me to sign in with some obscure username and password. It is nice to have the browser memorize these for me, automatically inserting them when I need them. Also, it is often the case that I’m talking with a friend about a cool new site that I found, only to forget the address of it, and not have my bookmarks handy to pull the page up.

I have tried using services such as del.icio.us in the past, and while those sites have their merits, what I was really looking for was a synchronization of all aspects of my browsing. Little did I know that Google was working on something to fill that exact void.

Google Browser Sync.

I have been using this program for the past year now. It is amazing. I can choose to have my history, cookies, passwords, and bookmarks (or any combination) synced between an unlimited number of computers. This is an add-on for the Firefox web browser, but sadly is not available through their add-ons dialogue. You must go to Google themselves to get this addition, the website is http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/browsersync/

The tool has built-in security features, including double password authentication and encryption. It must be installed on each machine that you are syncing, but the setup is not hard, and takes a couple of minutes on most machines. I even have a version running on my portable Firefox app on my thumbdrive (perhaps explained in another post), that I keep on my keychain at all times. This way, if I am at a computer that I don’t normally use (like in a computer lab), I can plug in my thumbdrive and *presto!*, I have all of my bookmarks and passwords right there in that browser.

Since using this add-on, I have saved time looking for a bookmark that I already discovered while at another computer, and it also saves me the headache of trying different passwords over and over until I found the right one. With Google Browser Sync, I am always surfing from a familiar browser, no matter which computer I find myself at.