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Passwords belong in a dedicated password manager. Besides those, I don't understand what I'd want to sync. I've even disabled syncing tabs between sessions on

Passwords belong in a dedicated password manager. Besides those, I don't understand what I'd want to sync. I've even disabled syncing tabs between sessions on the same machine. The last thing I need is for what I was doing yesterday to distract me from what I'm trying to do today. What I want in a browser is a dumb box that starts up as a blank slate every time, renders HTML and JavaScript, and is indistinguishable from all of the other dumb boxes that do so.

iudqnolq 3y ago
You might want all the configuration you did to make your browser a dumb box to be synced. For example, disabling showing recently viewed pages on the new tab page.
nickdandakis 3y ago
I actually wish Mozilla put out a dedicated password manager. They have Sync, and they have SoPS (or well, used to?). I'd gladly pay extra for it
- billyzs 3y ago
  There used to a standalone Firefox Password app for mobile but it got the axe.
  - OJFord 3y ago
    Lockwise. And it had way better UX when auto-fill didn't work, because for some reason about:logins doesn't work on mobile, so you have to hunt through a menu mess to copy the password manually from Firefox. I continued to use it (because they didn't stop it syncing) until I switched phone and so couldn't easily install it.
- bloopernova 3y ago
  I think that I'd prefer Firefox allow Bitwarden and other password tools to replace Firefox's password implementation. That way you'd get the UI/UX of integrated password management, but the single-source-authoritative backend too. (before someone points out that Bitwarden has an extension: I do know that, but I'd like to see more modular features in browsers rather than our-way-is-best)
oorza 3y ago
The FF address bar is an extremely unappreciated and under-praised search apparatus. I use it wholesale, dozens of times a day, and it can almost completely replace bookmarks (if you have a memory for titles and keywords), so it has for me, but the whole conceit only works if you sync history. Syncing bookmarks is similar in reasoning and just as valuable. Syncing history and bookmarks both and abusing the address bar's search feature means I can have a two-tiered sync system where things that get bookmarked become "read later, forget now" and things like a documentation page for an ORM's conventions don't need to be bookmarked and can still be near-instantly and directly visited. Syncing browser settings and extensions makes setting up a new machine or reinstalling or whatever trivially easy. Firefox felt right on my new work machine in a couple minutes. There's autocomplete for credit cards, personal details, and address information that you can manually curate and sync as well. I don't trust it with my CC info, but having Firefox (on all devices) know who I am and where I live has saved me three minutes here and there dozens of times.
KTibow 3y ago
My experience with using Firefox as my only password manager has been great. Aside from functioning as intended on my computer, it makes it easy to access them on Android (shortcut to passwords if you long-press the app, systemwide password provider integration)
lawn 3y ago
- Sync installed extensions - Sync configuration and settings Even with your quite unusual requirements, sync could still be beneficial if you use multiple machines.
- __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
  That's what nix is for.
  - lawn 3y ago
    On the phone as well? Impressive. Firefox sync may then only be for us regular mortals.
    - __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
      Alas, no. nix-on-droid runs in a proot, not as actual root. I've been meaning to put together something with actual root which reaches into nix-on-droid and does some kind of sync, but I'm not quite there yet.
      - __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
        My point is that synchronizing state between applications is not a problem that's unique to browser, and I'd rather use a generic tool for it. If each application implements it's own sync mechanism that's just a lot more work overall.
lelanthran 3y ago
> Besides those, I don't understand what I'd want to sync. I think it's useful to sync extensions, and personal configurations. For example, I have a userchrome.css (or something like that) file that, for the news.ycombinator.com domain enforces a maximum width on paragraphs, so that on my really really wide screen I don't get 900 characters per line, I get 78 or so. Without sync, I simply copy the files to the correct profile whenever I buy a new machine. With sync, I wouldn't have to.
- flexagoon 3y ago
  I don't think Firefox Sync manages userChrome though. I currently manage those files together with the rest of my dotfiles with Chezmoi: https://github.com/flexagoon/dotfiles/blob/main/.chezmoiexternals/firefox.toml https://github.com/flexagoon/dotfiles/blob/main/.chezmoiexte... https://github.com/flexagoon/dotfiles/tree/main/dot_config/firefox https://github.com/flexagoon/dotfiles/tree/main/dot_config/f...
  - lelanthran 3y ago
    > I don't think Firefox Sync manages userChrome though. Sadly, no. This is one of the bigger QoL features of a modern browser - automatically lock the important CSS declarations for specific domains to make things readable and usable for sites you visit the most. I use it to make sites readable (like HN), but there's some other things I think you can do. I mean, if you had a list of ad-serving domains (typically ads are served from a different domain to the content), you could set the ad divs to be invisible in some way (`width: 1px`, for example) and the anti-adblocking javascript wouldn't detect any adblocking going on. Autoplaying videos bothering you? Set the width and height for all video tags on specific domains to 1px. With CSS getting every more powerful, it opens up a range of opprtunities.
averageRoyalty 3y ago
Completely agree. But speaking to end users, syncing between devices is an extremely high importance feature to many of them, although rarely can they explain why. > What I want in a browser is a dumb box that starts up as a blank slate every time This is what I want from a TV too, and yet most people seem content buying ad-riddled, ACR enabled, streaming app pre-install, 20 second boot rubbish. I'm not sure you and I are the standard consumer market.

iudqnolq 3y ago

You might want all the configuration you did to make your browser a dumb box to be synced. For example, disabling showing recently viewed pages on the new tab page.

nickdandakis 3y ago

I actually wish Mozilla put out a dedicated password manager. They have Sync, and they have SoPS (or well, used to?). I'd gladly pay extra for it

billyzs 3y ago
There used to a standalone Firefox Password app for mobile but it got the axe.
- OJFord 3y ago
  Lockwise. And it had way better UX when auto-fill didn't work, because for some reason about:logins doesn't work on mobile, so you have to hunt through a menu mess to copy the password manually from Firefox. I continued to use it (because they didn't stop it syncing) until I switched phone and so couldn't easily install it.
bloopernova 3y ago
I think that I'd prefer Firefox allow Bitwarden and other password tools to replace Firefox's password implementation. That way you'd get the UI/UX of integrated password management, but the single-source-authoritative backend too. (before someone points out that Bitwarden has an extension: I do know that, but I'd like to see more modular features in browsers rather than our-way-is-best)

oorza 3y ago

The FF address bar is an extremely unappreciated and under-praised search apparatus. I use it wholesale, dozens of times a day, and it can almost completely replace bookmarks (if you have a memory for titles and keywords), so it has for me, but the whole conceit only works if you sync history. Syncing bookmarks is similar in reasoning and just as valuable. Syncing history and bookmarks both and abusing the address bar's search feature means I can have a two-tiered sync system where things that get bookmarked become "read later, forget now" and things like a documentation page for an ORM's conventions don't need to be bookmarked and can still be near-instantly and directly visited. Syncing browser settings and extensions makes setting up a new machine or reinstalling or whatever trivially easy. Firefox felt right on my new work machine in a couple minutes. There's autocomplete for credit cards, personal details, and address information that you can manually curate and sync as well. I don't trust it with my CC info, but having Firefox (on all devices) know who I am and where I live has saved me three minutes here and there dozens of times.

KTibow 3y ago

My experience with using Firefox as my only password manager has been great. Aside from functioning as intended on my computer, it makes it easy to access them on Android (shortcut to passwords if you long-press the app, systemwide password provider integration)

lawn 3y ago

- Sync installed extensions - Sync configuration and settings Even with your quite unusual requirements, sync could still be beneficial if you use multiple machines.

__MatrixMan__ 3y ago
That's what nix is for.
- lawn 3y ago
  On the phone as well? Impressive. Firefox sync may then only be for us regular mortals.
  - __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
    Alas, no. nix-on-droid runs in a proot, not as actual root. I've been meaning to put together something with actual root which reaches into nix-on-droid and does some kind of sync, but I'm not quite there yet.
    - __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
      My point is that synchronizing state between applications is not a problem that's unique to browser, and I'd rather use a generic tool for it. If each application implements it's own sync mechanism that's just a lot more work overall.

lelanthran 3y ago

> Besides those, I don't understand what I'd want to sync. I think it's useful to sync extensions, and personal configurations. For example, I have a userchrome.css (or something like that) file that, for the news.ycombinator.com domain enforces a maximum width on paragraphs, so that on my really really wide screen I don't get 900 characters per line, I get 78 or so. Without sync, I simply copy the files to the correct profile whenever I buy a new machine. With sync, I wouldn't have to.

flexagoon 3y ago
I don't think Firefox Sync manages userChrome though. I currently manage those files together with the rest of my dotfiles with Chezmoi: https://github.com/flexagoon/dotfiles/blob/main/.chezmoiexternals/firefox.toml https://github.com/flexagoon/dotfiles/blob/main/.chezmoiexte... https://github.com/flexagoon/dotfiles/tree/main/dot_config/firefox https://github.com/flexagoon/dotfiles/tree/main/dot_config/f...
- lelanthran 3y ago
  > I don't think Firefox Sync manages userChrome though. Sadly, no. This is one of the bigger QoL features of a modern browser - automatically lock the important CSS declarations for specific domains to make things readable and usable for sites you visit the most. I use it to make sites readable (like HN), but there's some other things I think you can do. I mean, if you had a list of ad-serving domains (typically ads are served from a different domain to the content), you could set the ad divs to be invisible in some way (`width: 1px`, for example) and the anti-adblocking javascript wouldn't detect any adblocking going on. Autoplaying videos bothering you? Set the width and height for all video tags on specific domains to 1px. With CSS getting every more powerful, it opens up a range of opprtunities.

averageRoyalty 3y ago

Completely agree. But speaking to end users, syncing between devices is an extremely high importance feature to many of them, although rarely can they explain why. > What I want in a browser is a dumb box that starts up as a blank slate every time This is what I want from a TV too, and yet most people seem content buying ad-riddled, ACR enabled, streaming app pre-install, 20 second boot rubbish. I'm not sure you and I are the standard consumer market.