Bookmark Sync With Firefox

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cuppettcj
Posts: 41
Joined: June 19th, 2008, 10:41 am

Bookmark Sync With Firefox

Post by cuppettcj »

I've been giving the new version of Firefox a spin lately because I've been reading good things about the speed and memory usage improvements with e10s enabled. I have to admit, maybe it's just the placebo effect, but it does seem faster and more responsive than I'm used to with SeaMonkey, especially when multiple tabs are open. I'm considering running Firefox and SeaMonkey side-by-side for a few months to see if Firefox is something I can migrate to should SeaMonkey ever stopped being supported.

Yet as I'm sure many of you already know, enabling legacy add-ons in Firefox disables e10s. One of my favorite ways to sync bookmarks between different browsers that I love to use is Xmarks, but unfortunately it is not e10s compatible and it looks like it may never be. As an alternative to Xmarks, I can turn on Firefox Sync to keep my bookmarks synced across Firefox installations on all of my computers and my phone, but AFAIK this service will not sync with SeaMonkey. Please correct me if I'm mistaken about this. I've never tried the SeaMonkey Sync service. Based on what I've read, it looks like current Firefox Sync is incompatible with current SeaMonkey Sync.

Assuming that the Sync service will not work in between Firefox and SeaMonkey, I was thinking of alternatives or workarounds to Xmarks that I can use to keep all of my bookmarks in sync across all of my browsers and devices. I've come up with a couple of ideas.

One idea that I came up with is to keep separate profiles of Firefox on each of my computers: one profile with e10s enabled and without Xmarks, another profile with Xmarks and e10s disabled. I would then use Firefox Sync to keep the bookmarks between the profiles synced, and then use Xmarks on the one profile to sync with SeaMonkey. However, I have two major concerns about this solution.
  • I'm very concerned that Xmarks and Firefox Sync will conflict and cause my bookmarks to go haywire. Back when I used to use Google Chrome, I recall very bad things would happen when I left the default Google sync on for bookmarks while Xmarks was enabled. Has anybody tried using Xmarks and Firefox sync with bookmark sync enabled at the same time that could comment on this being an issue? According to this support question, it looks like the same thing could happen.
  • FWIU, once Firefox 57 is released, using Xmarks on a separate profile of Firefox will no longer work because Xmarks is not a web extension. Longer term I'm going to need a better solution, so I may want to figure that out now.
Another idea I came up with is to write a script to copy the places.sqlite file from Firefox to SeaMonkey and vice-versa. Assuming this could work, I could then run Xmarks sync from SeaMonkey afterwards to keep all of my SeaMonkey installations synced after I add a bookmark to Firefox. And if I add a bookmark to SeaMonkey I can push it back to Firefox. Of course, I would make sure that both SeaMonkey and Firefox are shut down before running this script. My big concern with this solution is that places.sqlite may not be 100% compatible between Firefox and SeaMonkey, especially considering that Firefox gets updated much more frequently and the current version of it is often several versions ahead of the equivalent version of SeaMonkey. Can anybody knowledgeable comment on this? I'm worried such a solution would result in corrupted places.sqlite files.

Also, if anybody else has a solution to my problem, I'd love to hear it.
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therube
Posts: 21698
Joined: March 10th, 2004, 9:59 pm
Location: Maryland USA

Re: Bookmark Sync With Firefox

Post by therube »

(LOL. I think you've spelled it out pretty well. Just don't know what the "answer" is?)


> good things ... speed ... memory ... placebo

I'd go with placebo.
Can't say that I recall any version of SeaMonkey | FF ever feeling "faster" then any other.
Can't say that (in my very limited use of) FF that it (or any other browser) has shown me anything to even contemplate switching from SeaMonkey.
IMO SeaMonkey/FF of late perform worse then earlier versions of same.
(I am, a heavy tab/window user, well, in the past more so then now - but that's only because current SeaMonkey/FF do not perform as well as older, so I'm not able to keep as much open & also run acceptably...)

When you test, start with new, clean Profiles with each browser.
(Certain files, depending on circumstances [specifics escape me], are known to get "gummed up" over time, negatively impacting performance.)


(With all the changes constantly going on in FF, we something breaking with every release, the word that comes to my mind is, quagmire.)
Fire 750, bring back 250.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.19) Gecko/20110420 SeaMonkey/2.0.14 Pinball CopyURL+ FetchTextURL FlashGot NoScript
Anonymosity
Posts: 8779
Joined: May 7th, 2007, 12:07 pm

Re: Bookmark Sync With Firefox

Post by Anonymosity »

If you want Firefox bookmarks in SeaMonkey or SeaMonkey bookmarks in Firefox, you can back them up with one and restore them with the other. They take the same bookmarks format.
cuppettcj
Posts: 41
Joined: June 19th, 2008, 10:41 am

Re: Bookmark Sync With Firefox

Post by cuppettcj »

Anonymosity wrote:If you want Firefox bookmarks in SeaMonkey or SeaMonkey bookmarks in Firefox, you can back them up with one and restore them with the other. They take the same bookmarks format.
Are you talking about the places.sqlite file, or are you talking about manually running backup and restore from both the Firefox Bookmarks Manager and SeaMonkey Bookmarks Manager? If you're talking about the latter, are you aware of any way to automate the process? Because I was hoping for a one or two click solution rather than several.
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