Google Chrome gets extension sync | Hacker News Reader

Google Chrome gets extension sync

readwriteweb.com

13 pointscoderdude13 comments

I would love to do this without sharing my extension data and bookmarks with Google. They already know what I search for. I don't really want them to know my favorite porn or cooking websites.

How difficult would it be to add a different provider for Chromium sync, or make a small server component that would allow anyone to decentralized-ly be their own provider of a sync repo for their browsers?

How selfish of you, to save the good porn sites for yourself

Uh, at least among male internet users I am a small minority. I wouldn't worry about my collection, heh. Besides, they're still there and finding is half the fun.

They don't "know" about your porn bookmarks, it's just stored on their servers, besides the sync is not obligatory you can use the xmarks extention if you're more comfortable with them.

Oh I know, I'm just paranoid and have (yes, even me, the Google fanboy) my limits on what I'm willing to store on others' servers.

I know, I can use xmarks or del.icio.us or whomever, but having bookmarks/extensions or (at least eventually) all of my browser state synced in a single place... that's just unbeatable IMO. Especially because I have a desktop, laptop and work laptop that are used about equally. It's a nightmare to remember, "Oh where did I bookmark that page at?" etc. Not to mention extensions, cookies, etc, etc.

XMarks has a version that lets you run your own sync service (WebDav or FTP, IIRC). That only covers bookmarks though.

Paranoia or convenience. Take your pick. You can't really have both.

I didn't know that, that's awesome and definitely worth further consideration. Thanks for the information!

IIRC, Mozilla Weave (now Firefox Sync) encrypts all of your data on your PC before uploading it to a webdav share- Either your own, or theirs.

If you use your machine, they never see it, and if you use theirs, they can't decrypt it.

Weave is about the only thing I really miss since switching to Chrome; I ran my own server, but encrypting the data prior to transmission meant I wouldn't have felt terrible about sending it to them. Architecturally, I felt pretty good about it.

Chrome's syncing? Not so much.

Why don't you write your own extension to sync your bookmark to AWS? (encrypted of course)

Laziness? Plus I like the fact that it's integrated into the browser itself. That might be irrational though, not sure how well integrated plugins can be in core browser stuff.

So you want bookmark sync integrated into the browser, but you don't want the bookmarks stored anywhere where google can get at them.

How could google put your bookmarks somewhere that they don't have access to?

Uh, Chromium's open source, it could ask for FTP credentials and then upload them there...? There are any number of ways this could be done without giving any information to Google and only giving them to Chromium.

Am I missing something?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com