Robots Will Be Our Superiors

A friend recently asked about syncing bookmarks across different browsers.  Right now it seems like the best tool for that is Xmarks, which performs the admirable task of making sure bookmarks are all lined up between IE, Safari, Chrome, and Firefox.

I had used Xmarks in the past (it used to be a Firefox exclusive, Foxmarks), but lately I hadn’t been as synced up as I could be.  I will openly confess to using Firefox almost exclusively for my web browsing needs – so the ability to sync across several browsers seemed unnecessary.

The big option for Firefox users right now is also made by Mozilla – Weave.  Taking advantage of the assumption that the intended user is browsing with Firefox exclusively, Weave does bookmark synchronization and a whole lot more.

Obviously, bookmark syncing is present.  Expanding on that, Weave will also sync the Firefox toolbar settings as well.  Example: I have my toolbars tweaked so my bookmarks are just icons on the top menu bar, next to the Help menu.  I think it looks nicer than using the standard bookmark toolbar and frees up some screen real estate on my laptop.  When I make changes to this toolbar (or any toolbar, for that matter), those changes are saved to my Weave profile.  If I add a shortcut on my laptop, the next time I load Firefox on my desktop computer said shortcut will automagically appear.

Continuing in features exclusive to Firefox, Weave will also sync the settings of your Personas, or user themes, assuming the necessary add-in is installed on the computers being use.  The Awesome Bar will also be updated, so typing in the same words or phrases will get the same results on all computers.

And if you could possibly want more, Weave also allows you to use the history and even the closed tabs from other Firefox installations.  Firefox recently added the ability to recover closed tabs, meaning the user doesn’t have to worry about accidentally closing a tab and then having to root through the history folder to find it.  Once Weave is installed, a new item is added to the History menu: “Tabs From Other Computers”.  It’s a small addition that turns out to be more useful than most would assume at first.

I have three different computers I that I use Firefox with, two at home and one at work.  Weave has proved to be a pretty handy tool for keeping my user experience consistent across all of them.  Mozilla is always hard at work, making sure that Firefox is a world-class browser and also working on other special projects like collaborative coding, browser enrichment, and giving everyone the ability to write extensions.  Check out the Mozilla Labs site to see all the neat things they’re working on.

Here’s something that’s been stuck in my craw for a while: software version numbers.  They’re completely arbitrary, something I’m well aware of.  Just numbers that are thrown out there at the discretion of the developers.

But come one – Chrome came out one year ago and we’re on version 3.0?  The changes from one version to the next have been incremental at best, and one can only assume that Google is attempting to gain credibility through higher version numbers.  I saw more changes in Firefox from version 3.0 to 3.5 than I’ve seen from Chrome 2.0 to 3.0.  Firefox 4.0 is a loong way off, and at this rate we’ll see Chrome 6.0 before that.

Ubuntu, the wunderkind of the Linux world, didn’t even try to rapidly advance their version number: they started at 4.  Each calendar year is a full version increase, with one incremental in between.  Mint, a derivative of Ubuntu, does a full version increase at every incremental Ubuntu release, so a someone new distribution will eclipse the system it’s based upon in a few years.

You know what deserves a high version number?  Slackware Linux.  13.0 just came out, after debuting in 1993.  At 16, it’s the oldest currently maintained Linux distribution.  Sweet.

I’m not the only one that has noticed this.  Seen recently on the blog Lifehacker:

Google continues its rather speedy version number jumping here—having dropped three “major” releases in just over a year. It may seem a little silly that it’s now on the same version number as Firefox and looks like it’ll easily beat Firefox to 4.0, but keep in mind that version numbers are largely arbitrary, so while Google may well hit Chrome 10 in another year or two, it has little bearing on how it compares to other browsers.

They are correct.  It has little (to no) bearing on how the browsers compare.  I, for one, am far too petty to let that slide by, however.

Firefox Personas is another variation on the Firefox “theme”, that allows for easy modification of the visual aspect of the Firefox GUI.

The Persona plug-in and system is pretty slick, much nicer than the old method of managing themes.  Making a Persona over making a Theme is much, much easier.  Their interface for creating a theme comes with detailed instructions on how to make the picture files and inline color pickers for choosing font colors.  Slick!  Being able to mouse-over and preview the personas?  Brilliant!

My only complaint would be that one has to wade through 50 lame/hard on the eyes personas to find one good one.  Ah well, such is life.

I personally go for the abstract/gradient/just different enough to make the browser look slick without looking annoying type.

Chrome is supposed to be the new rock ‘n roll.  I’ve been using it on and off for the past few weeks, trying to give it a fair shake as to why I should be using it instead of Firefox.  Unnecessarily rapidly advancing version numbers aside, I am fairly excited for the fact that a 64 bit version is being developed for Linux.

Honestly, though, while it’s a pretty slick piece of software, I don’t think I’ll be switching away from Firefox any time soon.  I likes me my extensions, and it seems as if there are enough extensions written than any of the features that I like about Chrome can be added to Firefox easily enough.  Separate processes for each tab is cool, but I don’t really run into enough crashes for that to be a big deal.  I haven’t really noticed any speed differences, either.