[Feature] Browser data synchronization

[sjehuda]

This is partially related to ticket #709

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About

Synchronization of browser data (bookmarks, certificates (Gemini), cookies (HTTP), history, passwords and tabs) would be useful.

Summary

I am a co-founder of project Blasta.

Blasta is an collaborative annotation management system (i.e. bookmarks manager) which purpose is to make bookmarks accessible from anywhere.

The experiment of Blasta has been successfull and I intend to write an extension for a Qt browser in order to integrate it gracefully into HTML browsers.

I advise to stongly consider to utilize the XMPP platform as a system to synchronize browser data, including bookmarks, history, tabs, cookies, password etc.

Chris:

XMPP?

Schimon:

Yes. XMPP, the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol.

Chris:

This must be a mistake.

Schimon:

There is no mistake!

Please. Watch the video presentation for the technicalities or visit these resources:

• https://blasta.woodpeckersnest.eu/help/about/xmpp/pubsub
• https://blasta.woodpeckersnest.eu/help/about/xmpp/atomsub

Code	https://git.xmpp-it.net/sch/Blasta
Video	https://video.xmpp-it.net/w/cfozoUeVLFbBFMCCSCJ1Dn
Instance	https://blasta.woodpeckersnest.eu

Resources:

• https://portal.mozz.us/gemini/woodpeckersnest.space/~schapps/journal/2024-11-28-xmpp-for-browsers.gmi
• Harmonizing bookmarks structure jarun/buku#795

[shlyakpavel]

Firefox sync is open source, has open source sync server https://github.com/mozilla-services/syncstorage-rs for self-hosting and is available in 3rd party browsers, such as Gnome Web
How is XMPP better than a solution that works well for possibly hundreds of millions of users and is largely available?

[sjehuda]

How is XMPP better than a solution that works well for possibly hundreds of millions of users and is largely available?

I think, that your argument is good. I was also confronted about it by the Project Pale Moon. https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?t=31900 My answer, to you and to the Pale Moon developers is: I do not know. Honestly, I do not know, because it is an idea which I have formed in my mind a couple of weeks ago, after I have observed my implementation of an annotation system which is based upon XMPP.

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------------------------ Yet, I think that an XMPP (PubSub) based service could and would be much better than "syncstorage", namely because: (1) XMPP is more prevalent; (2) XMPP is easier to set up; (3) XMPP is standartized; and (4) Portability (it is easy to switch from one XMPP to another). There are even more reasons. I believe in my attempt, and I hope that it would indeed be the best option available for browsers and similar software.