Just to recap, the idea of Firefox Home is simple.  It uses the Firefox Sync service to keep your desktop history, bookmarks and open tabs accessible via your iPhone or iPod touch.

How to Setup

First, make sure you have Firefox Sync set up and running via your desktop Firefox installation. Next, go to the App Store on your iPhone or iPod Touch and search for Firefox Home (you can also install Firefox Home via iTunes). Then, all you have to do is launch the application on your iPhone or iPod Touch, enter your Firefox Sync account information and your secret phase.  You are finished.  Now you can take your Firefox browsing history with you, anywhere you go.

iPad Support?

So will we see iPad support soon for Firefox Home?  According to the Firefox Home FAQ page:

Firefox Home 1.0 for the iPhone will work on the iPad, but it is not optimized for the iPad.

So, sounds like it works – but might have to wait till a later version before it works really well.

Firefox Home brings your Firefox history, bookmarks, open tabs and the Awesome bar to your Apple portable products.  Not only are the sync features handy, but overall it is more convenient to browse using this great tool because you avoid having to type and re-type long and painful URLs or spend time trying to find that website you know you have bookmarked in your browser.  Firefox may not be allowed on the iPhone (due to Apple’s multiple browser rule) but Firefox Home is the next best thing.

If anybody has tried it out, please feel free to leave your own experiences in the comments.  Being an iPhone and iPod Touch-less person – I am waiting to see what your experiences are.

Well, we all know we are not going to see Firefox on the iPhone.  Then again, we might get the next best thing with Firefox Home.  Using the technology behind Firefox Sync, this iPhone app with give an Firefox user access to their browser history, bookmarks and tabs from their recent browser session. In other words, you are kind of getting Firefox – but exactly the way you use it in your day to day life now.

Want to see it in action?  Check out this short video tour of the unbranded version:

It it still looks a little rough, do not worry.  Mozilla promises to polish it a ‘bit more before submitting it to the Apple App Store.

Even though I do not have an iPhone, I think this “next best thing” project they have going on here is pretty nice.  You can learn more about Firefox Home and development process on the Mozilla Wiki.

Do you use multiple computers and want to sync your saved passwords between them all? LastPass is an extension for Firefox that will allow you to do that easily within the browser.  LastPass hides all your individual passwords behind one master password.  When you type in that master password, then LastPass automatically logs you in to any web site you have set it up to remember. 

Along with the whole password syncing and simplification, you can also set LastPass up to store secure notes for you, or automatically fill in forms for you.  This might possibly be the best Firefox password related extension on the market today, plain and simple.

Here are a few more features of LastPass worth mentioning:

• Access and manage your data from multiple computers seamlessly
• Share logins with friends and let others share logins with you
• Use One Time Passwords, and a Screen Keyboard to help keep you safe while on the road.
• Supports IE as well, so if you switch browsers you’re always in sync, as well as when you switch computers
• Supports Opera, Google Chrome, Safari, iPhone, Opera Mini, via Bookmarklets
• Supports importing passwords from other password managers such as Roboform, Keepass, PasswordSafe, MyPasswordSafe, Sxipper, TurboPasswords, PassPack, Firefox and IE’s built in password manager

So, if you have been in search of a way to sync up your online passwords, and need a tool to help you do so, LastPass is definitely worth checking into. To learn more about the LastPass service, go check out LastPass.com and to pick up the add-on go visit the Firefox Add-ons web site.

If you do a lot of work online, being able to take notes as you work is definitely a good thing.  Rather than scribbling on random sheets of paper or bouncing between Firefox and a notepad-like program, keep it all in Firefox with QuickFox Notes. This multi-tab note taking extension is awesome.

Some of the features include:

• Simple & Multi tab
• Auto save notes
• Check spelling
• Changeable font size
• Changeable background color
• Easy search tool
• Various keyboard shortcuts

Another nice feature is that it saves your notes in the bookmark files, so your notes will always be in sync, if you have installed one of the bookmark syncing add-ons like Xmarks or Mozilla Weave. If you are in need of a handy note taking application from within Firefox, give QuickFox Notes a shot.

So which bookmark add-ons for Firefox are downloaded most often?  Here are the top ten most downloaded bookmark extensions for the browser.

• SmarterFox – Browse faster by speeding up common tasks – faster downloading, searching, visiting favorites, copy & paste, and more.
• Xmarks (formerly Foxmarks) – Xmarks is the #1 bookmarking add-on. Install it on all your computers to keep your bookmarks and (optionally) passwords backed up and synchronized.
• Delicious Bookmarks – Delicious Bookmarks is the official Firefox add-on for Delicious, the world’s leading social bookmarking service.
• StumbleUpon- StumbleUpon discovers web sites based on your interests, learns what you like and brings you more.
• Speed Dial – Quicker direct access to your most visited web sites and saved links.
• Google Toolbar – Not sure why people are still using this, however it did make it on my list of non-evil toolbars, so go figure.
• Brief -  Brief makes reading RSS feeds as easy and intuitive as it gets. Designed to have exactly the right set of features, it is powerful and simple at the same time.
• Fast Dial – Much like Speed Dial, this add-on gives you a quick visual way to access a number of web sites all from one page; showing thumbnails for each.
• iMacros – Automate Firefox. Record and replay repetitious work. If you love the Firefox web browser, but are tired of repetitive tasks like visiting the same sites every days, filling out forms, and remembering passwords, then iMacros for Firefox is the solution you’ve been dreaming of!
• Multirow Bookmarks Toolbar – This add-on does exactly what you would expect, it gives you multiple bookmark rows.  Yes, I like it when they name add-ons about what they do. 

There you have it, these add-ons have been downloaded more times than any other, and all will help you in one way, shape, or form with your bookmarks.  Have another favorite that you think deserves to be on the list?  Leave a comment, and tell me why.

Why make the move?  Well, one would guess that sharing links might be a more profitable business model, more so than bookmark syncing alone.  Via the Xmarks blog, here are some FAQs for those of you who might have questions about the change:

• Xmarks is a superset of Foxmarks – it adds web discovery features to our world-class bookmark sync.
• If you choose to upgrade to Xmarks, it will work seamlessly with your existing Foxmarks account and will sync with your other computers running Foxmarks.
• Foxmarks.com and our existing Foxmarks add-ons won’t change overnight. We expect to have upgrades to all three Foxmarks versions available by the end of March and we’ll provide you with more detailed info once we return from the DEMO conference.
• We’re still hard at work finding better, faster ways to sync more things in your browser.

So what new features will be brought on with the new business model?

Smarter Search – In your Google search results, Xmarks will highlight the top three sites based on bookmarking history.  Put your mouse over the special icon to the side of the search results to learn more information such as reviews, and rankings.

Site Info Lookup – Clicking on the Xmarks logo in your location bar will bring up a detailed box letting you know more information about the site you are on, and help you discover other sites just like it.

Then of course, you have the bookmark and password backup and syncing capabilities that Foxmarks already brought to the table.  The Xmarks browser add-on is Firefox only right now, but they promise to have Internet Explorer and Safari versions running soon.  Firefox fans can grab the Xmarks add-on here to try it out.  It is worth pointing out that you can install Xmarks even if you have the Foxmarks add-on installed on your computer. Xmarks will upgrade your current Foxmarks add-on and continue to sync and back up your bookmarks (and optionally passwords).

So what do you think about the change?  Excited about the new features, or disappointed that an old Firefox friend is changing its ways?

Password Synchronization is an optional feature for the newest version of Foxmarks that allows you to simply and securely synchronize your saved passwords. 

Since this feature is turned off by default, how do you activate it? 

1. Open the Foxmarks Settings dialog (located in Tools > Foxmarks > Settings…).
2. Click on the “Sync” tab.
3. Select the checkbox labeled “Passwords”. You will be guided through a quick and easy password synchronization setup flow.

Big congrats goes out to Foxmarks for making a damn good add-on even better.

Having given it a round two now, I am happy to say I have done so.

After the death of Google Browser Sync, I was looking for a new way to keep my bookmarks on my desktop and my bookmarks on my laptop the same.  Foxmarks does the trick with what they call Seamless Sync.  I have not had to mess with it once since I installed it. It just works.

With a service or extension like this I’d like to pretend it isn’t even there, and Foxmarks makes it very easy to do just that.  Some of the other nice features of Foxmarks are:

• Easy Backup & Restore
• Web Access to your Saved Links
• Mobile Access
• Share Bookmarks with Friends
• Import & Export Your Saved Links

I am delighted to say that Foxmarks has earned a spot on my hall of fame add-ons list for being one heck of a nice addition to Firefox.  If your looking to keep your bookmarks synced up, there is no better solution out there right now.

Along with a fresh design, Mozilla Labs has also release Weave Prototype 0.2.  What is Weave, you say?  It is Mozilla’s answer to the problem of keeping all your bookmarks, history, passwords and more in sync across multiple computers.

So what is new in this 0.2 version of Weave?

• Intelligent scheduler for synchronization to improve performance.
• Expanded set of supported browser settings and metadata, including:  Bookmarks, Browsing History, Cookies, Saved Passwords, Saved Form Data, and Tabs.
• Support for retrying failed network operations.
• New server format performs better when there are frequent changes (e.g., for history sync).
• Significant reworking of the startup experience, including a new Setup Wizard that performs account creation in chrome and allows for customization of settings.
• Improved error detection and handling.
• Notification dialog added to the status bar for displaying error, status and asynchronous events with or without required actions, e.g. authentication errors, notification of shares, etc.

Might be worth mentioning that they are still saying this version is for testing purposes only, so if Firefox later on kicks you in the head, points its browsing finger and laughs while your down, you were warned.

Ready to test it out?  Then download Weave 0.2 here!

Here recently, I just switched from Google Browser Sync to Foxmarks.  Once Weave gets all the kinks out though, I’ll probably be switching again because I really like the idea of having everything accessible no matter which PC I might be at.  Check out the Weave 0.2 Release Notes for more information.

According to Lifehacker, it will continue to be supported for Firefox 2 through 2008 but there are no plans to bring it over to Firefox 3. 

For those of you who want to continue to use Firefox 2, we’ll maintain support for old versions of Google Browser Sync through 2008. After that, we can recommend a few other products that scratch a similar itch. We hope that one of them works for you:

Mozilla Weave [labs.mozilla.com] from Mozilla Labs—Offers bookmark and history synchronization across computers.

Google Toolbar for Firefox [toolbar.google.com]—Store your bookmarks online and access them from any computer online.

Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer [addons.mozilla.org]—Synchronizes your bookmarks across all computers where it is installed.

Here is some more coverage of the sad event:

• Google Browser Sync To Be Discontinued
• Google Ditches Browser Sync Extension for Firefox 3
• Google discontinues Google Browser Sync

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust – another fine extension has bit the big one.