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Google Open Sources Browser Sync
Dan Berlin writes "After announcing that Browser Sync was being discontinued, a lot of people asked for Google to open source the code so development could continue.
Well, they've done just that.
The code for browser sync is now available on code.google.com, and a blog post about the release can be found on the Google open source blog"
What server will you trust?
I use a bunch of machines all over the place (mostly for development/personal interest). I use old machines, dial-up, new machines, servers - having browser sync was a god-send. It was great to be able to reference everything regardless of architecture and O/S. I agree that there are concerns about what Google would/could reveal to legislative bodies, but that's only because they are so huge that other factors come into play. Maybe this is their way of extricating themselves (somewhat) from the liabilities associated with having that much info about a person's real interests. That said, I feel that I was never 'targeted' as a result of their handling of my data, nor was there ever any 'push' marketing as a result. I think that's where you draw the line between good corporate citizen and spammer. I hope that someone who has the time can re-incorporate it into FireFox 3.x
*** Don't be dull.***
There's no clear reason given as to why it's being discontinued, but if it's due to lack of interest, it was probably lack of advertising; I wasn't even slightly aware of this project, and it sounds like something I would have been very interested in. I use Foxmarks religiously and have trouble functioning without it.
If they're not going to develop it any further, they might as well let someone else have a go. Now all we have to do is convince Microsoft to release the source code to Windows ME.
the difference is that nobody wants Windows ME.
stops obfuscating the FLV url in complex SWF binaries that can be run only with the latest version of Adobe Flash, for YouTube, then we'll talk about google being "open".
Thank you.
Why do you need GBS to get your browser state into Weave? Hint: If you are not backing up your bookmarks at least, you should not be using Weave at this point in time.
What about the other 20 or so extensions I depend on that Opera does not offer similar functionality to?
If it wasn't for the extensions I probably would be using Opera myself. But Opera is just killed by the flexibility of Firefox.
Is Amazon no longer a third party? Granted I trust them as much as I trust Google (and from an advertising perspective, they probably have better data about me as they have actual data points for my purchases, not just my purchase-related searches) but that still seems like a rather dumb statement.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Well, I'd disagree, I think we're doing fine from a kernel release perspective. We could do more, and in time, we will, but we only really started a concerted effort to release changes 3 years ago, so...not so shabby. Red Hat has been more important than Google or any linux -user- in the development of the kernel.
Your comments about manipulation are weirdly paranoid. The original list that Greg posted was 20+ companies long, and originally didn't include us, as he didn't count Andrew to us. He fixed that, and the post I sent to you was from his talk at Google. It's part of his presentation to call out the company he visits, which is one of the reasons we invited him out.
Google is built on software, some of which comes from the world of open soruce, and most of which was written here. To give back, we both release code from the company (a significant amount >1m lines per year), fund external code (uncountable, really) and through the summer of code, create new developers and even more code still (2.1m+ last year, at least 3m this).
That's not too shabby, in my book. I also would point out that it is disingenuous to equate linux use with some license fee savings. If linux had initially charged a license fee, then the world of linux users would be using bsd. Linux is successful because it is free of charge and free to use and free to modify. I think it is important that we give back and the rest, and we do that, but to multiply the number of machines running linux on the internet and consider that money as having been stolen is antithetical to the whole idea behind free software and open source.
Chris
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.