Way back when, we had mentioned that Mozilla’s plans for “Weave,” their platform for syncing browsing information between different desktop/mobile clients, included support for synchronizing Firefox extensions or, as they’re known now, “add-ons.”
Well, it turns out that add-on synchronization isn’t isn’t here yet and keeps getting bumped from the official Weave roadmap. So, our plans for a completely synchronized Firefox experience among our PCs were somewhat dashed… until now.
(Still, Weave will synchronize just about everything else: browsing history, passwords, bookmarks, open tabs, etc. For those of you not wearing tin-foil hats, I highly recommend you check it out.)
Like I said, my hopes for that Holy Grail of browser synchronization, add-on sync, were unfilfilled until I discovered an entirely separate Firefox add-on designed to fulfill that purpose: Siphon.
Siphon’s purpose as of right now is to fill that missing link and ensure that your favorite browser add-ons are available on whatever computer you’re on: at home, at work, on-the-go, etc.
Simply install Siphon through the Firefox add-ons interface (go to Tools > Add-Ons and search for Siphon) and create an account through siphon-fx.com. Then, specify what add-ons you want to synchronize. Once you’re done, set Siphon up on your other computers running Firefox and let the beautiful act of synchronization occur.
The developer of Siphon, Ian Halpern, has big plans and doesn’t intend on stopping at add-on synchronization. Future features of Siphon include the following:
- Support for syncing themes and enabled/disabled properties
- Automatic Add-on download and install
- Configurable user specified server support
- Easier Add-on management
- Different user profiles
- Support for syncing extension settings
- Support for other mozilla applications
So, g’head and give Siphon a try… and then let us know what you think in the comments. If you like it, make use of the Mozilla Add-Ons “Contribute” function and donate a whopping $3 USD to assist with further development of what could potentially be a VERY useful add-on.
