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.

If it has happened, save yourself some trouble in the future by installing the Lazarus add-on for your browser. (Lazarus for Mozilla Firefox | Lazarus for Google Chrome – sorry IE users)

Lazarus works on ordinary web forms, WYSIWYG editors, and even AJAXified comment boxes, and will save you from pretty much any given server, browser, or connection problems that might otherwise cause you to lose your work, or that really pithy blog comment you struggled on for over an hour.

Lazarus now comes with 2048-bit RSA and 256-bit AES hybrid encryption, so your form history is more private and secure than ever! Lazarus also includes search functionality so you can recover text even if you can no longer find the original form you entered it into.

Firefox users can also check out Textarea Cache for similar functionality.

Related Links:
Weave FAQ |  Weave Download |  Weave Project Homepage

Mozilla announced the official 1.0 release of Prism: the utility designed to enable your favorite web apps to live outside the browser.

Not only does Prism allow end users to create separate desktop apps for each of their favorite sites (think Gmail, Facebook, etc.), it also allows site devs to specify certain settings that can be activated specifically on Prism apps… settings like fonts, proxy settings, tray icons, etc.

The following is just a snippet of information about Prism’s history and future but you can read more on the official release post… or just check out prism.mozilla.com.

“The ability to run stand-alone web apps and access them like normal desktop apps provides instant benefits to end users. However, a number of the advantages are only available when software developers take advantage of Prism-specific features. With the release of Prism 1.0 beta we are ready to start fostering an ecosystem that makes it easier for developers to create and distribute compelling web app bundles.”

Are you using Prism… or do you just prefer the application shortcuts that can be created by Google’s Chrome browser? Voice your opinions in the comments.

Update: Just so you know, there are two ways to go about using Prism: a desktop application (for the Linux, Mac & Windows platforms – run it and just fill in the URL of the site you’d like to turn into a separate desktop app) or by the Prism Firefox extension.

With Weave, you can synchronize your browser’s bookmarks, browsing history, passwords as well as any tabs that you might have open across any of your PCs – safely and securely. Here’s Mozilla’s official project description:

“Weave Sync is a prototype that encrypts and securely synchronizes the Firefox experience across multiple browsers, so that your desktop, laptop and mobile phone can all work together. It is part of the Weave project, which aims to integrate services more closely with the browser.”

Along with the 0.3 release, Mozilla is now officially supporting Fennec; Mozilla’s own mobile browser. Eventually, at least according to the project roadmap, Weave will enable you to synchronize your browser preferences and add-ons (read: extensions) in addition to all of the aforementioned items.

Give it a try by downloading from the official Mozilla add-ons site: Weave 0.3. Or, check out the official Weave project site at http://labs.mozilla.com/projects/weave/.

Do note, however, that the 0.3 release requires Firefox 3.1 Beta 3 or greater… which is still in a testing phase. (Hence the “beta” label.) Plus, if you do decide to g’head and upgrade your version of Firefox in order to take a peek at Weave, some of your other add-ons might very well break in the process. A great number of mine did.

Five days ago, the Del.icio.us team announced and subsequently delivered the final version of that extension to the official Mozilla Firefox add-ons repository.  Be sure to check out the official blog post from the del.icio.us team detailing all the new features in the release: "Firefox 3, Delicious and You."

Overall, the extension provides a great way to keep your bookmarks (with tags and notes, too) synchronized on each of your computers and, of course, on your http://del.icio.us account.

(FoT Tip: If you’re a nut for synchronization, you should also check out the Mozilla Weave extension for Firefox.  In addition to bookmark synchronization, Weave also allows you to sync stored passwords, cookies, browser history and saved form data.  Check out what we had to say about that a couple of weeks ago.)

Microsoft devotees shouldn’t feel left out as the team has also announced and released a beta version of an add-on for Internet Explorer.

Not only has it not been updated since 2006, the extension isn’t even compatible with the 3rd release of the Mozilla Firefox browser.  (As is typically the case with Google, mum’s the word on any plans and nearly 100 status requests have gone unanswered in the official forum for Google Firefox extensions.)

Mozilla answered the cries of many, however, when it released "Weave" late last year.  The official extension (from the company who brought you the Firefox browser itself) allowed for synchronization of your bookmarks, history and saved form data.  With the next release, they added support for cookies.

Now, with today’s release, they add support for passwords as well…thus leaving Google Browser Sync entirely useless.

The extension even allows for developers to extend Weave for their own applications but you can read more about that, and Weave’s many other features, on the Mozilla Labs blog. Or, you can just download it now: https://services.mozilla.com/.

Note: once you begin the initial synchronization, be prepared for the browser to choke just a little bit while the sync occurs.  Once you’re finished with that initial synchronization, however, it’ll be as smooth as silk to keep your browser information up-to-date on all your computers.

Now, if they only would allow for synchronization of Firefox extensions…

• keyboard-shortcut (Ctrl+B) activated search-as-you-type functionality
  (this brings up the sidebar which brilliantly disappears as soon as you find what you’re looking for)
• the ability to add both tags and notes to your bookmarks
• synchronization with your del.icio.us account (meaning that neither a specific browser or the extension itself are necessary to find your bookmarks – just hit http://del.icio.us while you’re on the road and login.)

This is one of the few tools that I use every single day and, unfortunately, it’s core functionality became broken when Mozilla released the beta versions of Firefox v3.  It’s taken quite a while but Yahoo! has finally released an updated version of the extension yesterday afternoon:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/delicious-firefox-extension/message/2204.

I found it took a bit of maneuvering to get to the installation file so I’ve gone ahead and posted it on our site for you to download.  Just save the file, open your Firefox Add-Ons window and drag-and-drop the .xpi in there.  The installation process will proceed and you’ll be prompted to download the update.

By the way, kudos to Yahoo! for listening to their users and pushing out an update to this extension.  The final version of Firefox 3.0 hasn’t even been released so they technically didn’t "have" to release a version yet but they realized there was a huge demand for it.  Are you paying attention, Google?  I only ask because it’s been almost two years since Google Browser Sync was released and very little has been done to keep it updated.  In addition, you’ll notice that almost every post in the Google Firefox Extensions newsgroup remains unanswered.