this post was submitted on 15 May 2025
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Had a thought, but some quick searching didn't really give me much.

Is there such a thing as a browser that respects privacy, and can be synched through self hosted means?

I'd be looking for tab sync, bookmark, history, etc.

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[–] cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 20 points 2 months ago
[–] oleorun@real.lemmy.fan 13 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)
[–] oldfart@lemm.ee 6 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Syncserver was what OP was asking for, I used it and it was great while it worked. The rust rewrite is almost impossible to self-host, at least as of a year ago there was no easy way to do it on a reasonably sized machine.

[–] myersguy@lemmy.simpl.website 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

there was no easy way to do it on a reasonably sized machine.

Why? What is the issue?

[–] oldfart@lemm.ee 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

If I recall correctly they used some exotic database that is made for multi tenant cloud environments and scales up really well, but does not scale down too much. I've seen some article where a guy managed to set it up locally but it was a long one, and the result was resource hungry. But, again, my knowledge may be outdated

Just look at the setup docs. First they tell you to setup mysql and then this nugget

The correct way to authenticate with Spanner is by generating an OAuth token and pointing your local application server to the token. In order for this to work, your Google Cloud account must have the correct permissions; contact the Ops team to ensure the correct permissions are added to your account.

[–] oldfart@lemm.ee 6 points 2 months ago

Looks like there is a simple way now, yay! https://blog.diego.dev/posts/firefox-sync-server/

[–] Landless2029@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Why not use the old one with firefox ESR?

[–] scott@lem.free.as 1 points 2 months ago

I run the older iteration of the software. Works well.

[–] MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

The only full sync option is trying to self-host the sync server for Firefox or Brave. But both seem to be a pita.

There are easy options like floccus but that only syncs bookmarks.

[–] Selfhoster1728 4 points 2 months ago

Librewolf (privacy focused firefox fork) syncing the user folders with Syncthing maybe?

[–] 4k93n2@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 months ago

ive been using floccus for a few years now and no complaints

i havnt tried syncing tabs but i think its an option. what i do have is a one-way sync job for the tabs in each browser so i at least have a backup of them, and each browser has its own file, but i would imagine if you tried to sync the same file between multiple devices it would just get very messy at some point

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 3 points 2 months ago

Yeah I wish there was a good answer to that. Floccus at least works ok for bookmarks.

[–] anotherandrew@mbin.mixdown.ca 2 points 2 months ago

You could use KaraKeep (formerly Hoarder) with the Hoarder's Pipette extension maybe?

[–] mike_wooskey@lemmy.thewooskeys.com 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I use xBrowserSync for bookmark syncing. The code hasnt been touched in a few years but it still works great. Set it and forget it. There's also an android app - not sure about ios.

But it doesnt do browser tabs - just bookmarks.

[–] viharm@twit.social 1 points 2 months ago

@mike_wooskey @ironhydroxide

I use #xBrowserSync too! I self host the server. It has extensions for Firefox & Chromium. Android app, as you said. But no iOS app. I was trying to make a browser based JavaScript app to use on iOS, but couldn’t finish it it.

[–] A_norny_mousse@feddit.org 2 points 2 months ago

The Arch Wiki used to have some elaborate tricks on Firefox profile syncing, and some software to support it, maybe you should check that out (but the actual software FF uses is or used to be FOSS as well).

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org -2 points 2 months ago
[–] Cyber@feddit.uk -3 points 2 months ago

Have a look at Vivaldi

According to their help page it'll do what you want.