{"id":246,"date":"2012-02-09T19:54:40","date_gmt":"2012-02-09T19:54:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/services\/?p=246"},"modified":"2012-02-09T19:54:40","modified_gmt":"2012-02-09T19:54:40","slug":"add-on-sync-coming-to-firefox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/services\/2012\/02\/09\/add-on-sync-coming-to-firefox\/","title":{"rendered":"Add-on Sync Coming to Firefox"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We strive to make your online experience better and we have a new feature in the latest <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mozilla.org\/firefox\/beta\/\">Firebox Beta<\/a> we think you&#8217;ll love: add-on sync.<\/p>\n<p>Add-on sync does what its name implies: it synchronizes add-ons between profiles connected with Firefox Sync. Specifically, it will install, uninstall, enable, and disable add-ons across your devices as you do.<\/p>\n<p>If you are a new Sync user, add-on sync will be enabled by default. However, since Mozilla cares about your privacy and we don&#8217;t want to do anything without your explicit permission, existing Sync users will need to manually opt in to the feature. This can be done through the Sync tab in Firefox&#8217;s Preferences window. Explicit instructions are available at <a href=\"https:\/\/support.mozilla.org\/en-US\/kb\/how-do-i-enable-add-sync\">https:\/\/support.mozilla.org\/en-US\/kb\/how-do-i-enable-add-sync<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Once you have add-on sync enabled, you don&#8217;t need to do anything special to get your add-ons to sync. As you use your browser, Sync will run in the background. As it does, the current state of your add-ons will be collected and sent to the sync server. As you use your other devices, Sync will apply changes to your local Firefox. Add-on sync runs in the background and you won&#8217;t see any pop-ups indicating it is running. And, since some add-ons require a restart for changes to be made, you may not see your new add-ons until you restart your browser. Our studies show that over 99% of Firefox users restart their browser at least daily, so you shouldn&#8217;t have to wait too long. If you are curious, you can open the Add-on Manager (<em>about:addons<\/em>) and see what changes will occur on the next restart.<\/p>\n<p>There are a number of challenges involved with synchronizing add-ons. Because of this, the scope of the initial add-on sync feature has intentionally been limited. For this initial release, an add-on will be synchronized only if all of the following criteria are met:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It is an extension or theme<\/li>\n<li>It is installed from <a href=\"https:\/\/addons.mozilla.org\/\">https:\/\/addons.mozilla.org\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li>It is publicly listed on the add-ons site<\/li>\n<li>It is installed into the current profile by the user<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For now, add-ons are only synchronized between identical application types &#8211; changes to a desktop browser will only affect other desktop browsers and changes to a mobile browser will only affect other mobile browsers. Greater functionality between desktop and mobile will come in the future.<\/p>\n<p>Security and privacy are important concerns when designing add-on sync. As with all your Firefox Sync data, add-on data is encrypted in your browser before being transmitted to the Sync server. So, people in the cloud can&#8217;t tell what add-ons you have installed, even if they wanted to know.<\/p>\n<p>Add-on sync is a feature in progress and are working on further updates to include in later Firefox releases. You can learn more about add-on sync including background on some key design decisions at <a href=\"https:\/\/wiki.mozilla.org\/Services\/Sync\/Addon_Sync\">https:\/\/wiki.mozilla.org\/Services\/Sync\/Addon_Sync. <\/a>If you would like to get involved, instructions for reaching us can be found at <a href=\"https:\/\/wiki.mozilla.org\/Services\/Sync#Get_Involved\">https:\/\/wiki.mozilla.org\/Services\/Sync#Get_Involved<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>We hope add-on sync makes managing your online experience with Firefox a little easier. Happy syncing!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We strive to make your online experience better and we have a new feature in the latest Firebox Beta we think you&#8217;ll love: add-on sync. Add-on sync does what its name implies: it synchronizes add-ons between profiles connected with Firefox &hellip; <a class=\"go\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/services\/2012\/02\/09\/add-on-sync-coming-to-firefox\/\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":403,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42007],"tags":[119,917],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/403"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}