It's official, your Firefox syncing prayers have been answered -- Weave 1.0 has arrived.
Weave is a free add-on for Firefox that syncs your data -- bookmarks, browsing history, open tabs, Personas and stored passwords -- across multiple PCs running Firefox and supported mobile devices. Weave is currently an add-on available through Mozilla Labs, but look for Weave to become a part of Firefox itself later this year.
Once installed, Weave works transparently in the background, syncing your data to Mozilla's servers and then on to any other synced computers (you can use your own server for syncing, too). The result is a universal browsing experience that offers the ability to move from one computer to another without interrupting your customized workflow. Weave syncing in very fast -- when you're setting up a new computer, or a new instance of Firefox on your user account on a multi-user machine, you basically get your own version of the browser, tricked out and bookmarked to your specs, about a minute after you log in to Weave.
There is, however, one major element of Firefox missing from Weave's syncing capabilities -- Firefox add-ons. The good news is that add-on syncing, along with search box plug-in syncing, are scheduled to arrive with Weave 1.1, though so far there's no hint of a release date.
Now that Weave is ready to graduate from Mozilla Labs to prime time add-on, Mozilla plans to incorporate the add-on into Firefox, making sync a standard feature of the browser.
Whether a built-in version of Weave for Firefox will arrive with the next major release or be part of Mozilla's new "rolling release" schedule remains to be seen. In the mean time, if you don't want to wait you can download a copy of Weave and get started today.
Keep in mind that, if you've been using early releases of Weave, it's best to update all computers running Weave before attempting to sync.
See Also:
