Lifehacker: The Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, and Better, Third Edition

Hack 118: Keep Your Web Browser in Sync Across Computers

Level Medium

Platform All operating systems

Cost Free

You’ve worked hard to perfect your browser bookmark list, generate secure passwords for your logins, and cull together the best combination of browser-boosting extensions and settings. Now that you’ve built the greatest possible browser to fit your needs, you want those same bookmarks, passwords, extensions, and preferences available to you at work, at home, and on your laptop. Instead of manually adding the same bookmark, installing the same extension, or tweaking the same settings on every one of your computers — only to let them get out of sync again when you edit them on another computer — you can automatically sync your browser data. Here’s how.

Enable Your Browser’s Default Syncing Tool

As of this writing, both Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox have syncing tools built directly into their browsers, and both make it simple to set up basic browser syncing. The syncable features vary slightly by browser.

Firefox Sync (www.mozilla.com/en-US/mobile/sync/) can sync the following:

• Bookmarks
• Passwords
• Preferences
• History
• Tabs

In contrast, Chrome’s built-in tool syncs the following:

• Apps
• Autofill data
• Bookmarks
• Extensions
• Passwords
• Preferences
• Themes

Both browsers tools can selectively sync any of the options, and both sync bookmarks, passwords, and preferences — arguably the most important data you want synced. As of this writing, Chrome’s leg up on Firefox is that it ...