Firefox Sync --> Pale Moon Sync

[B_Jay]

Hi!

Great you guys hi-jacked Firefox Sync (is there any reason for that at all?) without any user consent in favor of having your own "Weave" server up and running.

After working out why Palemoon suddenly coughed up "Firefox Sync" errors, and since you guys were kind enough to NOT write a single line of heads-up about it on your Frontpage or here in the Forum ... someone maybe NOW cares to elaborate how in the hell I keep Palemoon and Firefox synced _WITHOUT_ having to jump through hoops?

Please excuse the rude tone, but I'm somewhat pissed by this.

[Moonchild]

Great you guys hi-jacked Firefox Sync (is there any reason for that at all?) without any user consent in favor of having your own "Weave" server up and running.

You got it backwards. Pale Moon sync is using our own sync/weave server, and no longer (like previous) the Mozilla one. We didn't hijack anything.

After working out why Palemoon suddenly coughed up "Firefox Sync" errors, and since you guys were kind enough to NOT write a single line of heads-up about it on your Frontpage or here in the Forum ...

Mozilla didn't give anyone a heads up either when they suddenly changed sync accounts over to "Firefox accounts" and "sync 1.5" in Firefox Australis (to be honest that was barely working on the release date). We were blindsided by that and the Pale Moon sync server became an urgent necessity. It was mentioned in the Pale Moon release notes. Mozilla will very soon pull the plug on their "old" Sync servers. New registrations on Mozilla's servers for older Firefox versions have already been disabled since FF29's release.

someone maybe NOW cares to elaborate how in the hell I keep Palemoon and Firefox synced _WITHOUT_ having to jump through hoops?

You no longer can, if you are using Firefox 29 or later. Firefox Accounts/Sync1.5 does not support Sync 1.1 data ("C-data") because it is a completely different system. Pale Moon uses Sync 1.1, and will keep using Sync 1.1 in the foreseeable future (because, simply put, it's got a higher level of user-data security).

If you want to sync Firefox 29 or later with Pale Moon, you will have to use a different synchronization service (e.g. XMarks or similar).
Once Pale Moon for Android is finalized, you can switch to that to keep synchronized from mobile devices.

[B_Jay]

You got it backwards. Pale Moon sync is using our own sync/weave server, and no longer (like previous) the Mozilla one. We didn't hijack anything.

Like you wrote: Previously Pale Moon happily synced data with the Mozilla Sync server, now it wants to sync with your own Weave server. I'm still wondering how I got it backwards when that's exactly how I pictured it in the post above.

Anyway... it may not be be "Hi-Jacking" as defined by the dictionary, but since you are now, more-or-less, forcing us to use your Weave server... No Go. My trust into Mozilla was never greater than "as far as I can conveniently throw a USB stick containing the Firefox installer", so I guess you can imagine how much trust and faith I have in your Weave server (hint: US based entity, Land of Secret Services running wild doing whatever they feel like wanting to do).

Mozilla didn't give anyone a heads up either when they suddenly changed sync accounts over to "Firefox accounts" and "sync 1.5" in Firefox Australis (to be honest that was barely working on the release date). We were blindsided by that and the Pale Moon sync server became an urgent necessity. It was mentioned in the Pale Moon release notes. Mozilla will very soon pull the plug on their "old" Sync servers. New registrations on Mozilla's servers for older Firefox versions have already been disabled since FF29's release.

Crapzilla... err... Mozilla not giving a single F about proper communication with their user base is exactly what I expect of them. They've proven again and again that they are just a bunch of ignorant snobs (to not use the evil "B" word). That Chromefox? Firechrome? - well, however you want to call that Australis catastrophe - UI speaks volumes.

Anyhow, I found your subtle hint in the release notes. You really think the grand majority of users is reading the release notes? I'm a tech savvy user, and you can safely take my word for granted that I don't dig the release notes upon an update for as long as the browser works fine. A more visible approach to this change might have been the better way, and communication.

That being said, I expected better of you guys (or you if you're the sole developer on this project).

If you want to sync Firefox 29 or later with Pale Moon, you will have to use a different synchronization service (e.g. XMarks or similar).
Once Pale Moon for Android is finalized, you can switch to that to keep synchronized from mobile devices.

Xmarks? Thanks for the laugh Moonchild. I already tested Xmarks in the past (to sync Chrome<->Firefox) and I tossed that PoC (hint: not meaning "Proof of Concept") as it started to F up my bookmarks with dupes. Nice that service exists, but it's totally unusable.

Anyway, it's not about "Android" (Firefox on Android is just plain crap - UI and performance wise... I wouldn't even care about Pale Moon on Android given Firefox runs like a dead horse that already died decades ago) ... it's really just about keeping Firefox <-> Pale Moon in sync. If that's now a impossible thing to do then it would seem as Pale Moon is going to take a hike. Sad, because it is a really great 64-Bit browser (never had a issue with it) and you're doing a great job at maintaining the browser - but "locking users in" doesn't fly with me.

In short: Thanks for Pale Moon. I enjoyed the ride while it lasted. Time to revert to Firefox and kiss Flash x64 bye bye.

[New Tobin Paradigm]

I would argue Mozilla is the ones locking users in. It is not unreasonable for Pale Moon as a divergent and separate project to provide it's own facilities for sync. While Mozilla did abruptly change how they did things and broke compatibility with Seamonkey (Completely broke Seamonkey's sync as well) AND Pale Moon a solution had to be devised to offer the most secure storage of sync data. It is not the intention of Pale Moon to stay 1:1 compatible with Firefox but to maintain the things like customizablity and choice that Firefox has abandoned.

Unlike Cyberfox or Waterfox, Pale Moon is it's own project and as they diverge it will become increasingly likely that the differences that evolve down the line will further make cross usage increasingly difficult as is proper when one project (this being firefox primarily) has been taken in a different direction while PM is continuing down what most would consider the original lines of Mozilla's browser.

[Supernova]

Took a look on the SeaMonkey thing.

Basically the FF guys decided to disable setting up legacy Sync, and part of that happened in shared back-end code (below services/) instead of only in the front-end. To them it doesn't really matter since they promote and already provide the new Sync setup in FF. But for us it means we're dead already on that end and not only once legacy Sync gets killed completely.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=998807

Definitely the FF guys not caring at all of every other gecko based browser not just cloning them, not sure if just ignoring them or wanting to kill them, but both ways are unacceptable.

[Moonchild]

You are free to use Mozilla's sync servers from Pale Moon by selecting "enter a custom server" and using Mozilla's Sync servers for as long as they are still running.
Or feel free to not use Sync at all if you don't trust our server.

By the way, I'm not based in the US. The Pale Moon Sync server is in Europe, and even so, all communication is over SSL and because of the way Sync 1.1 works your decryption key is never, ever sent to the server (unlike Sync 1.5 - even though the key is sent encrypted, it's still sent). Even if pressure would be applied, the data on the Pale Moon Sync server is useless to anyone but you.

You should be happy that I offer this alternative sync server instead of having no sync at all. So much for gratitude for trying to provide continuity while not having anywhere near a large budget like MozCo, I guess.