On iOS devices, Safari should be used.
How do you handle your bookmarks across multiple devices if you have an iPhone?
Is there something like xBrowserSync that also works for iOS?
In iOS, you have “floccus”
Its the same thing as Xbrowsersync, unless with Xbrowsersync the bookmarks are saved encrypted in their server, and with Floccus its saved encrypted self-hosted (so you store it in your webdav, gdrive, or nextcloud instance for example)
Its also cross platform, iOS Android and extensions for chromium based and firefox based browsers
And the project is actively maintained, new updates every month, the developer is nice and always trying to give more features and security
I’m sharing this because I use it everyday, I found it wonderful, and I think for some people it can be a better solution than xbrowsersync
Open source of course.
And I find the UI easier to read, easier to look for a bookmark. On the mobile app, there’s definitely more bookmarks that fit in the visible screen. But I guess that’s personal.
2 Likes
Floccus works great.
An alternative for better direct browser integration would be to use Firefox and self host your own sync server.
1 Like
I’m trying to understand if Floccus is end-to-end encrypted but I’m having a tough time with it. How does it work, exactly?
1 Like
No it is not. I used Floccus some time ago in combination with Nextcloud bookmarks. For me personally it wasn’t stable enough. Can’t recommend.
If it’s not e2ee then it won’t be recommended.
I haven’t found any useful information about it either. Seems suspicious to me.
Hi guys,
More details for @matchboxbananasynergy and alls.
I understand that you’re affraid because I barely see “floccus” on the Recommendations websites as Privacy Guides or Privacy tools.
But just keep in mind it was developped since many years (at least 5 years), and that the creator is not some random dude but the main developer (maybe also creator) of Nextcloud Bookmarks, and many other things.
He is dedicated to Nextcloud and the open source community, since always, and very serious about privacy, encryption, self hosting etc…
I even think that he currently works for the Nextcloud organizations.
It is E2E encrypted.
You don’t need to trust me, just go check the source code on github, and give it a try with a fake email and fake bookmarks for example.
Then check your file.
First you choose a place where you wanna save your bookmarks: your favorite cloud drive (or there’s even a fork that permits storing to local drive I think(check “loFloccus” on github).
Then you define a password and you’re good to go.
floccus will decrypt and encrypt locally the file containing your bookmarks.
Your drive only have access to an encrypted file.
You can also choose no encryption if you prefer.
As I said, It works exactly as Xbrowsersync, but instead of being saved in xbrowsersync server, it’s saved in your choosen personnal drive.
What makes you trust xbrowsersync E2EE and doubt about floccus E2EE ?
Regarding the reliability: I use it since half a year, so I cannot speak about how it was before, but since I use it, it has been totally reliable.
What “stability” problem did you encounter @ph00lt0 ?
From time to time some bugs can appear, and it’s normal because the main dev is always creating new features and is working alone.
Generally someone goes to the github, post a topic about this problem, then the dev starts working on it, and 1 day after, it’s fixed, if it’s a major bug.
And that’s why you should join the community, when more people, features are tested faster, bugs are fixed faster and maybe some of you could contribute if you find some stability problems.
Anyway, I don’t understand why you guys say: “I wouldnt trust” without testing before or before checking the code and the community on github.
I guess people were saying the same thing about xbrowsersync when it wasnt so famous.
Last thing, I’m very surprised with your comment @ph00lt0, because you say sharply that it’s not E2EE, while it is, but also because you say it’s not stable with Nextcloud bookmarks, and here’s what I know:
I personnaly use Gdrive because it’s convenient for me, but I know that most of people uses floccus in combination with Nextcloud because as they say: both fits perfectly.
As I said, the floccus dev is at the same time the maintener of nextcloud bookmarks, so I reckon he is working hard to keep them work together.
And I rarely see complaints coming from netxloud users about floccus.
Most of the time it’s from Kiwi Browser users, or Gdrive (for example there was a bug with Gdrive connexion that was recently fixed).
The bugs are rarely severe and when they are, the dev fixes them very fast.
And I know that the fact I’m a new user also makes you think that I’m a scam or I don’t know what.
But i guess everyone has to start with a first post, right ?
Generally your first posts are either:
- a question,
- or discuss about something you really like
EDIT:
As you can maybe see from my explanations, I am not the creator of floccus, and even if I’m trying to contribute to it (mostly bug reports and small javascript stuff), I am not a professional on how the encryption is implemented on Floccus.
My review comes essentially from my experience and what I observed while using floccus.
And also from the floccus community, topics, and the “professionals” who explains it.
(Maybe the README should be rewritten to explain better how it works)
If you need more “technical” informations, you should ask directly to the creator on the floccus github, or check the code if you are also a developer who knows those things.
My hope is that Floccus gets recommended as an alternative solution to Chrome sync, firefox sync, xbrowsersync, in Privacy Guides website.
But I guess it needs more of Privacy Guides users start using it to create “trust”.
It does indeed seem to support some encryption nowadays. I have not had this at the time and i cannot find any details about what it uses.
With Nextcloud bookmarks it wouldn’t work as the interface would need to decrypt the bookmarks too so that is kind of pointless.
The stability problems is that i had is that edits usually resulted in duplications and sync was usually taking more than a day.
Besides all this i am working what is the purpose of this. Both Brave and Firefox and syncing with E2EE which works natively.
1 Like
Thanks for the details.
Regarding duplications, never happened to me, and never heard about it from someone else recently. Maybe it was fixed, because I know that nowadays it’s technically impossible to have twice the same bookmark in the same folder, so maybe it comes from this old problem resolution.
I did hear about syncing taking too much time, or never ending, I think there is currently an issue opened about it, but never happened to me.
And about your last question:
even if firefox sync is E2EE, what made me switch to Xbrowsersync and then floccus is the fact that it’s cross-browser and cross-device.
I’m always using at the same time, or one after the other multiple browsers (for me Chrome and Firefox, and at the time I was also using a third one Librewolf).
So I was looking for something that could sync all my browsers.
And also the fact that there is iOS and Android app, I can switch and sync easily from PC to my phone.
The cross device feature of Firefox, for example, is more complicated IMO :
With Firefox your mobile bookmarks are stored in a “Mobile bookmarks” folder, more difficultly accessible from computer, and pain in the ass when you want to sort your bookmarks.
For example in my computer browser I have a folder “politics” in my bookmark bar, if I create a bookmark on my phone I cannot put it in the Politics folder.
And also from Firefox on PC I can access my “Mobile bookmarks” folder, but from Firefox Android I cannot access my PC bookmarks.
Another reason is that I have a prefered browser for different bookmarks.
For example I always open news articles with Firefox to avoid Amp conversion by google, and because paywall blocker works well.
But some of my bookmarks need to be open in a chromium browser for compatibility issues, I can’t have them to work properly in Firefox.
If I stick with a browser syncing solution I’d have to copy paste the link of the bookmarks anytile I want to open them in another browser.
And bunch of other reasons.
The fact it’s stored in Firefox server is OK because I guess Firefox won’t disappear anytime soon, but in xBrowsersync server I’m a bit more affraid it could have disappeared if I get back to my bookmarks one or two years after a pause (but I think I remember that you can also self host with xbrowsersync ?)
And in general, I support small and smart softwares against big solutions.
1 Like
Your comments make sense. I think for your use case this seems to fit you well.
I think in order to list it this we would need to know more about how it handles the encryption. I assume it’s end to end but I haven’t been able to find the specification nor what algorithm it uses.
I remember reading an issue on github about the algorithm used, I’ll try to find it and provide here some infos.
1 Like
1 Like
Hi! Creator of floccus here 
Floccus uses PBKDF2 with SHA-256 to derive a key from a passphrase and AES-GCM to encrypt the bookmarks file when syncing via WebDAV or Google Drive.
Would be cool, if floccus would be listed on privacy guides
1 Like
The easiest way is to sync your bookmarks to iCloud with Advanced Data Protection enabled.
I personally export my bookmarks from time to time and keep them on my encrypted backup drive.