Google Browser Sync goes open source

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I’ve been using Google Browser Sync since 2006 when it first came out as a simple way to sync multiple browser installations I have on multiple machines. Google decided late last month to discontinue support for it, but now they’ve decided to fully open source the code! This is fantastic news.

Aaron Boodman, Software Engineering Team and Browser Sync Developer blogged:

While we’re no longer doing active development, we’ve released the code
in the hopes that those folks who asked for it will use it to develop
something cool. For example, it would be great to see the server ported
to Google App Engine, or support for Firefox 3 implemented.

Since there are so many alternatives now for Browser syncing Google apparently figured their time/effort is better spent elsewhere. Personally speaking I also use del.icio.us, but that’s more as a public facing mechanism to share bookmarks. I’ve always wanted to be able to sync my Google Browser sync with the del.icio.us browser sync with proper filters for public and non-public settings. Perhaps now that it’s open source it’s something that will happen.

Then of course there is Mozilla Weave which might be the biggest benefactor of this code in the long run. Weave is Mozilla’s effort for data sync that I’ve written on before and perhaps Moz developers will be able to pull stuff from the Google code that will make Weave a more stable and attractive option for users.