J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

In message , Art Todesco
writes:
I recently updated my main w7 computer to Firefox 57. Apparently,
xmarks had some problems where all the folders of folders are now
empty. So, I checked on the xmarks website in my account and sure
enough, they were now all empty. I have another computer, w7 laptop,
where the folders are all still in tact. I'm afraid to tell xmarks to
sync now because I fear that it will pump up the laptop with the empty
folders and I will loose those bookmarks. I don't know how to proceed.
Is there a way to make xmarks not update that computer? Any help would
be appreciated. I did google it but got lost in all the gobbldeGoogle.

What is xmarks?

(And before all those people tell me to Google it: if Art, who _does_
know what it is, gets lost in the gobbledeGoogle, then what chance would
I have.)

I and others who might like to try to help might get further if we knew
what it was. Of course, the best responses will come from other users,
but if they aren't forthcoming ...

Since the OP mentioned both "Firefox" and "xmarks", and if I had no clue
what was "xmarks", I'd first go search at addons.mozilla.org since my
guess is the OP was asking about an extension to that web client.

Although I have used Xmarks in the past (disliked it due to duplication
of bookmarks and vaporizing of others), I still checked at the addons
site where I noticed it is flagged as not compatible with FF57. It is a
legacy add-on. FF57 will disable legacy add-ons. For the OP to still
be using it means he had to go into about:config to change a setting to
reenable legacy add-ons (if it's still there in the released version
from when I saw it described for the nightly version). If the OP
reenabled legacy addon support in FF57 then the OP is or should be aware
of the consequences of his action. The new car can be made to use
tractor tires but the driver choose the consequences thereof: increased
vibration, traction loss, reduced drivability, reduced turn radius,
severe increase in wear on bearings, needing a ladder to enter/exit,
extra cost for fitting non-standard equipment, etc.

Don't know why the OP wants to use Xmarks instead of Sync already built
into Firefox. Sync synchronize more data types than Xmarks, it's
already there and doesn't require an add-on. At one time (and maybe
still available but probably legacy), there was an add-on to add a
muting control to the tabs. Since Mozilla added the sound icon at the
right end of tabs, that add-on became superfluous.

While Xmarks had add-ons for Firefox (Xmarks started as Foxmarks) and
Google Chrome, you have to run a separate program in Windows for
Internet Explorer (which keeps its favorites in a folder under the
user's profile so the external Xmarks program would sync your account's
bookmarks to that folder). They didn't want to write an ActiveX (OLE)
control to use inside of Internet Explorer. Whether Internet Explorer
was loaded or not, the Xmarks program kept running in the background to
consume memory, CPU cycles, and bandwidth.

The only advantage that I can think of for Xmarks is that it works with
other web clients. It is not solely linked to Firefox. For example,
while Firefox and Google Chrome both have their Sync functions, they are
independent. You cannot get Firefox Sync to synchronize to Google
Chrome or visa versa. Xmarks tries to sync bookmarks between several
web browsers. I found it unreliable and got rid of it long ago. Also,
shorting after dumping Xmarks, it died. Then it got resuscitated by
someone other than the original developer. If the original owner didn't
want to keep supporting Xmarks, didn't seem like anything that I would
want to stick with or retry. LastPass acquired Xmarks probably because
they already had sync'ing servers for their password function so
extending their server to handle bookmarks seemed a natural extension to
their business profile. Then LogMeIn acquired LastPass. Xmarks keeps
bouncing from company to company but with LogMeIn was not the aim of
their acquisition of LastPass. Remember what happened to WinFax as the
orphan got bounced from parent to parent: Delrina to to Symantec to
dead. LogMeIn has since merged with Citrix. Getting pretty muddy.

Although I have over 600 bookmarks, those have accumulated over years of
web surfing. They now change very little during a week or even over
many months. To sync bookmarks across web clients, I just export from
whichever has the latest list (which is likely in my default or primary
web browser) and then import into the others. Often I clear out all
bookmarks or favorites from the target clients because I don't want
duplicates. Wipe in the target clients, export from the source client,
import into the target clients. I maybe do that once every 3-4 months
but often just as insurance that the other non-primary clients have the
same bookmarks, not because there was a memorable change that I wanted
synchronized to the target clients.

Xmarks is not available everywhere. A court order blocks ISPs in India
from allowing access to the xmarks.com domain.

https://www.medianama.com/2012/05/22...ites-in-india/

While Xmarks provides an option to encrypt bookmarks in-transit (when
sending between clients and their server), is that the default behavior?
Why provide an option if the default is to encrypt that traffic? Also,
encryption during transfer is not the same as encrypted on the server.
First it was [Fo]xmarks privacy policy. Then LassPass'. Then LogMeIn's
privacy policy. Who's next? Citrix? Someone else again?