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Browsers on multiple Macs (must sync)

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Browsers on multiple Macs (must sync)

Postby AJB Temple » 19 Oct 2021, 10:18

Knowing there are a few clued up Mac users on here, inckuding Mark of course, can anybody give me some browser pointers please? I use 3 modern Macs all running latest OS, iCloud+ etc. Have a large number (hundreds) of categorised bookmarks for my various interests and these must sync across computers.

Fed up with Safari. Latest iteration with its ever changing top bar and still woeful lack of privacy, adblocking and pop up blocking has made me look elsewhere again. Never been a fan of Firefox and it still has no useful cloud sync) and I won't use Chrome as its tracking is intrusive.

The best options for security, privacy and native ad blocking appear to be Vivaldi or Brave. I've downloaded both and neither does a direct bookmark sync from Safari. Before I invest time in transporting the bookmarks I really want across to a new browsers, does anyone have any thoughts on which is best?

In daily use the things I use most are: this forum, a photography forum, lots of cooking stuff, motorbike club, couple of piano forums, chess forum, Telegraph, Guardian and Times websites, Daily Mail (annoying but I have to keep up with my wife and also my business partner), You Tube (Safari has no means of blocking the endless ads), along with some fitness and diet stuff, weather, etc. Amazon Prime too (used daily for videos). Nothing that should cause a problem.

I want to eliminate tracking and targeted ads, minimise cookies that I don't want, eliminate pop-ups, and have easy organisation and deletion of bookmarks.

I realise this is a woodwork forum, but the people here are sensible. :D
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Re: Browsers on multiple Macs (must sync)

Postby 9fingers » 19 Oct 2021, 10:30

Just concentrating on the bookmark requirement, how about using a backup type application to synchronise the bookmark folders in each browser.

I'm not a mac user so cant be specific about particular programmes to use

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Re: Browsers on multiple Macs (must sync)

Postby AndyT » 19 Oct 2021, 10:32

Have a look at Opera.
I've happily used it on mobiles for several years. I haven't needed to explore its facilities to synch bookmarks etc (my life is simpler than yours!) but everything you mention is available.

I chose it originally because it has ad blocking built in. It also offers an integrated vpn and data compression to save mobile data.

You need to look a bit carefully as they offer different versions (eg a lite version) across all operating systems.

My only gripe is that it comes with a "news" feed, like its rivals, but it's easy to turn off.
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Re: Browsers on multiple Macs (must sync)

Postby Dr.Al » 19 Oct 2021, 10:46

I'm a fan of Vivaldi, although I've never used Brave so can't comment on how it compares. It synchronises across multiple computers and they default to privacy settings that don't break websites, which seems a good compromise to me. Some of the more privacy-focused browsers (or Vivaldi with all it's privacy settings turned up to maximum) just end up being frustrating as there are so many websites that stop working. I also use uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger (plugins from the Chrome store); I'm not sure how much these are duplicating effort, but most things seem to work and uBlock origin's icon shows a very high number of things that are blocked!

It looks like Safari doesn't support the standard APIs for bookmark access, so I don't think you'll ever find anything that synchronises cross-browser that works with Safari. Vivaldi synchronises bookmarks etc across different computers if you want it to. I turn that off and use xbrowsersync (which is a cross-browser bookmarks synchroniser), but it is a bit flaky on Vivaldi (it's not currently a supported browser but will be supported in v1.6.1 apparently, along with Opera, Brave & Edge), so I don't think I'd recommend xbrowsersync right now. One advantage of xbrowsersync when it does work is that you can play with different browsers and all your bookmarks will stay in sync across the browsers. If you do use a browser synchronisation tool other than the one built-in to the browser, be sure to turn the built-in one off or everything will get confused!

In case you haven't realised this yet, you should be able to manually transfer bookmarks by exporting from Safari and importing into another browser. It's only the automatic synchronisation that Apple have deliberately made difficult. They used to support the relevant API but withdrew it so they could charge developers to work on their platform.
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Re: Browsers on multiple Macs (must sync)

Postby Woodster » 19 Oct 2021, 11:22

Dr.Al wrote:In case you haven't realised this yet, you should be able to manually transfer bookmarks by exporting from Safari and importing into another browser.


I was going to say this. I’ve not had the need to do it for a while but I’ve done it a few times in the past. It was quite a painless exercise at the time.
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Re: Browsers on multiple Macs (must sync)

Postby Andyp » 19 Oct 2021, 12:19

I’d like to think that I am a clued up iMac user but what you are wanting to do is way over my head. Which I guess means I am not as clued up as I thought. :? :(
I do not think therefore I do not am.

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Re: Browsers on multiple Macs (must sync)

Postby AJB Temple » 19 Oct 2021, 13:02

Thanks guys.

Brave is a development of Opera - from the same originator. It's moved on a long way. Vivaldi is a heavily reskinned version of Chrome as far as I can make out. Apple claim that neither are OSX optimised, but Safari has become clunky in its latest iteration (Version 15).

I'm aware I can export Safari bookmarks to an HTML file and then import them into whatever. The really big snag with this is that I use system generated unique stored multi symbol passwords that are different for everything. I know I can export these out of keychain into a numbers or excel file. What I was hoping to find was something that would allow me to export the bookmarks along with their associated passwords. But for the reasons mentioned above Apple do not facilitate this: presumably to discourage abandonment of their browser.

It is clear that for maximum security in a fully functioning browser, Brave is the best choice. It is also clear that for maximum functionality but less security and privacy, Vivaldi is a better choice. Brave uses a 24 word (ie couple of hundred digits) to secure sync between identified and named computers. So I've done a trial with the two laptops and if this works on a few sites over the next few days, I will start the tedious process of transferring the password scripts. I don't think its worth trying to write my own automation script to do this.

I think it was your post a while ago Dr Al re Vivaldi that led me to look at this. The bookmark and other flexibility is miles ahead of any competitor, but the reviews I have read are a bit critical of security functionality. I would prefer not to run ad ons, as they tend to slow down loading. From observational tests this morning I would say Brave loads noticeably faster - with both browsers using DDG as the search engine.

I've yet to look at mobile phone sync functionality, but Safari is hopeless with that as well so I don't care that much.
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Re: Browsers on multiple Macs (must sync)

Postby Woodster » 19 Oct 2021, 14:17

How does a VPN fit into the equation? I’d always assumed that this is the first step for anyone concerned about security. If you use a VPN is there a need for a more secure browser as well? I ask because I’ve begged the question of VPN use before and few people seem to use one.

As an aside I’ve tried this a few times but I’ve no idea how well it works or even if I really need to use it?

https://www.startpage.com/

Edit: I don’t know if it’s of any help but I’ve just seen this?

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/s ... rw1015/mac
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Re: Browsers on multiple Macs (must sync)

Postby Dr.Al » 19 Oct 2021, 14:43

AJB Temple wrote:I think it was your post a while ago Dr Al re Vivaldi that led me to look at this. The bookmark and other flexibility is miles ahead of any competitor, but the reviews I have read are a bit critical of security functionality. I would prefer not to run ad ons, as they tend to slow down loading. From observational tests this morning I would say Brave loads noticeably faster - with both browsers using DDG as the search engine.


That's really interesting, thanks. I might have another look at Brave in that case.

Most of my passwords come from a browser-plugin version of this site: https://passwordmaker.org/passwordmaker.html (with the default settings changed to make more secure passwords). It's a bit of a pain if you have to change your password (although it's not bad if you have multiple profiles and associate them with particular sites, which is handled by the browser plugin). One advantage of it is that nothing is saved anywhere (passwords for websites are a hash of your secret password and the website address, so every password is different, nothing is stored anywhere and you only have to remember one password). That means you don't have to worry about migrating to another browser (assuming there's a plugin for that browser or you can be bothered with the website version).
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Re: Browsers on multiple Macs (must sync)

Postby AJB Temple » 19 Oct 2021, 18:52

Thanks Woodster. I'm not sure how a VPN helps here (though I do use for business). In this case I am operating three machines in different rooms within a site, not sharing a distribution network: this is a single user with identical log ins, passwords, settings etc across all machines. Browser settings are all matched and all bookmarks (added to frequently - several a day) have unique complex passwords and I want them to sync across all three machines.

Your sync link Woodster is actually to import bookmarks from other browsers into Safari. I am going the other way round. I will be keeping the Safari bookmarks obviously, but mothballing it as my default browser, both domestically and at work.

It's easy to import bookmarks into (and export out of) pretty much any browser. The tricky bit is matching say 300 bookmarks (many of which could be music related with similar names) with 300 completely different complex passwords. Also I have a lot of supplier bookmarks for all sorts of stuff - business and private - and they all have different log ins and passwords.

Brave cosmetically is nowhere near as nice as Vivaldi. But the security customisation and indeed security by default is very good, as is privacy by default, without being so constraining that it makes the browser inoperable for things like You Tube, Instagram and Tik Tok.

Quite a lot of privacy in some browsers is delusional and that is exactly my problem. Chrome for example has incognito mode (as does Safari, operated in a different way.) This allegedly prevents tracking, but in reality it doesn't: so if you enable incognito mode by toggling it on (or doing the same in Safari for example) and then log into amazon, then amazon will still be able to track exactly what you looked at whilst logged in. And they will share this with other sites. They will use your so called private history for targeting in future sessions too.

Brave, in privacy mode and with Tor enabled, makes me completely anonymous. (They claim). I will soon see once I have been to enough sites with ad trackers and profilers. I'm not paranoid about this: my main motivation is avoidance of plug ins and minimising tracking and privacy invading ad targeting.
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