I don’t remember when I heard about it, probably when I came back from a trip, but when I found out about Google Browser Sync (GBS), I thought to myself that Google had finally created something useful for me (aside from search of course).

When you start using multiple computer, sync is a godsend. It is a huge pain when you have different files in different conditions on different computers. I sometimes wish that either I only use a single, primary computer (which I end up doing), use some sort of CVS, or had some great sync tool. Most people haven’t been exposed to this problem, but use Gmail (why is Gmail capitalized by email not?) in the same way. Instead of having an email client on every machine, they have a synchronized email store online.

I hoped that GBS would do the same thing for browsers. Instead of sending links to myself in email (now I just have multiple IM accounts logged in and send to the proper one), I could keep links open in a browser and when I get home, or to work, I could continue reading. Of course, the idea works best in theory.

The problem with GBS is that it feels like a beta product. I have a different set of tabs open at work and home (no Gmail at home for one), but when I sync up a selection of tabs, GBS either decides to

• wipe out all my tabs and only display the tabs I sync’d,
• ask me to sync a previous snapshot of links I had open,
• hourglass forever until I cancel the operation, or
• do nothing,

To be fair, it has worked a couple of times, but not reliably enough for me to actually trust it when I have a link open that I will never find it again.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: geeky, google