Google Browser Sync

Many of you are painfully aware of the fact that Google have discontinued the Google Browser Sync extension as of the release of Firefox 3.0. I wrote a post to the Google-Firefox-Extensions support group ranting about Google and they chose not to approve the message and it did not post to the group.

Here is the original message as I received it back from GoogleGroups when I submitted it:

Subject: Discontinue Google Browser Sync Suddenly = The Worst Possible Press for Google

This is all my personal opinion except where noted.

FACT: Google has revealed less than a week before Firefox 3 release
that it will not update the Google Browser Sync (GBS) extension to
work with Firefox 3, leaving thousands of users who wish to take
advantage of FF3 and the enhancements it offers.

That makes me *begin* to doubt Google. Yahoo used to be a great
service with many great features, and the leader, but now look at
them. Before that Lycos and AltaVista had a good share of the
market. Each one lost market share when they failed to keep up in
the quickly moving internet application development and public
perception marketplace.

Google has remained on top now because they are good. And they remain
good. They keep up. They develop more. Their applications are more
innovative.

With the discontinuance of GBS they have put doubt in the minds of
thousands, if not a million users: Will Google do this to the product
I rely on? Personally I use Gmail, GBookmarks, GHistory, GNotebook,
GDocs, GCalendar, and many more.

Within the past few weeks, I have not only become aware of backing up
my valuable data, but to actively search for alternatives. If this is
now the policy of Google, to abandon users with little or no warning,
then I need safer alternatives.

I may find better alternatives, but I suspect in some cases, I will
not. I started using Google products because they were good, not
because they were Google.

I point out one fact that Google has failed to take into account: You
said in your announcement that the team that had developed GBS had
"moved on to other projects." That is because they could. They built
a good product. The users had little trouble with it. It didn't
require massive amounts of support. THE USERS USED IT, THEY LIKED
IT, AND IT WAS GOOD. Now, the world has moved along a bit further,
and what you did then is no longer current technology. It needs to
be updated. Make it good like it was. So users will use it, they
will like it and it will be good. Isn't that the Google Way? Or is
that being discontinued too?

Google: Take note: You have lost more than just a little bit of
image. Time will tell. So will the actions of Google from this
point on.with GBS. I implore you to update it. It will be worth more
to you in the future than you can see now.

There may be other alternatives on the horizon, they may ultimately be
better. Maybe. Maybe not. It all depends on you, Google. Whether
you support your users now while the development of other alternatives
is still a non-stable concept. Who knows, you may update your product
so that it is ultimately better and easier to migrate upward than will
the Mozilla Beast. If you fail to try, you fail not only the users,
but yourself.

I went on and posted a few variants to this on other sites, including Lifehacker.com where the "original/official" announcement of Google's decision was posted.

Google still hasn't released my original post, but they did release a number of posts made after.

One of those posts was a link to a hastily prepared code.google.com repository of the Google Browser Sync source code.

I hope one of the users out there have the time and energy to update it for Firefox 3. I won't have time to even think about it until next week, and I'm not sure I can dredge up enough lost knowledge to do any serious coding again.