Show HN: Unsearch, an open source alternative to Google Chrome Sync

github.com

8 points by __alberto 3 months ago

I use several browsers between college, work and home and I like to have them synced so I can find websites I've searched for in a browser when I don't have access to it or access my bookmarks.

I don't like the idea of using any of the sync services offered by the major browsers because of how they might use my data, because they lack some features I'd like to have, and because they all try to lock you into their ecosystem.

So I'm building an open source cross-browser manager for browsing activity. I would love to hear your thoughts on this concept, and if you have any questions or suggestions, please let me know.

jauntywundrkind 3 months ago

Looks good!

I really wish folks had, back in the day, gone in on writing their own chrome sync services. I don't know what the state of the world is today, but for a long time it was a not-that-wild set of extensions atop XMPP. https://github.com/valurhrafn/chrome-sync-server

I don't know what Chrome does today. Writing extensions to manage all this state seems fine, sensible. But I wish we really could go deep & really supplant the actual cloud system the browsers use, as sweet as it is that we can strap on this other sync mechanism thanks to extensions.

  • __alberto 3 months ago

    Thanks! I agree with you and would love to dig into other options to handle the sync. Extensions solve the problem for now, although in some browsers they are not available in the mobile version.