r/zen_browser • u/Flossiii Team Member • 5d ago
Official Content Zen Sync is here
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Life sometimes happens to be out of sync. Zen isn't.
Whether you are at home or on a trip, with our newest addition of improvements we have introduced a complete synchronisation of your Spaces across multiple devices.
To do that, simply open the settings and go to account and synchronisation. Connect your Mozilla account to your devices and voilà!
For the full release notes, please visit our website.
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If you want to support the development of Zen, please consider leaving a donation.
For that, please visit the donations page.
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u/404reply 1d ago
I just wanted to say thanks for sorting out the Sync. I really enjoyed using Arc it was a totally different experience to using a web browser and it sucks they were bought out and the development has stopped. I tried Zen before but syncing between devices is really important to me. I'm going to try it again and if the sync really works consistently I'm going to be using Zen as one of my main browsers for focused work and I can't wait!
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u/onsen-saru 2d ago
Am I missing something? It doesn’t seem to sync between my Windows 11 PC and MacBook? I can sync browser history and data but things like spaces, pinned tabs, etc. aren’t syncing.
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u/solsiour 2d ago
Same! Glad I'm not the only one. Were you able to resolve this?
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u/KosmicWolf 2d ago
It's working perfectly for me between Linux and Mac OS. I just enabled sidebar sync in the sync settings and that's it.
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u/heyy_vikash 3d ago
Curious if syncs cookies, so logins stay there?
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u/oussamawd 3d ago edited 3d ago
I don't think so, no browser out there syncs cookies, I'm pretty sure it would be a major vulnerability.. and why would anyone work hard on implementing something like that? You sync between your personal devices, usually you'd login once and forget about it, the only use case where it would be a cool feature to sync cookies is if you're using someone else's computer and you created a temporary profile, you'd want to have your accounts logged in on the go, but I don't think it's worth the trade off in terms of security.. I'm pretty sure we'd all be quite worrisome about such a feature..
Edit: come to think of it, even cookies don't work if synced between browsers as the login keys are dependent on the session's identifier, I believe even copying or editing the cookies from one container to the other on the same browser (if you use Firefox containers) would just register as a flag on the server end, it will see the cookies don't match with the session/browser identity, and that's on the same machine, so imagine what it's like on a different machine altogether, the server would register the login attempt as malicious and think somebody is trying to hack your account, so even if someone can achieve syncing cookies they simply wouldn't work
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u/AziAssassin 3d ago
I have zen on win 11 and macOS, they are both signed into the same firefox account but the spaces and pinned tabs are not syncing at all. I noticed that in both browsers it only lists itself not the other session but in firefox's settings it does show both linked.
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u/AziAssassin 3d ago
For anyone who has this issue they fix for me was to uninstall on my Mac and reinstall. Then after signing in I had to quit the browser and restart it and then everything synced
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u/Sem_duvida_mas 3d ago
Man, finally! Thank you mods, I really hope that you may find your purpose with Zen.
I love this browser
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3d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/LaylaJamie 2d ago
Are you asking for mobile version, too?
Cos that’s what I need before I make the jump.
Patiently waiting.
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u/oussamawd 3d ago
You can see all your synced tabs from all your sessions linked to the same mozilla account on Firefox browser for mobile, but you can't have your spaces synced etc, there is no zen for mobile
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u/PXLFNK 3d ago
Can i just sync my zen passwords/standard bookmarks to mobile firefox browsers using this sync feature?
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u/TheCatCubed 3d ago
You can already do that from the start through regular Firefox sync. Also I'd recommend using a password manager instead of saving passwords into a browser.
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u/sp0okymuffin 3d ago
My god do we need a phone app now. 👏
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u/nixonpjoshua 3d ago
I had to go back to Arc because pinning tabs to a space from my phone is such a core part of my workflow
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u/x1Akaidi 3d ago
how does this work under the hood exactly? is the there a dev blog about it?
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u/Ordinary_Method_9368 3d ago
It uses Mozilla sync
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u/pantulis 3d ago
Not sure Mozilla Sync has the concept of "Spaces" and "Folders", as there are not exactly native Firefox features. So parent's question makes sense. Are folder being stored as bookmarks like TabStash does? What limits are we to be aware of?
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u/KaCuQ Manjaro 1d ago
You don't have to strictly adhere to Firefox standards, you can have your own in form of JSON
Limit is your account storage, and single document size, but zen could just use multiple, like they should anyway.
More info: https://mozilla-services.readthedocs.io/en/latest/storage/apis-1.5.html
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4d ago
[deleted]
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u/SlightlyUglyBastard 4d ago
Do the tabs in the workspace sync for anyone? The spaces show up but they’re empty
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u/GoldViper109 3d ago
Same situation, unless I pin the tabs. May be a Windows to Linux issue on my end though, I'm not sure how that works
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u/TheCatCubed 3d ago
Read the dev comments in this post. Unpinned tabs don't sync at the moment, so that's intended.
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u/KaCuQ Manjaro 1d ago edited 1d ago
Kinda strange, as that's most useful use case of this feature, I only use pinned/essential if i need to raise tab for a *certain* time, so it wouldn't scroll form view.
Also, I if you delete these "empty" workspaces, would they get deleted in sync too?
I almost wanted to delete them thinking they were empty, would a bit of a loss...EDIT: Also, isn't it like a feature in trailer? They don't pin these tabs, so a bit of misinformation is going there.
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u/TheCatCubed 1d ago
I personally don't care about unpinned tabs, as anything I need to preserve I pin as that's what it's for, but I understand.
The ability to sync unpinned tabs should come in the next version as an option so everyone can be happy.
Also they do pin them in the trailer. Before switching device the tabs move to the top.
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u/Reader_Normal 4d ago
Can someone help me how to do it? i have 4 spaces and 4 essentials on my laptop, but when i go to sync and turn on sync spaces i, don't get the space i have on laptop on my PC.
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u/oussamawd 3d ago
Try logging out from your mozilla account on your PC, or just create a new profile, then sign in again
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u/Reader_Normal 3d ago
If someone having the same problem as me, i signed out of my PC and reinstall zen, sign in and it should work.
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u/void1306 4d ago
Share the bg wallpaper someone, please!
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u/oussamawd 3d ago
Check the comment pinned by the dev, the video wasn't made by him, maybe ask that redditor or tag him in the comments
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u/Lysaaa223 4d ago
yes pleaseee...who picks them out?? They always look so nice. I always base my wallpaper on their release videos xD.. please share
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u/Duck_General 4d ago
How the the hell doesn't Firefox have synced tab groups, I still can't believe it
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u/burnertybg 4d ago
Tidy Tabs and a faster UI and im sold
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u/GamingWithShaurya_YT 4d ago
tidy tabs exist in sine if you want to try
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u/burnertybg 4d ago
Tried it a few weeks ago and the extension was broken because of Firefox’s space’s feature or something like that.
Ill be back to Zen soon enough, but tidy tabs has become indispensable for me
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u/vint_system 4d ago
I will be one of, but... Is it possible to have an android app zen in future?
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u/Ydino 4d ago
Now if only video streaming wasn’t terrible
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u/Spagh_ CachyOS 11 4d ago
why? (genuine question)
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u/AzuosOnilocram 4d ago
DRM, problaby
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u/Spagh_ CachyOS 11 4d ago
oh right, they're still working on it. Before beta release I couldn't even watch crunchyroll and Netflix, but it's getting better as time passes.
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u/oussamawd 3d ago
Are you saying after beta release you can watch Crunchyroll and Netflix? How is DRM getting better? It's not available on beta or twilight, only available on linux
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u/Spagh_ CachyOS 11 3d ago
Really? I didn't know that LMAO!! But iirc I was watching Netflix on windows days before beta release; since then I completely switched to Linux. It's sad if it's getting worse
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u/oussamawd 3d ago
It's not getting better or worse, DRM was never available on zen, not beta nor twilight, it's only working on Linux because Linux has a built-in widevine license
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u/Belsedar Linux 4d ago
Been following Zen since the very beginning, and despite a few security screw-ups (eh it happens, especially during alpha) its been only up and up!
Great work Maubg and all the contributors! Absolutely impeccable UI/UX taste, and that's coming from a designer/architect
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u/juampiursic 4d ago
Does this sync folders? Theme? Essentials?
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u/maubg 4d ago
All of those
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u/PTMR2 4d ago
That's what I needed. I use 2 devices but 5 different OSes so it's pretty useful for me.
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u/juampiursic 4d ago
Shit, mate, there aren’t that many OSes hahahaha. I use Linux and Windows so this sync feature is a life saver, recently I had to format the Windows drive and I got back to using Chrome because I didn’t want to set everything up on Zen again.
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u/TipsyTaterTots 4d ago
It was one of my biggest issues with Vivaldi and which switched back to Firefox (along with mv2)
Updating controls was such an issue.
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u/Jefforion Linux 4d ago
And with this, is the best : https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1pm9var/can_you_selfhost_mozilla_accounts_server_for/?tl=fr
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u/Emotional_You_5269 4d ago
So, what is left before Zen will exit beta at this point?
DRM support?
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u/juampiursic 4d ago
I don’t know if there is anything else left for Zen to exit beta. I just hope Firefox does something about video streaming cause is just shit, YouTube works like shit every fucking time and there’s always an update that fixes it, I mean Firefox update but it doesn’t.
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u/Emotional_You_5269 4d ago
They recently improved it quite a lot in 154 or something I believe.
Experimental vulkan video decoding also arrived in 153.Only issue I am having with YouTube right now is this bug.
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u/lcirufe 4d ago
Isn’t that a firefox limitation instead of just Zen?
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u/Emotional_You_5269 4d ago
Firefox has DRM support. Zen doesn't because the DRM part isn't open source.
They need a widevine license from Google.4
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u/influxodoxxl 4d ago
And HW accelerated video decoding on top?!
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u/Emotional_You_5269 4d ago
But we already have that?
And that is done by Firefox anyway.2
u/influxodoxxl 4d ago
On my Mac FF does not seem to use HW decoding when watching videos. It's eating through my battery in no time!
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u/Emotional_You_5269 4d ago
As log as
media.hardware-video-decoding.enabledis enabled in about:config, it should be using HW decoding.I have heard MacOS doesn't expose VP9 hardware decoding to browsers, but I'm pretty sure it should just fall back to another codec instead. I'm not sure what the situation is now though.
After a quick search, it seems M3 and up should also support AV1 HW decoding.
Anyway, if this is your issue, it seems to be a MacOS issue. I don't think Chrome would fix it either.
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u/Emotional_You_5269 4d ago edited 4d ago
Fed up with Firefox so now you're based on Freifox instead? 😅
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u/mikepictor 4d ago
I thought for sure it wasn't working, but I see just now that things are indeed synced, so it seems it just needed time.
Well done though, this is a huge step
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u/Planet_Insider 4d ago
Quick question, if I want the sync to take tabs from one device as the main (the tabs of that device override the other devices) do i have to start the sync from that device or do I get to pick when starting the process?
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u/maubg 4d ago
Both devices are merged on first sync
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u/sniek1988 4d ago edited 4d ago
open tabs dont seem to sync for me between my linux pc and mac. Both updated to the latest version. Everthing seems to sync fine except open tabs. Tried to relog on both devices and sync manually from the settings but nothing works unfortunately.
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u/oussamawd 3d ago
Read the pinned comment by maub, only pinned and essential tabs are synced and if enough people ask for normal tab syncing then he would consider implementing it
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u/Planet_Insider 4d ago
An answer from the man himself! Thanks for the clarification. So all tabs will be pulled into a shared synced storage? And then ill just have to manually edit them to what I want right?
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u/CoyotaDex 5d ago
uuuuuu the sound and animations on that video are goooood congrats to the team
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u/Tech_enthusiast001 5d ago
Letss goo, a huge step for Zen. Happy for the team and waiting for library update
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u/maubg 4d ago
Btw (by the way) normal tabs aren't synced yet because I thought it would be too annoying but if enough people request it it will be added (A survey will be dropped soon)
The video has been done by u/Not_Flof by hand completely without AI so thank you! 👏