1392061 - add option to import html bookmarks

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox for iOS :: General, defect)

Description

[steve]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.12; rv:57.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/57.0
Build ID: 20170819100442

Steps to reproduce:

Feature request: Allow users to sync their bookmarks using html files. Desktop Firefox has the ability to import/export html files of bookmarks. That is really handy for users who like to keep their data out of cloud services like Firefox Sync.


Actual results:

Firefox iOS has no option to export or import html bookmark files. It would be great to have that.


Expected results:

It's clear this will not allow bi-directional sync or anything like that. But it may be sufficient for users. And offering them choice does not hurt. There's a reason Firefox on desktop does have the ability to import / export html bookmark files.

Comment 1

[James Hugman [:jhugman] [@jhugman]]

Hi Steve, 

The feature you're asking for really has its best implementation with Firefox Sync. As a citizen concerned about my own privacy and those of our users, I share your concern about cloud services. However, Sync has a zero-knowledge, trust-no-one architecture[1], such that the _only_ person to see the unencrypted data is you the user. Other zero knowledge systems known for their security built upon the same design would be 1Password and Spider Oak.

Nevertheless, we appreciate that this may not provide enough reassurance to you that this is indeed secure or stable or long-running enough for your particular threat-model or needs.

Another — easier — way of achieving your goal might be to run your own sync services. While Firefox for iOS doesn't currently support using custom sync server locations, it would be a considerably easier feature to write. This bug[2] will be an excellent place to start for this feature.

While Mozilla has no immediate plans to implement your suggested feature, Firefox for iOS is an open-source project, and we do accepts pull-request from contributors.

If you'd support and guidance in where to start implementing either feature, and help landing your pull-request when you are ready, I'd be very glad to help. 

– James Hugman

[1]: https://github.com/mozilla/fxa-auth-server/wiki/onepw-protocol
[2]: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1204411

Comment 2

[steve]

Thanks for taking the time to provide detailed feedback on this, James - that's appreciated.

Sadly I have no dev skills, so feel free to let this bug sit open as a feature request or if you think it's a wontfix, then obviously feel free to close it as such.