Are there any plans for reliable and easy to use, off-line profile backup mechanism (tabs, history, passwords, browser settings, sessions)? Honestly it is odd that in such modern web browser there is no such feature or maybe API. Instead of thinkking about integration Cliqz in to browser core, developers should do something that is really nesessary, and usefull for users.
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maybe I do not understand your pain.
isn’t a backup of the user profile enough ?
I was thinking about something similar to FEBE legacy addon. FEBE backs up your extensions, themes, bookmarks, preferences, passwords, cookies and just about everything else Firefox offers (it can even backup/restore your entire profile). You can selectively restore only the items you need. For instance, you may just want your bookmarks restored and leave everything else as it was.
Of course it is possible to copy whole profile, but why not make this possible from level of browser in one neat archive file. Some kind of snapshot of whole profile(and ad-dons) in time.
For reference: addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/febe/
I wish I could write a Quantum version of FEBE, but there are simply no APIs available to perform the functions FEBE does (or did). For instance, no access to bookmarks, cookies, usernames/passwords, browser history, etc. You can’t even read/write a file to the user’s filesystem - essential functions to backup/restore. And I seriously doubt there ever will be APIs that would allow this. It would give extensions too much power - something WebExtensions is obviously avoiding.
XPCOM is like an Advanced Erector Set while WebExtensions is just plain Legos.
Thank You Chuck for all good work that you did. Your add-on saved my data few times. Unfortunately i think you right. FEBE similar web extension will not be possible in near future. But we are the users, and we need some functionalities, so maybe someone in Mozilla will hear our voice, and will make it possible. If not the API, then maybe built in to FF core feature.