Floccus

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What we present to you today, we are sure, is an application that many have been looking for or waiting for. Floccus will allow you to synchronize your favorites across multiple devices taking advantage of Nextcloud, the protocol WebDAV or even Google Drive (although, as you know, we prefer to suggest alternatives to Google Drive.)

We have already touched on this topic in the past and this is also why we know which interests many. In fact, we have already talked about xBrowserSync also mentioning other very interesting alternatives such as Raindrop.

However, the way Floccus works is different and is really simple and suitable for many people. To get started we suggest you download the extension for yours Browsers or the smartphone application. Upon first installation you will be asked if you already have an account or if you want to create one.

Floccus, sync bookmarks across all your devices

As we have already mentioned There are no Floccus servers and therefore you will have to use your server Nextcloud or WebDAV. There is also Google Drive but, as mentioned, we do not recommend it. If instead Nextcloud And WebDav These words seem difficult to you, we will help you immediately.

Nextcloud it's excellent alternative to Google Drive. We often talk about it and we have also dedicated an ad hoc article to it. You can create a Nextcloud server yourself (not recommended for beginners) or you can simply purchase a subscription from one of the many providers available.

WebDAV it is instead an open protocol used by dozens of providers. To give you an example kDrive, Hetzner, pCloud, Koofr and many other managers allow you to exploit this protocol. Some, like kDrive, only allow it in their paid version. Here you can find our article with a list of alternative providers to Google Drive where those compatible with WebDAV are also marked.

This small parenthesis serves to make you understand that You can use Floccus almost anywhere, so if you already have one of these servers or subscriptions then you can use it Floccus without any difficulty.

Let's get back to us.

How does it work

Let's say you want to take advantage of your kDrive subscription and use WebDAV.

Enter your provider's WebDAV URL (for our example the address is https://connect.kdrive.infomaniak.com/kdrive), your username and password. I recommend that if you have activated two-factor authentication you must first create a unique password for this application on your kDrive profile.

After giving him access you can decide the location of the bookmarks and the format (XBEL or HTML). You can also decide to import your favorites or synchronize the current active tabs.

The next step is to decide the time frame for synchronization and what to do when any inconsistencies exist. If you don't know what you're doing, leave the default settings.

Now the folder you have selected will be synced to Floccus.

If you install the application on your smartphone you will find your favorites synchronized. You can use another one Browsers, install the appropriate extension, and find all your favorites.

xBrowserSync and Raindrop, the alternatives

There are two interesting alternatives to Floccus:

• xBrowserSync Unfortunately, although it is still fully functional, it no longer seems very updated or maintained. In fact, if you take a look at the project on GitHub, you will notice that the updates have been missing for a long time and the developer himself says that the project is not abandoned but simply can no longer keep up with it ¹. The server therefore continues to function for now but it is not certain that it will be like this forever.
• Raindrop it is instead an excellent alternative but being proprietary (albeit with applications Open source) we simply prefer to prioritize Floccus. We could talk about it later but for now it seems more interesting to talk about Floccus precisely because it does not depend on external servers or subscriptions of any kind other than the one you already have.

1. Not abandoned as such, I just have no free time currently to work on it, let alone keep up with all the GitHub issues. I maintain the xBrowserSync server so users can still use the service.[↩]

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