Sync Your to-Do List Across Firefox Browsers and Android Devices With Mozilla Notes
As I mentioned this morning , Mozilla recently released two new apps as part of its Test Pilot program: one to sync passwords between your Firefox browser and your iOS (and soon Android) device, and another app (and extension) to sync notes. between Firefox browser and Android device.
The latter, simply called “ Notes by Firefox, ” is an easy way to keep track of your thoughts without having to deal with a super-complex extension or, depending on your operating system, a separate note-taking application. And because Firefox is cross-platform, you can access your notes from both Mac and Windows systems. Android too if you install the standalone (and experimental) Notes by Firefox app .
This is how the whole process works. You’ll start by installing Test Pilot and enabling the Notes extension in your browser – just look for the giant button on the Mozilla Test Pilot for Firefox website that says so. Agree to the extension’s permissions, and a sidebar should appear on the left side of your browser with a nice little welcome message from Mozilla.
As you will see, Notes uses Markdown formatting. So, you need to remember that ** blahblahblah ** is how you make the text bold, for example, instead of just typing “blahblahblah”, highlighting it and pressing Command (or Control) + B. You can do all the basic actions in Firefox Notes – bulleted lists, numbered lists, and even special text formatting for code – but you can’t insert hyperlinks. I mean, you can enter the URL of the website, of course, but there is no way to convert it to a clickable hyperlink (at the moment).
However, you can export your notes as HTML files. This still won’t magically create clickable hyperlinks from URLs, but it’s at least a good way to save some giant note you’ve been working on.
Once you’ve written your shopping list into a Firefox extension to use one example, getting it out of the Firefox Android for Notes app is very easy. Install the app, log into your Firefox account, and whatever you previously entered on your computer will appear on your smartphone or tablet. Conversely, whatever you then enter into the Notes application will appear in Notes in Firefox.
Is Notes better than an app like Bear ? No. You can’t cut articles and easily fit them into a Firefox note, there’s the aforementioned hyperlink that can drive you crazy, and you can’t even customize the text colors (or the background color of the note itself if you want to go crazy). However, it is an easy way to sync notes between any Firefox browsers as well as your Android device. If that’s all you need, an experimental Mozilla extension and app can help you.