How to Backup Your Firefox 4 Profile and Avoid Disasters

It has happened to all of us. You spend over 40 minutes typing eloquent prose, you bookmark an Alexander’s Library worth of game walkthroughs, you download a truckload of addons to improve your Firefox life; only to find all these things gobbled up by cyberspace gremlins! Losing the valuable content of your Firefox 4 profile is never fun and can lead to some major setbacks. Preventing such digital disasters isn’t rocket science. You can ensure that regardless of whatever calamity or crash you run into, that you are covered by a reliable insurance plan. Like a good ‒ sorry, I forgot we weren’t talking about car insurance. On to the tips!

Tip #1: Lazarus

Lazarus, just as its namesake implies, is an addon that raises your deleted typing from the dead. It can recover text typed into a variety of fields whether its a WYSIWYG editor or AJAX comment box. The addon ensures that any saved data retained is kept under secure encryption and stored locally on your PC. To use Lazarus all you have to do is right click on the field that you were typing in and choose the version of text that best corresponds with what you wanted to write. Lazarus eventually clears the database of stored text but you can ask it to do so at any time you wish. I definitely recommend this addon for bloggers who hate when their posts get mysteriously eaten.

Tip #2: Xmarks Sync

Xmarks Sync is a bookmark addon that heavily inspired Mozilla’s now built in sync extension. Mozilla’s extension still cannot compete with the ease of use and reliability that Xmarks has to offer, the difference in star ratings between the two attests to that. Xmarks secures your bookmarks on its website so that you can access them from any computer. It also offers to synchronize your bookmarks on logout if it detects you have added new entries rather than tax system resources and synch around the clock. I have never found a better bookmark app that worked so flawlessly with Firefox, I recommend this to regular and power users alike!

Tip #3: MozBackup

MozBackup is another contender that influenced Mozilla’s efforts in Firefox 4. This utility is a full fledged program however, that you need to download and install. The program uses a very simple wizard that lets you toggle checkboxes of what you wish to be backed up. Usually within less than 2 minutes, depending on how many extensions you have downloaded, MozBackup will save your entire Firefox profile as one tiny file. You can keep this file in your Documents, or on a flash drive, and restore your Firefox settings by running the program on any other computer. Using this utility regularly will save you a lot of headaches in the long run.

Tip #4: Save and Quit

Many heaved a heavy sigh when they noticed the useful Save and Quit dialog, a tool that allowed you to backup your prior session with the click of a button, had been axed in Firefox 4. Despair no longer! You can easily get this feature back with a few adjustments to your Firefox configuration settings. Here’s a list of pain free steps you need to follow:

Type about:config in your Firefox address bar. If you see a warning click on the “I’ll be careful, I promise!” button.
In the Filter box, type quitwarning and press the Enter key.
If you see the entry browser.showquitwarning, double click on the Value field so that it changes to true.

Thats it! From now on when you exit Firefox you will once again be offered the Save and Quit dialog when closing Firefox with multiple tabs open.

Thus ends my tips of how to apply damage controls to Firefox crashes and calamities. Have any other helpful Firefox addons or programs that you would like to share? Feel free to mention them in the comments.

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Written by Persian Poetess (61 Articles Published)

I am a hopeless poetess wandering the infinite valleys of cyberspace in search of knowledge and wisdom. To put it less dramatically, I am a college student living in California who aspires to pursue a career path in writing and screenwriting. In my spare time, I play up a storm on my Playstation 3 (PSN: Shahrazade). Besides gaming, I maintain a poetry blog inspired by Twitter Trending Topics: Trendingpoetry.com

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Debby @Alkaline Water

Super super important.
Anyone who has been on a computer long enough knows to figure out how to back up any program that contains data that you would not want to lose. Services are good but I also like to backup files like an html or xml and keep it on a remote server or email the file to myself so i am not the only one storing it.

thanks for the recommendations

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Persian Poetess

Thanks for sharing some practical advice. I try what I can to keep my documents and what-have-you backed up through a plethora of sources. When I found these nifty and easy solutions for Firefox though I was in heaven.

Sometimes the more complicated methods have done me more harm than good, but that is of course user-error on my part. The ones I've listed above though, never give me trouble :).

Saurabh@Techchai - Technology Tips &amp; Tricks

Amazing Addons. Firefox has been really innovative itself and the addons give firefox it's real power. Thanks to all the great developers who spend there valuable time to build such amazing tools.

Tony @ Technology News

I am always using Sync features on Firefox to keep my information safe.

Tint

Something I discovered with FF4 is the "group your tabs" button on the end of the tab toolbar. I'm very guilty of having far too many tabs open. This little gizmo groups my tabs into categories, then I can see them very visually - a bonus for me - in groups. I have groups of shopping, tech, blogs, networking, etc. It's made my FF load so much faster! No extras needed.

Oh yes, and Lazarus saved my bacon just today again. Good one!

Ricky

Thanks for this awesome list of plugins :D . FF is great

Shaan @GeekyStuffs

Lazarus is the best of them and deserves the #1 position in this post :)

Lazarus has saved my bacon numerous times. It has performed near-holy miracles...ok maybe thats exaggerating but I cannot express how much I worship the Lazarus addon now.

Noa @ Website Ideas

Great post. My laptop broke down 3 moths ago and I lost all of it. Gonne make sure this never happens again.

Owwie, thats rough! I sought these tools after something similar happened to me. My mantra was "never again."

Tessa@Web Development Portland

All are useful tips. Now i would like to update my firefox to firefox4.

RonLeyba

Thanks for this awesome list of plugins! Badly needed it. Will try and test them one by one to find the most suitable one for me.

Sara@ Muay Thai Los Angeles

I use Firefox as my engine, and it keeps prompting me to upgrade; I just haven't. Is there really that big of a difference? And if so- how necessary would it be to back up everything? I just don't want to overload my computer!

If you mean upgrading from FF3 to FF4, I recommend it, I really love the speed improvement. If you mean the minor updates in between, I still wouldn't pass on those...they fix vital security issues and address some stability problems. The importance of backing up is entirely up to you. For me its essential because I have a lot of bookmarks and settings that I have fine tuned to help me with maintaining my website or writing articles on here.

The good thing about these solutions though is they honestly won't take up a sizable chunk of computer space. MozBackup produces small files and the Xmarks backs up your bookmarks on their server not your computer. The only one you may want to clear from time to time is Lazarus's stored words. Every now and then it does it on its own but it doesn't hurt to clear them out earlier.

Diseño Web Tarragona

I was trying to do the backup for myself but I cold'nt, complex for me. Thansk your article now I understand how to do, thanks a lot. Diseño Web Tarragona

Yeah the old fashion way of backing up your profile was a major pain. The great thing is, these tools are constantly being updated and improved, to make backing up easier.

Kristi Hines@Blog Marketing

I love the Save & Quit option. Saves a lot of heartache when you have a ton of tabs open and the whole thing crashes.

Maria Smith

Thanks for the post. I have been experiencing problems regarding that.. But now your article helps me. Thanks again.. :)

Yup my pleasure! If I come across more solutions in the future to deal with other Firefox woes I'll post 'em up.

Will surely wait for that.. :)

BodynSoil

Oh thank you for this list, I have lost things to the gremlins myself. I know what I will be doing tonight for a maintenance project.

You're welcome! Somebody had to teach those brutes to lay off our precious writing :P...Lazarus certainly is one of the tools that I feel is a gift sent from heaven.