14 DAY TRIAL // Mozilla Labs has announced the availability of the release candidate version of the Weave Sync bookmark and preferences sync add-on. Mozilla Weave Sync 1.0 RC2 comes with some updated features, but mostly rounds out the edges on the existing one and speeds things up a little. The final build should be coming soon, the dev team says, likely in time for Firefox 3.6 and the first release of Firefox (Fennec) for Mobile.
"Weave Sync is almost ready for 1.0 based on the feedback from our beta releases, and people are excited to get their personal Firefox experience on their laptop, desktop and mobile devices. We’ve addressed a few issues of rough edges that some users noticed and made a few changes to improve the overall experience," Edward Lee wrote on behalf of the Weave team.
This is the second release candidate build, the first one came before Christmas, but it's the first one Mozilla has publicly announced. As expected, it's an evolutionary release focusing on quality and bug fixing. Mozilla Labs says startup speed should be improved from the previous beta versions for both Firefox and Fennec.
The tabs are also available immediately now when setting up another computer for the first time. Also new is support for the Personas feature integrated Firefox 3.6 and the lightweight themes are now synced automatically just like regular themes. Support for the Personas add-on for Firefox 3.5 was already built-in. On the mobile front, Mozilla says the add-on now integrates better with the Fennec UX. Finally, users don't get asked for the master password straight away when launching Firefox.
While it may be just another iteration, the 1.0 release marks an important step for Weave Sync and the entire Weave project. The sync features are now mostly complete and, though new features are more than likely to be added in the future, lists the predominant features most people will probably need. Work on Weave Sync will continue, but the team is likely to focus on other parts of the project, notably the password sync tool which was integrated in Sync at one point but now lives on as a dedicated add-on.
Mozilla Weave Sync 1.0 RC2 for Firefox is available for download here.