Mozilla announced on Thursday that it started to roll out a new account management feature to Firefox account users.
One core feature that Firefox Account users get is support for synchronization of Firefox data between devices. This means that you may share passwords, the browsing history, bookmarks or other data between devices.
That’s great if you work on different devices but want Firefox data such as your bookmarks available — and kept in sync — on all of them. So, regardless of where you add a bookmark, it gets synced across all connected devices.
Firefox users who want to disconnect a device from the account and thus Firefox sync, could do so only on on the device itself up until now. While that is not a problem if you have access to the device, it is not if you don’t.
Firefox Account Device Management
The new Firefox Account device management option changes that as it provides you with a web-based option to manage all devices connected to an account.
The Firefox Account page on the official Firefox website offers options to you to change your password, account picture or display name, manage communication preferences, or to delete the account.
The new devices listing on the page lists all connected devices. Each device is listed either with a custom name that you assigned to it, or with the default name which highlights the computer name or mobile device name, and the Firefox version.
There is a disconnect button next to each which you can click on to block the device from receiving sync data.
The change goes hand in hand with options to add device names to Sync using the Firefox preferences. Simply load about:preferences#sync in the address bar of the browser to open the page.
It lists the Firefox account that is used, or an option to sign in or create a new sync account. There is a manage link which opens the Firefox Account preferences on the official Firefox site, and options to select which data you want synced across devices.
The new device name option at the bottom lets you change the name of the device. This is then highlighted in various places including on the Firefox website.
Mozilla notes that the new functionality is rolled out to all users over the course of the coming weeks. The new device management options are already available on Nightly versions of Firefox,.
Closing Words
The new device management options improves how Firefox account users manage devices connected to their account. It makes things a lot simpler, as it is now possible to disconnect any device from sync using the web interface.
Now You: Do you use your browser’s sync functionality?