2010-02-05 Weave API Release

What is Weave

Weave is a Mozilla Labs project exploring opportunities for the Web browser to broker richer experiences while increasing user control over their data and personal information. The Weave platform will ultimately include services and APIs for managing your identity and personal data across the Web.

What is Weave Sync?

Weave Sync is the first component of the Weave platform. Using this free browser add-on from Mozilla Labs, you can use security mechanisms to access all of your personal data across all of your supported devices, making your Web experience instantly more personal and useful. Weave Sync synchronizes your bookmarks, saved passwords, browsing history and open browser tabs. And all of your data is encrypted end-to-end to help protect your privacy.

What are the other components of the Weave platform?

The Weave platform will ultimately include services and APIs for managing your identity and personal data across the Web. In terms of the roadmap, the next components will focus on identity, sharing and notifications.

What personal data is stored

Weave stores personal data from Firefox including your bookmarks, browsing history, saved password, open browser tabs and certain preferences. All of your data is transmitted over SSL and is encrypted end-to-end as a way to help your privacy.

How do users know their data is secure?

Weave strongly encrypts all of your data locally before transmitting over SSL to Mozilla (or your own server), using a secret phrase that is created by you, and designed to not leave your hard drive. Mozilla does not have access to this secret phrase. Also, The Mozilla Foundation, our parent company, is an international non-profit organization and our business model is not based upon accessing your personal data. (Read more about Weave cryptography here: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Labs/Weave/Crypto)

Where is the personal data stored?

By default, you can use the Mozilla-hosted Weave service to store you data. You can also optionally setup your own server (with an open source server implementation that we provide for free) or point to another service provider that has implemented the Weave APIs.

How can I use Weave today? What platforms does it support?

We currently support Weave Sync for Firefox on Windows, Mac and Linux on the desktop, and Maemo on mobile devices.

How many people are using Weave today?

In the first week since Weave has been generally available, we're seeing hundreds of thousands of users actively using the add-on and service to seamlessly bridge their desktop and mobile experences.

What are you announcing today?

Last week we announced that the Weave Sync add-on for Firefox is generally available to seamlessly bridge your desktop and mobile Firefox experiences. Today, we are launching the Weave Developer Resources site with APIs, documentation, libraries, tools, design and early prototypes.

What prompted you to launch the developer resources site?

This is part of a broader call for participation to increase the number of places where you can access your personal data through Weave.

What do you hope to see from developers? What devices and platforms do you expect developers to create Weave clients for?

We're working to get Firefox with full Weave support onto as many connected devices as possible. Firefox is available today on Nokia's Maemo platform, and we're actively working on Android and Windows Mobile versions. Independent of the full Firefox experience, with the Weave APIs we're excited to see where developers can provide users with access to their personal data through Weave to provide richer, more personalized experiences across the Web.

Does Weave integrate with iPhone features or Safari?

The Weave client for the iPhone is a standalone application that providers users with secure access to the bookmarks, history, open tabs, etc. It allows you to quickly find and preview your favorite sites, open tabs, etc. and then provides you the ability to open them in the native browser or share with friends via email.

Is Weave being developed for other platforms? e.g. Android, Blackberry, Palm, etc.

We're working to get Firefox with full Weave support onto as many connected devices as possible. Firefox is available today on Nokia's Maemo platform, and we're actively working on Android and Windows Mobile versions. Independent of the full Firefox experience, with the Weave APIs we're excited to see where developers can provide users with access to their personal data through Weave to provide richer, more personalized experiences across the Web.

Will Mozilla be submitting the Weave client to the App Store? When?

We haven't made a final decision as to whether or not we'll submit a Weave iPhone client to the App Store. But if we do it will be offered as a free download, and we would want to ensure that we could continue to provide the source code under an open source license. Stay tuned.

Is this a preview of Firefox coming to the iPhone?

No. We don't have any plans to develop Firefox for the iPhone. We're working to get Firefox with full Weave support onto as many connected devices as possible. Firefox is available today on Nokia's Maemo platform, and we're actively working on Android and Windows Mobile versions.

The Weave client for the iPhone is independent of the browser. It is a standalone application that providers users with secure access to the bookmarks, history, open tabs, etc. It allows you to quickly find and preview your favorite sites, open tabs, etc. and then provides you the ability to open them in the native browser or share with friends via email.

What are the plans for future development?

Future releases of Weave Sync will add support for synchronizing your browser add-ons, search plugins and other customizations and ultimately everything that makes your Firefox and Web experience personal.

As we begin to roll out other components of the Weave platform (e.g. identity, sharing, etc.), additional APIs and services will be made available.