Mozilla adopts plain-vanilla password sign-in for Firefox sync

 Mozilla has begun testing a simpler new system for synchronizing Firefox's bookmarks, open tabs, Web site passwords, and other browser settings.

Until now, the not-for-profit organization had used a complicated mechanism in which you had to type a pairing code shown on one browser into another browser. Now it's begun a shift to begun a shift to a plain old username-password approach to Firefox sync, Mozilla said Saturday.

The old approach had the virtue of working without requiring Mozilla to maintain a database of its users, but it was complicated. Mozilla has lost that aversion and now offers Firefox accounts.  Sync has become increasingly important to browsers as people have moved from using a single PC to using multiple computers, phones, and tablets. Sync helps not just with obvious things like making sure a saved password works across multiple devices, but also subtler parts of browser like browser history so a browser can do a better job autocompleting addresses typed into the address bar.