Setting up Konode

Konode needs two things before it can sync: the extension installed, and one storage backend connected. Everything after that is optional.

1. Install the extension

On Chrome, Brave, Helium, ungoogled-chromium, or another Chromium browser, install from the Chrome Web Store. Then pin Konode to your toolbar so the popup is one click away.

On Firefox, there is a dedicated build but no Add-ons listing yet, so you will need to build it and load it yourself:

# clone and install
git clone https://github.com/benstone326/Konode
cd Konode
npm install

# build the Firefox bundle into dist-firefox/
npm run build:firefox

Open about:debugging, choose This Firefox, click Load Temporary Add-on, and select dist-firefox/manifest.json. For Chromium, run npm run build instead, then load the dist/ folder through chrome://extensions with Developer mode enabled.

2. Choose a backend

Konode writes to exactly one backend at a time. All three do the same job, so pick on the basis of what you already use:

• Google Drive is the least setup: one sign-in and you are done. Best if you already live in Drive.
• GitHub gives you a full version history of every sync, which is genuinely useful if you ever want to see what changed. Requires creating a token.
• WebDAV keeps everything on infrastructure you run, if you have a Nextcloud or Synology box. Requires a server.

You can switch later, but the backends do not migrate between each other. Treat a switch as starting fresh.

3. Connect Google Drive

1. Open the Konode popup and go to the settings screen.
2. Choose Google Drive as the backend and start the sign-in.
3. Sign in with your Google account and approve the request. The consent screen will name the drive.file scope, which is deliberately narrow: it lets Konode see only the files it created itself, so the rest of your Drive stays unreachable to it.
4. Konode creates its own folder in your Drive and writes there from then on.

On Chromium browsers that are not Chrome, the sign-in uses an OAuth PKCE flow instead of Chrome's built-in identity API. It may look slightly different, and it works the same way.

4. Connect GitHub

1. Create a private repository for your sync data. An empty one is fine.
2. In GitHub, go to Settings → Developer settings → Personal access tokens → Fine-grained tokens and generate a token.
3. Scope it to only that one repository, and give it read and write access to repository contents. Nothing else is needed.
4. Paste the token into Konode's settings along with the repository name.

5. Connect WebDAV

Works with Nextcloud, ownCloud, Synology, pCloud, kDrive, and anything else exposing a WebDAV endpoint. You need the endpoint URL plus a username and password.

1. Find your provider's WebDAV URL. On Nextcloud it looks like https://your-server/remote.php/dav/files/USERNAME/.
2. Create an app-specific password rather than using your main account password, if your provider supports it. Nextcloud calls these app passwords; most others have an equivalent.
3. Enter the URL, username, and password in Konode's settings.

The endpoint has to be HTTPS. Browsers block extensions from sending credentials over plain HTTP, so a self-signed or expired certificate will fail here too.

6. Turn on end-to-end encryption

Optional, and worth it if anyone other than you could ever see your storage. With it on, Konode encrypts your data on your device before uploading, using AES-256-GCM with a key derived from your passphrase by PBKDF2-SHA256 over 600,000 iterations. The backend stores something it cannot read.

Your passphrase must be at least 12 characters. Two things to know:

• Every device must use the same passphrase. Konode tells you when they do not match rather than failing quietly.
• There is no recovery. No Konode server holds your key, so nobody can reset it. If you lose the passphrase, the data already uploaded cannot be decrypted. Put it in your password manager before you continue.

Some metadata stays readable even with encryption on: your provider can see that sync files exist, roughly how many devices you sync, which data type each file holds, and when it was last written. Not the contents. The privacy policy spells this out in full.

7. Pick what syncs

Four independent toggles: bookmarks, open tabs, history, and your installed extension list. Nothing is read until you turn it on.

Bookmarks need no extra permission. History, tabs, and the extension list each trigger a browser permission prompt at the moment you enable them, which is why the install itself asks for so little. Decline one and that data type simply stays off.

While you are here, set your conflict rule: newest change wins, always prefer this device, always prefer the other one, or ask you each time. "Newest wins" is the reasonable default for most people.

8. Add a second device

Syncing only means something once there are two. On the next device:

1. Install Konode.
2. Connect the same backend and the same account.
3. Enter the same encryption passphrase, if you enabled encryption.
4. Turn on the same data types and run a sync.

The second device writes its own file and merges what it finds from the first, so neither one overwrites the other. Give the first sync a moment if you have a large bookmark tree.