If you are a Firefox user, you must be a MozBackup user. There is simply no excuse not to be.

We’ve mentioned MozBackup before when we discussed How To Back Up Firefox, but I had an oppurtunity last night to use it in a way I never had before.

While migrating from a computer that has had way too many malware attacks lately, I decided to backup my laptops Firefox and use it as the basis for my new computer’s copy.  I had never done this before on a totally clean machine with a brand new Firefox installiation, so I wasn’t aware just how much MozBackup truly brings with it.  As I had opted to backup every possible thing the software offered, I knew I would have a lot to import, just not how much.

I am pleased to tell you that it brought EVERYTHING with it.  Browser history, download history, all of my extensions, passwords, cookies… every possible little thing, it came with the backup.  It was like running my laptop copy of Firefox on my new desktop in just a matter of seconds.  No hunting down my extensions, building passwords or anything else, it was ready to go.

The only caveat to this situation, as I see it, is if you backup an infected copy of Firefox.  That is why I chose to do this from my laptop copy instead of the infected desktop.  In case malicious cookies were hiding in the history, I thought it best to do it from a system I knew was 100% clean.  If you backup with malicious cookies, well, they’ll come with you.

As MozBackup doesn’t take long to run, I would recommend making this a regular backup tool.  The only drawback is that Firefox must be closed while you run the process, so you might want to do it say on a Friday night, just as you are closing down.  You’ll have all of that weeks history backed up, and you can go into the weekend knowing you’ve safely backed up all of your precious browser information.