I've finally given up on the idea of having a portable bookmark manager (that is freeware or open source) and am now actually coming around to the idea of having an online bookmark repository. Now I know that there are a million and one sites that offer free bookmark storage but I was wondering if people have tried any. Are there ones that you can recommend or even ones that you feel should be avoided?
Doing a Google search returns quite a few so it'd be nice if I could get a feel for the types of features that are common and not so common.
Spurl.net - Looks promising! and AD free
mybookmarks.com Despite the very official sounding name, I'm rather discourage by a site that asks if you want to use frames or not. (I thought frames died out with the dinosaurs)
onlinebookmarkmanager.com - Looks pretty professional, although some of the English is not of the highest standard (not that, that is really a huge problem)
mybookmarkmanager.com - Simple but effective.
murl.com - Looks very basic but sometimes simple is good.
myhq.com - Something about this one does not thrill me but it seems to have the same types of options as its competitors.
sitebar.org/ - Seems very professional and is impressing me. Like the fact that you have the option to run your own "sitebar' server. However, a closer inspection reveals that the free account is fairly limited and has ADs.
...Ands that just the tip of the iceburg...
One of the reasons I'm encouraged to do this is because I'm frequently using all three of the major OS platforms (Windows, Linux and Mac) and so the fact that I can't even find a free bookmark manager on windows makes me even more doubtful of finding a cross-platform one. Thus, the Internet seems the logical choice.
Thoughts anyone?
Online Bookmark Manager - Suggestions please
Apparently nedwolf is giving spurl.net a thumbs up. I would use Yahoo but that would defeat the purpose, since it seems that you have to install the toolbar and I really don't want to have to do that.
I also retract my statement about frames, as I see now that they could be useful in this situation. Although aren't iframes, in effect, the same sort of thing just a newer take on things?
I also retract my statement about frames, as I see now that they could be useful in this situation. Although aren't iframes, in effect, the same sort of thing just a newer take on things?
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technicolordreamcoat
- Posts: 116
- Joined: Wed May 10, 2006 5:08 pm
google bookmarks:
http://www.google.com/support/bin/topic ... 8416&hl=en
livefavorites:
http://www.livefavorites.com/
http://www.google.com/support/bin/topic ... 8416&hl=en
livefavorites:
http://www.livefavorites.com/
Google is obvious the big name in Internet at the moment but like Yahoo, they recommend you install the Google Toolbar and I don't know that I'm too thrilled about that. I'm guessing that there is no toolbar for the Mac (and maybe one for Linux, but that's a maybe).
Livefavorites.com looks quite nice but why do they say that they support IE and "Netscape"? I'm having a deja vu moment but isn't Netscape simply Mozilla under the hood, get with the times people!
@technicolordreamcoat - Do you use either of these and if so, why would you recommend them? Or are you just posting links to additional resources? Either way is fine but some justification of why X is better than Y, would be nice.
From what I can tell they all pretty much have the same feature set such, browser integration, import/export, text searching etc. So really, it looks like being a case of whatever floats my particular bookmark boat. The good ship Spurl.net is looking like going full steam ahead at the moment, unless anyone else can convince me otherwise.
Livefavorites.com looks quite nice but why do they say that they support IE and "Netscape"? I'm having a deja vu moment but isn't Netscape simply Mozilla under the hood, get with the times people!
@technicolordreamcoat - Do you use either of these and if so, why would you recommend them? Or are you just posting links to additional resources? Either way is fine but some justification of why X is better than Y, would be nice.
From what I can tell they all pretty much have the same feature set such, browser integration, import/export, text searching etc. So really, it looks like being a case of whatever floats my particular bookmark boat. The good ship Spurl.net is looking like going full steam ahead at the moment, unless anyone else can convince me otherwise.
Yep, that seems to be the other popular one I'm encountering. Spurl.net has options to migrate data from del.icio.us it seems.bugmenot wrote:Don't forget http://del.icio.us/
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technicolordreamcoat
- Posts: 116
- Joined: Wed May 10, 2006 5:08 pm
I figured that the toolbar was optional. It seems that most of the online bookmark managers support some kind of link that basically opens up a popup with your bookmarks in it. The nice thing about Firefox and Mozilla based browsers is that it appears in the "Sidebar" so it basically seems like you've added new functionality to your browser, very neat.technicolordreamcoat wrote:@darkbee
no experience with lifefavorites, but heard about it just recently
using google bookmarks and quite like it:
no install required at all,
easy access from the web or from bookmark link in browser,
reliable,
but looks like you can't go wrong with spurl
Now I'm cursing myself for not looking into this sooner. With almost 1000 bookmarks, I really need something to help me get more organized. Plus, I can finally ditch a piece of non-portable free software I am/was using to manage my bookmarks (which for the curious is/was URLBase)
Thanks for the responses so far.
I have signed up for a Spurl.net account but I am discovering that there may be one major flaw with Spurl; namely that the import feature simple doesn't work. The website claims that it can take about 24 hours to import your bookmarks (since it is done manually as an anti-spam measure) but I have read on a couple of blogs and other places on the web that some people have not had much luck with importing, contacting spurl without success.
If this is true, then that does severely compromize the usefulness of spurl. Granted, all the other functionality that I need works really well but the whole point of doing this is to get my bookmark collection online.
I'm still hoping that my bookmarks will get imported and if it takes a few days then that's ok (since it's a one time event) but right now, I'm not feeling very confident.
If this is true, then that does severely compromize the usefulness of spurl. Granted, all the other functionality that I need works really well but the whole point of doing this is to get my bookmark collection online.
I'm still hoping that my bookmarks will get imported and if it takes a few days then that's ok (since it's a one time event) but right now, I'm not feeling very confident.
I don't know exactly how much of a manual process it is to import bookmarks but it looks like someone in Iceland got straight to it, when they came into work this morning. I've just checked my account and all my bookmarks have been imported. So my faith in spurl.net is restored and I can already whole heartedly recommend their service.
Apparently I have over 600 bookmarks, but I'm sure that's just a small drop in the ocean compared to some. Looks like I spend way too much time on the net... oh well!
Apparently I have over 600 bookmarks, but I'm sure that's just a small drop in the ocean compared to some. Looks like I spend way too much time on the net... oh well!
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technicolordreamcoat
- Posts: 116
- Joined: Wed May 10, 2006 5:08 pm
have you considered foxmarks?
http://lifehacker.com/software/bookmark ... 232934.php
or google browser sync?
http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/browsersync/
http://lifehacker.com/software/bookmark ... 232934.php
or google browser sync?
http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/browsersync/
@technicolordreamcoat
Thanks for the suggestions. My only gripe with these are that they seem to be aimed almost exclusively at Firefox users. Now I have nothing against Firefox since I do use it sometimes (but I don't think it's as brilliant as some people make it out to be but that's another story), but I don't use it exclusively. As I've mentioned before, it seems these days I can't even guarantee the operating system I'm going to be using, nevermind the browser.
That is why I like spurl because it features the "spurl bar" which can be used in just about every common browser I've tried (it's basically a glorified web-page but who cares). However, spurl is not without it's problems; many people claim that it is dead (since there doesn't seem to have been any development on the site for over a year). Furthermore, there are a couple of missing features that would be nice to ensure absolute cross-platform/browser usability like being able to manually add a new bookmark via the spurl website (currently you have to use a javascript popup). Probably one of the more important missing features for the paranoid is that there is no export format available that supports tags. So if I were to go through my entire bookmark collection, adding tags to all of them, then spurl does suddenly go down the toilet, although I could save all my bookmarks with comments and folders, my tags would be lost.
Having said all of that, from what I've seen, spurl still has one of the better, more clearer user interfaces and a number of other bookmark sites I've found don't seem to support folders (which is important to me), instead they favor using only tags, which is not good enough. Overall, it does what I need it to do and I like the speed, efficiency and clarity with which it does it.
I think that for the purposes of other people who read this thread though, there is no reason why other forum users can't post their experiences or suggestions. It would still be nice to get comparisons from users of different bookmarking sites to see how they match up to each other. As an example, I know that simpy.com, does have some of the features that spurl does not. However, again I just don't like the user interface of simpy, IMHO it looks like a set of search engine results and that is not what I'm looking for.
Thanks for the suggestions. My only gripe with these are that they seem to be aimed almost exclusively at Firefox users. Now I have nothing against Firefox since I do use it sometimes (but I don't think it's as brilliant as some people make it out to be but that's another story), but I don't use it exclusively. As I've mentioned before, it seems these days I can't even guarantee the operating system I'm going to be using, nevermind the browser.
That is why I like spurl because it features the "spurl bar" which can be used in just about every common browser I've tried (it's basically a glorified web-page but who cares). However, spurl is not without it's problems; many people claim that it is dead (since there doesn't seem to have been any development on the site for over a year). Furthermore, there are a couple of missing features that would be nice to ensure absolute cross-platform/browser usability like being able to manually add a new bookmark via the spurl website (currently you have to use a javascript popup). Probably one of the more important missing features for the paranoid is that there is no export format available that supports tags. So if I were to go through my entire bookmark collection, adding tags to all of them, then spurl does suddenly go down the toilet, although I could save all my bookmarks with comments and folders, my tags would be lost.
Having said all of that, from what I've seen, spurl still has one of the better, more clearer user interfaces and a number of other bookmark sites I've found don't seem to support folders (which is important to me), instead they favor using only tags, which is not good enough. Overall, it does what I need it to do and I like the speed, efficiency and clarity with which it does it.
I think that for the purposes of other people who read this thread though, there is no reason why other forum users can't post their experiences or suggestions. It would still be nice to get comparisons from users of different bookmarking sites to see how they match up to each other. As an example, I know that simpy.com, does have some of the features that spurl does not. However, again I just don't like the user interface of simpy, IMHO it looks like a set of search engine results and that is not what I'm looking for.
Also have a look at http://www.bookmark-manager.com which offers a powerful bookmark management and also has other office functions like notes, to-do lists, reminders.
Private del.icio.us bookmarklet - Generate your private del.icio.us bookmarklet
check this out... what do ya think???
http://sandbox.sourcelabs.com/priv.at/
http://sandbox.sourcelabs.com/boz/
didn't try this, yet
see also http://swik.net/priv.at
check this out... what do ya think???
http://sandbox.sourcelabs.com/priv.at/
http://sandbox.sourcelabs.com/boz/
didn't try this, yet
see also http://swik.net/priv.at