UPDATE: Fortunately, Xmarks has been acquired by LastPass and so it can stay afloat. Therefore, you can continue to use it, but, just in case you want to consider some alternatives, you can read on.
We have previously covered how Xmarks can efficiently sync your bookmarks across different browsers. It’s a great tool that I use every day because I use both Firefox and Chrome as my primary browsers.
Unfortunately, Xmarks will be shutting down on January 10, 2011. The company announced this news today in a blog post saying that it had to make that decision due to financial difficulties.
It’s sad because I don’t think there is any other tool as good as Xmarks at what it does. There are many bookmark synchronization tools available but they are limited to one browser or maybe two browsers which usually do not include Google Chrome.
However, since this tool will soon die, it’s time for us to look for alternatives and start with one of them. Here are 3 solutions that I think are close to the functions and purposes of Xmarks.
1. Use Google Chrome Sync
Google Chrome allows you to sync your bookmarks and other browser settings with your Google account. One good thing about this process is that synced settings are also stored in your Google Docs account. A separate folder named “Google Chrome” is created there.
So later on, you can store bookmarks in that folder in Google Docs when using Firefox or any other browser, and then when using Chrome, you can hit the sync button to bring all your bookmarks into it.
Obviously, you’ll have to import Firefox or IE bookmarks into Google Chrome at first to start all the bookmarks in one location.
Note: Another solution that I think will work is to use the Google toolbar on other browsers and use its bookmarks feature. However, later I found out that Google bookmarks and Chrome bookmarks are two different things and they are not compatible with each other.
2. I love being organized
Tidyfavorites is a great piece of software that claims to be able to easily sync bookmarks across IE, Firefox, Chrome and Opera. The free version requires you to sync manually while the PRO version has an automatic sync feature.
The only problem is that you will have to close the browser in which you have your new bookmarks saved in order for the tool to sync them with other browsers. Another important thing to note is that the cloud storage option for bookmarks is only available in the PRO version. Oh, and it’s Windows only so Mac and Linux users will miss this.
3. Delicious
Finally, I think using an online bookmark management and storage solution like
Delicious
possibly our best bet.
So far, I’ve been using Delicious along with my offline bookmarks, but it looks like I might need to go all the way and import my browser bookmarks into Delicious and just use it to save future web pages.
Those are the 3 solutions I could find that helped me transfer and sync bookmarks across Firefox, Internet Explorer and Google Chrome. You can also use other tricks, such as syncing bookmarks with Dropbox or Windows Live Essentials. But these methods may not be convenient for cross-browser synchronization purposes.
So you used Xmarks? Now what do you plan to do with your bookmarks? What tools are you likely to use?
Categories: How to
Source: thpttranhungdao.edu.vn/en/
