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Bookmark Synchronizer Xmarks Hangs Up Their Hats

krulgar writes "On January 10, 2011, Xmarks will be closing their doors. A free service being replaced by free software. It would still be nice to have a single way to keep my bookmarks from my work machine in sync with my home machines and my mobile devices without exerting much effort. Xmarks seemed to be the only ones with that clear vision, maybe the replacement tools can grow into this space, but it's still a little sad to see a useful tool wave goodbye."

17 of 225 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Opera by tangelogee · · Score: 3, Informative

    Opera lets you sync your bookmarks.

    Each of the browsers (sans IE I believe) have their own syncing. The real benefit to xmarks was being able to sync across all the browsers.

  2. Gmarks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Gmarks for Firefox lets you sync your google bookmarks! It's awesome! 'nuff said.

  3. Use Chrome by Tuan121 · · Score: 1, Informative

    Tools->Options->Personal Stuff->Sync

    Enter your gmail account, choose if you want bookmarks, preferences, extensions etc.

    All done. Works.

    /queue omggoogleknowsmybookmarks crowd

    1. Re:Use Chrome by ElusiveMind · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yeah - but the beauty of Xmarks is it synced Chrome, Firefox, MSIE and Safari with one central repository of bookmarks. Now I have to keep four separate ones... one for each browser. For people like me who have to use and check my work on all browsers it was a major time saver when you have several hundred client bookmarks.

  4. Re:I LOVED this tool by Jaysyn · · Score: 2, Informative

    Yeah, non-cross browser replacements are listed on the Xmarks website. I've already replaced it with Firefox Sync on two of my PCs..

    --
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  5. Firefox Sync by Lennie · · Score: 2, Informative

    You could also use Firefox Sync. It used to be called, Mozilla Weave and was an add-on, which will not be included in Firefox 4 proper.

    With Xmarks, they would be able to read your bookmarks, etc. With Firefox Sync everything that is stored/transfered is encrypted.

    It is even possible to setup your own 'server', have a look for "Weave Minimal Server", so you don't have to depend on Mozilla or anyone else.

    --
    New things are always on the horizon
  6. Re:Delicious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    For one, Xmarks synchronizes not just bookmarks. They synchronized passwords, history and tabs too, if the user enabled such options. If you are as paranoid about privacy as must /. users, you could use your own server.

    But it doesn't matter. Firefox Sync is built in to Firefox 4, and it does all that too.

  7. Re:Opera by tangelogee · · Score: 3, Informative

    IE bookmarks can automatically be synced with Windows Live Sync (beta).

    I stand corrected. However, the main point still stands. None of these will sync to another browser.

  8. Re:Try Opera by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 2, Informative

    "It would still be nice to have a single way to keep my bookmarks from my work machine in sync with my home machines and my mobile devices without exerting much effort."

    Try Opera...

    Pity he was snide in his post, he does have a point. Opera has had this as an integrated feature for years. It also synchronizes your speed-dial and and your 'notes', which are like bookmarks but are organized by the section of text you highlight. Very handy. I especially like this feature for keeping useful snippets of Python around.

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  9. Re:Another project dies off... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Except to all the people who used it, like me.

  10. Re:I don't get it... by straponego · · Score: 2, Informative

    Last I checked Cygwin was pretty good. Far better than putty/pscp.

  11. hook up Xmarks with apache+webdav by Pouic · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you happen to have your own apache server handy, just setup up a personal server with Xmarks, it works beautifully (over https as well). I'm using this combination for quite some time now, with great satisfaction and independence. As stated above, I also don't want to store my private stuff on third party storage.

  12. Re:Fare Thee Well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Try SyncPlaces

  13. Re:Overkill? by oneplus999 · · Score: 4, Informative

    At least on Firefox, your bookmarks are no longer saved as a simple file. As such, a "very small shell script" would not do the same job.

    go to about:config, change browser.bookmarks.autoExportHTML to true.

  14. Re:This Really Sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    > I've been using Xmarks since they were Foxmarks ...
    > I refuse to give my bookmark data to Google

    You already give your bookmark data to google. XMarks switched to using googleapis and their database (and requiring javascript execution of code from googleapis on your machine) in V3.7. Check out their forum where users who noticed (NoScript and RequestPolicy users mainly) went through the roof. I immediately rolled back the version we used to 3.6.x, which does not run code or store data on f-ing google nor does it require you to execute google javascript. I hardly liked the idea of foxmarks/xmarks having (and using for their ratings and suggestions aggregation) my bookmark data in the first place, and I sure the hell never turned on their password sync, but it was convenient for syncing bookmarks across the dozen or so machines I use. Now that FF4 has sync built in, good riddance. Their attempt to move my surfing habits off to the google cloud was the last straw for me anyway. Again, good riddance.

  15. Try Google bookmarks by beernutz · · Score: 3, Informative

    I really like the Google bookmark service.

    https://www.google.com/bookmarks/l

    Uses labels like gmail, and has browser addons.

    FF:
    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2888/

    It is built into chrome

    Safari:
    http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/901411/goggles_use_google_bookmarks_with_safari.html?cat=15

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  16. Re:What about Delicious? by robot_love · · Score: 2, Informative

    Have you considered LastPass or PasswordMaker?

    --
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