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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."
What did Xmarks do that delicious does not?
I've been using Xmarks since they were Foxmarks and it's the only tool out there that syncs multiple browsers. It's really handy when you have a folder full of client URL's and you need to check them on multiple browsers and operating systems. I'd gladly have paid for the service - but they never asked or proposed it. Sure some people would have balked and left, but those that stayed could have supported your business. I refuse to give my bookmark data to Google and I really just don't trust anyone else that is associated with a search engine or browser developer.
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.
Yeah, non-cross browser replacements are listed on the Xmarks website. I've already replaced it with Firefox Sync on two of my PCs..
There is a war going on for your mind.
I remember when they changed from "Foxmarks" to "Xmarks" and introduced password sync. They actually asked for input on whether users would actually use the password sync feature. I responded, essentially by telling they they're out of their fscking minds to offer such a sketchy feature, and no, I would not be using it.
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
It's sad that they've reached the point of having to shut down, but i've got to say that at least they've handled the situation with a lot of class. They're giving their users several months warning rather than just shutting down the servers overnight, and when they did market research that indicated there wouldn't be enough demand for a subscription version to sustain them they just decided not to offer one and shut down gracefully. As opposed to what seems to be the more common tactic of convincing their biggest supporters to hand over money for a little while and then having to shut down anyways, and then figure out how to do refunds or just tell everyone to go suck it.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Why didn't the developers ask to be paid for their service? I love their toolbar and bookmark synching and would gladly pay a yearly fee for it.. $10/$15 year seems fair. :)
I agree. The alternatives there provide sync across computers but only for the same browser. I use both Chrome and Firefox extensively and I will greatly miss the ability for (fo)Xmarks to sync my bookmarks, passwords and tabs across all my browsers, regardless of whether its Chrome/Firefox.
For now, I'm using Firefox sync as my primary syncing mechanism and importing into Chrome whenever I update something in Firefox. Its somewhat annoying, but I guess I'll deal. Maybe I'll switch back to using primarily Firefox.
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.
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.
"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.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Except to all the people who used it, like me.
Last I checked Cygwin was pretty good. Far better than putty/pscp.
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.
think of the opportunities they for data mining.
Someday when I grow up I want to be fucking evil like you.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
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.
I am saddened to think of Xmarks (formerly Foxmarks) going under. Their announcement email explained the situation very nicely, however, and one can hardly fault them for calling it quits. They were never able to monetize the data they aggregated, and not enough people would be willing to pay a subscription fee now that all the browsers are providing sync themselves.
I've been their add-on since almost day one; at first they didn't even have a central server to provide the service, it was just an add-on that you could point to an ftp server of your choice. (You can still point it to an ftp or WebDAV server of your choice, so that is one way to keep using it, at least until browser updates break compatibility).
Actually, Foxmarks once got a stolen laptop returned to me. About a month after my house was burglarized, I noticed new bookmarks showing up in my browser on my other machines. The person who "acquired" my laptop never bothered to wipe and reinstall, or even to create a new user account. So every time he bookmarked a URL, Foxmarks would diligently sync it to my other computers. So, from my own machine, I edited all of the bookmarks to point to a redirect page on my server. Once my changes were synced back to my stolen laptop, I was able to record its IP address every time he used one of his bookmarks. I gave that to the police, and another month later they got my laptop back after subpoenaing his ISP to get his address.
So, Foxmarks has a special place in my heart.
If fate makes you a motorcycle, you become a motorcycle.
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
(stolen from DaBum) I am dyslexia of borg - your ass will be laminated.
So write one. SyncPlaces uses standard protocols for communication and standard file/data formats for storage. It should be easy enough to handle the chrome bookmarks in the same way. And you can use your own server, so your bookmarks are yours alone and private, and won't go away just because somebody shut down their free service.
Password syncing is what I really want. For the most part I can remember the websites but remembering the individual password used for each is virtually impossible.
Rod Taylor
Have you considered LastPass or PasswordMaker?
.there is enough of everything for everyone.