I lost my Bookmarks

August 16, 2009 10:18 AM

How and where can I store my enormous collection of bookmarks from Firefox online. My laptop was stolen last week and I mostly don't care, except all of my bookmarks went with it.

I have some of them On my desktop, but I would like to have them anywhere at anytime. I need most of them for work and it was frustrating to have to email IT and admit I am an idiot and didn't even know where to log on to write my work.

posted by lee to computers & internet (22 comments total)

Sorry, XP, Firefox 3.5.2, planet Earth, USA 2009 (I think, I could be dreaming all this)
posted by lee at 10:19 AM on August 16

Xmarks is a firefox extension that would seem to fit your needs. It backs up and syncs your bookmarks, so even if you're on a different computer, or not on firefox, you can still access all your bookmarks by logging into the Xmarks site.
posted by spockette at 10:22 AM on August 16 [2 favorites has favorites]

I use delicious (used to be del.icio.us). It's a social bookmarking site, but I rarely use the "social" features, and it does have an option not to share. There's also a Firefox add-on that integrates it with your local bookmarks if you like that kind of thing.

It's run by yahoo now, I think, but other than changing the URL, I haven't noticed anything different, and there are import/export options for your existing bookmarks and/or when you want to change services. Plus, I really love their tagging options.
posted by immlass at 10:24 AM on August 16

I also recommend delicious. It's highly useful to be able to access your bookmarks not only in places where the extension is installed, but also where it isn't, without logging in. The extension is well supported; I complained about a misfeature a couple of weeks ago and it was fixed in the next release a couple of days later.
posted by grouse at 10:30 AM on August 16

Not trying to be snarky, it's just not something I've looked into that much and the options are legion, but there are 42 different results for a search for "bookmark sync" on the Mozilla Firefox add-ons page. Most of them look like online bookmark-syncing (that is, keeping your bookmarks the same on different computers over the internet) add-ons.
posted by koeselitz at 10:32 AM on August 16

Weave.
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 10:41 AM on August 16

nthing delicious, with the Firefox plug-in. Backs up, syncs between different browsers, but most importantly (for me, anyhow) is that you can log onto their website and access all your favourites from any computer, anywhere...

(You can safely ignore the social networking aspects, though I used the Network features to send links to my girlfriend regularly...)
posted by benzo8 at 10:44 AM on August 16

Nth-nthing delicious, with the Firefox plug-in. (Oh delicious, how I love you so!) I really like the tagging feature and the "make private/make public" features. I do not use the social networking features and they are so unobtrusive I never notice they are there.
posted by DarlingBri at 11:10 AM on August 16

Another Delicious fan here. I use the tags, but none of the social features. It can support Firefox keywords too, which was the real clincher.
posted by backwards guitar at 11:13 AM on August 16

I'll second xmarks. However, I don't actually use their servers for storage. I make use of my own web hosting and configure xmarks accordingly.
posted by odinsdream at 11:35 AM on August 16

Thirding Xmarks. Been running my bookmarks on it for years. Changed job a couple times, new computers, etc. Always had my bookmarks available on my computers and online from the xmarks site!
posted by PowerCat at 12:05 PM on August 16

I also use delicious. But as a general rule, you should always backup everything even innocuous things like bookmarks. I backup my delicious bookmarks. I'm sure you can find out where the Firefox bookmarks sit in your hard drive and back them up.
posted by qmechanic at 12:38 PM on August 16

I also use Xmarks, and it works great; completely transparent. I have my bookmarks on all my computers, and online, without ever having to think about it.
posted by Jacen Solo at 12:52 PM on August 16

You might want to try FEBE as well. It does what Firefox should do automatically: backs up your extensions, themes, bookmarks, preferences, passwords, cookies and just about everything else Firefox offers (it can even backup/restore your entire profile). You can selectively restore only the items you need. For instance, you may just want your bookmarks restored and leave everything else as it was.

I don't even bother with offsite bookmarks anymore. Bookmarks aren't the half of it; I don't want to have to re-do all of my NoScript, AdBlock Plus, Scrapbook and cookie settings. I just save everything with FEBE on a USB stick and update it once or twice per week. It's fantastic for syncing your profile between different computers as well.
posted by LuckySeven~ at 1:25 PM on August 16 [1 favorite has favorites]

Delicious first....but hell, I'm also running xmarks (for my other browsers, like safari) and weave (to see where mozilla takes it.)

Delicious is a life changer of a place to store bookmarks.
posted by filmgeek at 1:30 PM on August 16

I would be so completely lost without Delicious. I've been using it for about 5 years and in that time I've switched computers probably 5 or 6 times, and never had to worry about The Moving Of The Bookmarks. As someone else pointed out, it's amazingly handy to be able to get at your bookmarks from anywhere, not just your own computer. The social networking component is totally unobtrusive.
posted by usonian at 2:53 PM on August 16

I use and love Delicious, but also use Diigo for certain types of bookmarks. It has basically the same features as Delicious, but a Firefox toolbar extension that allows you to highlight text and add sticky notes to web pages which can be really useful.
posted by Dilemma at 5:10 PM on August 16

I'm a fan of StumbleUpon. It's a lot more fun to interact with and I like the screenshots on my page instead of just text.
posted by VC Drake at 5:38 PM on August 16

Surprised no one recommended google bookmarks, using it has changed my life. There are three firefox plugins that interoperate, and this page has an "add to gbookmark" link you can drag into any browsers bookmark toolbar for easy access.
posted by zentrification at 6:12 PM on August 16

I dropped my firefox profile into my Dropbox folder, and alerted profiles.ini to the change.

Whichever firefox I happen to be using (whether Vista or Ubuntu on this dual boot PC; the thumbdrive), is pretty much always synced with all the others. Bookmarks all align, of course, but so does everything else: extensions, history, zotero clips, all of it.

I learned how to do it here.

This also gives me an opportunity to plead for someone to make a stupid easy offsite server setup that looks and acts like a server one might put together at home. I'd get all the advantages of a client server network (file storage, sync for things like firefox profiles, backup, media streaming (perhaps through a mix of local and offsite resources) and so on, and I'd have it everywhere I can connect to the internet, via whatever device I happen to be connecting with.

My own personal cloud.
posted by notyou at 6:55 PM on August 16

xmarks here - they even keep backup restores for your bookmarks, which are also accessible on their website.
posted by Lizc at 8:21 PM on August 16

Thanks very much everyone. And especially koeselitz, for pointing out all of the add-ons. The reason that I asked the question was because I did not want to waste a couple of hours trying out options. Your answers have been very helpful and I am going to Delicious right now and added google bookmarks to my gmail. I am also going to look at Xmarks and Weave. I think Weave will be my answer once I figure out what my question is!!
Thanks again
posted by lee at 5:03 AM on August 17