Alternatives to amazon wishlist?

July 7, 2018 7:47 AM

I used to love amazon wishlist for collecting lists of things I was considering buying, from anywhere on the web. It was super, super useful. So of course they got rid of it and replaced it with amazon assistant, which wants permission to stalk me everywhere on the web and probably a bunch of other dodgy things too. No thanks. So what would metafilter recommend instead for collecting potential purchases? My new/current system of just leaving tabs open on the page is getting out of control... (I use chrome, if it matters)
posted by stillnocturnal to Computers & Internet (16 answers total)

I use a private Pinterest board, with the browser extension, and it somehow magically works as an option on my phone too. It saves the title of the item and a photo and they link to the actual page you're saving from. Free, easy, works well.
posted by DarlingBri at 8:03 AM on July 7, 2018 [5 favorites]

Google Keep works great and has a browser extension, you can save links with one click (saves the title and image too). On mobile you can share to Keep as well.
posted by mireille at 8:22 AM on July 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

Pinboard bookmarklet, tag with "wishlist." That's how I do it, and it supports a MeFite's business!
posted by limeonaire at 8:37 AM on July 7, 2018 [6 favorites]

I use Amazon's "Shopping list" rather than the wishlist. I don't really know how it's different except maybe privacy (it's not viewable by anyone but me). If that's not an issue for you, maybe look at a different list option in Amazon.

If you're looking at things outside Amazon, then yes, Pinterest or Pinboard. I also use plain, old-fashioned bookmarks on my browser for some things too.
posted by hydra77 at 8:52 AM on July 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

I'm confused - I took a look at my Amazon account and I still have a private "wish list" I save random items to that I don't want to lose track of. It means that Amazon periodically sends me messages asking why I haven't bought stuff. Although sometimes it's useful because they'll tell me about a price drop. I have a couple other more targeted lists I've created, too. Is that "wish list" not the same thing? I'm saving items that are actually all on Amazon.
posted by lagomorphius at 8:59 AM on July 7, 2018 [9 favorites]

Response by poster: Thank you everyone who has commented so far! Just to clarify, yes the issue is stuff outside amazon (I still use their shopping list for actual amazon stuff), the features I would really like are:

- a list that displays images, because if it's just a text link I will forget what everything is and it's frustrating to browse through. This is why bookmarks stopped working for me, and it seems like pinboard doesn't have images either? Please correct me if I'm wrong there.

- ideally displays prices, my holy grail would be if it also updated with price changes.

Seems like pinterest is the obvious choice, don't know why it didn't occur to me except some vague dislike of pinterest that I seem to have picked up for no reason I can think of.
posted by stillnocturnal at 9:01 AM on July 7, 2018

I searched for “bookmark hover image” and one of the results was this Chrome extension with a description which says,

...if you’re signed in to Chrome with sync enabled:

One-click save: Add images and notes to your bookmarks to make them more helpful. Also, Google will suggest a folder if it seems like it could be a fit.

If you're not normally signed in with a Google account, there seem to be similar options and ones for other browsers.

Note that anything which constantly scans for and updates prices is going to broadcast a whole bunch of information about you, quite possibly information which can be linked up to other surveillance/analytics data about you.
posted by XMLicious at 9:53 AM on July 7, 2018

I have not heard about this change myself, thank you for bringing it to my attention. That's really annoying.

I found this link that has a couple of other suggestions for specific wishlist type utilities.
posted by Lady Li at 10:03 AM on July 7, 2018

I like Wishlistr.
posted by lollusc at 10:27 AM on July 7, 2018

I also use a secret Pinterest board. It's also good for planning gifts.
posted by radioamy at 12:35 PM on July 7, 2018

I have a secret Pinterest board for ideas for others, and a public board for my own wishlist. Works like a charm!
posted by kimberussell at 12:43 PM on July 7, 2018

It doesn't do prices, but I love, love love are.na for keeping pinterest-like lists, with less gamification / junk / intrusive permissions than pretty much anything else out there, and it usually does a great job of extracting images.
posted by tmcw at 12:52 PM on July 7, 2018

Several options are given in this article: https://fashionista.com/2017/01/online-sales-tools-apps
posted by gennessee at 8:16 PM on July 7, 2018

CamelCamelCamel is the standard for Amazon price checking, and lets you save a list of items to “price watch,” which could effectively be a wish list. It will show you a graph of past prices (so you can see if the current price is good), and will let you enter the price you’d like to pay and will update you when that price occurs.
posted by snowmentality at 9:09 AM on July 8, 2018

Response by poster: Just a quick update: I don't want to mark a best answer because a lot of the answers here seem useful to somebody, but I ended up using pinterest. I tried wishlistr and a couple others - but I think I had GDPR issues because they all 404-ed during sign-up for some reason. I wish pinterest would allow you to delete things in less than three clicks, but otherwise it does the job.
posted by stillnocturnal at 8:57 AM on July 12, 2018

I have a bookmark folder in Chome that I use to keep track of things I’d like to get eventually. It has the benefit of syncing with all the devices I use and I’ve symlinked it on my Linux machine so a copy is saved in Dropbox as well.

I have tentative plans to set up a script that parses the bookmark file, grabs the wishlist, and turns it into a pretty-looking page that I can send or post online for friends to use, but haven’t yet had a chance.
posted by davmillar at 2:50 PM on November 24, 2018