Syncing Bookmarks

A while ago I used to keep some of my bookmarks in the cloud, so they could be accessed from different computers, and the best service I used to use was called Delicious. Delicious used to keep all my bookmarks on a website, so that I could easily pull them up on any browser, no matter where I was. However the company that owned Delicious was going to end it, so of course I pulled all of my bookmarks out before they did this. But someone else stepped in and Delicious is still out there today, but I have since deleted my account and no longer use it.

The solution I found when Delicious was going to be terminated was Google Bookmarks. Google has its own Delicious-like interface that allows you to put your bookmarks on Google’s Bookmarks site, and tag them into different categories. And it is all saved with your Google Account, so it was very easy and simple to use.

This solution worked really well for me, that is until I went to using Google’s Chrome web browser. Chrome allows you to sign into it and sync your history, bookmarks, etc with your Google Account, and in turn any other instance of Chrome that you have installed. This solution was actually better for me as the bookmarks in my browser were sync’d without me having to use an external webpage. Don’t get me wrong, I had to do some clean up as my bookmarks from both work and home were now one and the same, but overall I really preferred this option over using a different web based surface. The other great feature is Chrome for iOS, which allows you to  sync your bookmarks easily with your iOS mobile devices.

Firefox also has this ability built into the browser called Firefox Sync, which basically does the same thing Chrome does. However when I tried it, I found it a lot harder to setup and use than Chrome, but it does basically the same thing. And this is not just limited to Firefox and Chrome, Safari on iOS allows you to sync your bookmarks with the iCloud, letting you have the same bookmarks on your iPad or iPhone.

There are also browser add-ons you can install into Chrome and Firefox to do this, and much more. Xmarks is good example of this as they provide syncing with all the major web browsers, such as Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox and Chrome.  In face they are made by the same people who created LastPass.

But no matter how you do it, if you are not already syncing or backing up your bookmarks, I would highly recommend you start.  One of the main things people worry about when they lose their system is their bookmarks.  And there a lot of options out there, so no matter what your setup is, there should be a solution for you.  I know for me Google Chrome has been my personal choice for syncing my bookmarks, especially since they released the Chrome for iOS so my bookmarks are the same, even on my mobile devices.