Hello folks, if your one of those people who use more than one browser on your Computer because each has its own use, then you might be getting in a situation where you bookmark a website for future reference or some other reason. Only when you want to find it again, you have to search for it in all of your browsers since you can’t remember where you saved it to. This is really though a problem if you regularly use bookmarks and multiple browsers. For those of you in this specific situation, today you’ll read this post and learn how to synchronize your bookmarks across browsers, including FireFox, Chrome and Internet Explorer.
I encourage you to read or try both of the methods before you stick to it, since everyone will prefer a different method. Lets get started. Each has its own perks.
1. Delicious
This is basically a tool that can be installed as an add-on/extension on your browsers. Then you just tap its icon on the top of your browser (by default) when ever you want to save a bookmark. If you ever want to see all of your store bookmarks, you can visit their website (you must create an account), and it’ll redirect you to your profile where you can search, sort, delete and edit your bookmarks.
NOTE: Bookmarks made using Delicious are publicly visible if you want them to, on your profile page.
So now, I’m going to guide you through the 2 ways of actually saving a bookmark and accessing it through different browsers.
Step 1
Firstly, head over to Delicious and create an account, by clicking the Join Delicious button on the top right. Then Fill out the information they ask about (email, password, username etc).
Step 2
Once you’ve created an account, you need to get a way of adding bookmarks to your online account. There are two ways you can do this. The first one is to install the appropriate add-on/extension on your browser.
This’ll install the extension to your browser, as seen in this image.
The second way of adding bookmarks is to add the “Add To Delicious” button on your bookmarks bar. This doesn’t need any installation and is much simpler. To do this, head over to https://delicious.com/tools and drag the “Add To Delicious” button to your Bookmarks bar. Personally, I prefer the former method since the latter one looks pretty ugly. Either way, you’re now good to go.
Step 3
To finally add a bookmark to your account, visit a webpage you’d like to add then click on the Extension or the bookmark button you just got in the previous step. This should open a little menu (if you’re using the extension on chrome) or a new tab (if you’re using using the extension on Firefox) or a pop up menu right in the middle of the screen (if you used the bookmark shortcut). Either way it should look something like the following image. Take a glance at the ‘private’ setting in the lower left to make sure that is what you want, then click on the ‘Save Link’ button on the bottom right.
Step 4
Viewing your Bookmarks is quite simple, you can simply visit your profile by going to Delicious.com and signing in. From here you can use the options on your left to manage your bookmarks.
2. Xmarks
The second thing we’re going to try is called Xmarks.
Step 1
Go get started head over to the appropriate links below and install the Xmarks extension on your browser. Once its done, click its button on your browser and it’ll open up a little setup, as seen below. Fill in the corresponding information.
Step 2
That should create your account. They are gonna ask you to confirm your email, but it isn’t necessary to move on. At this stage, it’ll prompt you to allow it to upload your bookmarks to their server. Click SYNC.
Step 3
Once the sync is complete. Click the extension button on your browser and then select My Xmarks to visit your account and view all of the bookmarks. Once you install the extension on another browser and log in, it’ll ask you “How do you want to perform the initial sync?”, select ‘Merge’ and it’ll add the bookmarks of your second browser to your account along with the ones previously there.
This sync will add everything from your first browser and second browser to the server and the second browser. To get everything on your first browser we’re going to have to do a manual sync. Click on the extension button and click on Sync Now, or open the extensions menu and navigate to the ‘options’ of the Xmarks extension, and select Sync Now. In the future, it’ll automatically sync, so no problem there.
Well, those were the 2 ways of backing up or syncing your bookmarks. Personally I’d prefer Xmarks, since it allows a whole lot of options and it is auto sync. Delicious is good if you only want a ‘secret’ place to store and access a bunch of bookmarks. Especially if you want to share bookmarks publicly or with friends, then you may want to use Delicious.
Do you find yourself where you need to sync bookmarks between different browsers? What do you currently use?
