4 Possible XMarks Replacements
With XMarks on it's death bed, what will replace this favorite bookmarking service? Today, I show four possible candidates to replace XMarks.
The browsers have always been the number one tool to use when surfing the web, am I right?
But the one tool we take for granted? Bookmarks.
I've been using XMarks for a long time and I've even installed it on my parent's computers.
Unfortunately, XMarks announced they are discontinuing the synchronization bookmark service (at the top of the page).
Lately, I'm starting to see my favorite software services as characters in Game of Thrones. As soon as I start using the service and love using it, it seems to get killed off.
Why not use a browser's synchronization service?
While you can do this on a per-browser basis, I usually want to have all bookmarks in one central location.
Hence, the use for synchronization services.
Whatever browser I pick, I want my bookmarks to carry over to Chrome, Firefox, and Opera. It doesn't matter what browser I'm using. I want to have my bookmarks up to date.
Time is running out
With only a week left before we say goodbye to XMarks, this presents a problem.
We need a replacement.
In a reddit post, brossow created a checklist of XMark's current features.
- Cross-browser support
- Cross-platform support
- Different Profiles for subsets of master bookmark list
- Web-based access to all bookmarks
- REAL bookmarks, not just saving them to a website
While these requirements were fulfilled in XMarks, there are a number of other contenders to become THE bookmark synchronization service.
Here are some candidates to replace XMarks.
EverSync
EverSync is a web and browser extension solution to synchronizing your bookmarks. It works with Firefox, Chrome, and IE in Android, iOS, and Windows.
It supports a Freemium model where the free version allows you to have 15,000 Bookmarks and Speed Dials with 500 private and 500 archived bookmarks.
While I do support developers by purchasing the premium model, I just can't justify the $45/year to synchronize bookmarks.
Raindrop.io
Raindrop is a different approach to the synchronization process.
Instead of you collecting bookmarks in the browser, why not send the bookmark to a centralized service?
When you visit the site, you have a couple of choices: Open the Web App or Install the app or extension.
If you want to see all of your bookmarks, you don't visit your browser...you visit their website.
While it is a different way to collect bookmarks, it almost seems like it works against the browser by not working with the browser and it's existing bookmark management.
Start.Me
Start.me uses a newsroom-style approach with their custom dashboard based on your bookmarks.
You can embed anything into your dashboard using collections. Think of collections as folders.
Along with bookmarking specific content, you can share your dashboard pages with others as well.
While the free model has a lot to offer, there are other priced tiers for teams, professionals, and enterprise on their pricing page if you feel you need more functionality.
Again, this is a different way to bookmark and off the beaten path, but still valuable for those looking to the web to re-purpose their bookmarked content.
xBrowserSync
xBrowserSync is strictly a simple browser extension that is "secure, anonymous, and free." The good news is the latter part of that sentence: free.
It's open source under the MIT license and has it's own Github repo. Also, if you are a fan of Angular and/or Node, you may appreciate the Github repo even more. ;-)
I'm currently testing this extension in Chrome until the Firefox version is available.
At this point, this is probably the closest I'm going to get to an XMarks replacement for now.
Conclusion
I haven't found something to completely and effectively replace XMarks, but xBrowserSync is a good start.
I will continue looking before the week is up. I have to.
Because who knows...maybe I'll write something... :-|
Do you have a favorite synchronization service? What extension are you using? Post your comments below and let's discuss.
