Better bookmark management in Firefox
In Firefox, you can manage your bookmarks relatively efficiently using the built-in tools. Still, there’s room for improvement, especially if you wish to use your bookmarks on other computers as well. What are the options?
Creating order
Are your bookmarks in Firefox organised? Open Bookmarks; Organise Bookmarks in order to create some order. Click on Bookmarks Menu in order to be able to create folders by right-clicking. You can now drag your bookmarks into these folders. Tip 1. You can also create subfolders within these folders. Tip 2. Click on Sort By Name in order to sort all the bookmarks in a folder alphabetically.
Add-ons
Do you wish to check whether there are any duplicates in your bookmarks list, and remove “dead” links and empty folders? This is possible with the free CheckPlaces (http://www.andyhalford.com/checkplaces) add-on. Another useful add-on is SortPlaces (http://www.andyhalford.com/sortplaces). It allows you to sort your bookmarks not only by name but also by date and description. You can even have this sorting done automatically (for instance, every 30 days).
Online bookmarks
You can make a backup of your bookmarks in Firefox itself: open the Bookmarks window and choose Import and Backup. Then select Make Backup and save the file.
However, making an online backup of your favourite addresses is an even better solution. It means you won’t have to copy any files when reinstalling Firefox, whilst you have access to your bookmarks everywhere, even when working on a different computer. Our favourite service remains Xmarks (http://www.xmarks.com), formerly Foxmarks. Whenever you close Firefox, all your bookmarks are copied to the Xmarks servers automatically. Tip. Xmarks now also lets you save forms and passwords, and it’s available for IE and Google Chrome as well. Needless to say, the popular Delicious (http://delicious.com) is a good online bookmark manager too. Another free service is Xerpi (http://www.xerpi.com - also for various browsers). Xerpi conveniently displays all your bookmarks on one graphical webpage. However, Xerpi’s import function is on the primitive side: you are expected to create a backup file of your bookmarks yourself and then upload this file. Afterwards, you can add the Xerpi bookmarklet to the browser’s toolbar in order to be able to add bookmarks to your Xerpi page in one click.
Xerpi displays your bookmarks as a fully-fledged start page, with neat tabs and categories. You can move bookmarks and categories by using the mouse. You can even add widgets, for instance a Google Maps search field. The default search field at the top right lets you search your bookmarks or Google itself. When you click on the envelope icon next to a specific bookmark, it will be e-mailed to friends. Via Add Friends Block you can add bookmarks which you share with others.
Speed dial
Do you often visit the same websites? Install the free Speed Dial add-on (http://speeddial.uworks.net). After installation, right-click on the Firefox toolbar and add the two Speed Dial buttons. In Speed Dial, you can assign the 1 to 9 keys to websites. Afterwards, simply press Ctrl plus the appropriate number in order to open a site in a flash. Tip. After clicking on the Speed Dial button in the toolbar, you will see the nine sites displayed as thumbnails. You can create several groups of 9 thumbnails in different tabs. Handy!
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