Sync your favourites
Bookmarks everywhere
Tools. In the past, bookmarks or favourites were saved locally on a computer. So when you used another computer, you didn’t have access to your favourite websites. Fortunately, tools such as Xmarks ( http://www.xmarks.com ) offer the possibility of saving your bookmarks online, making them available from any Internet-connected computer and they’ll be safe if your computer crashes or is stolen.
Browser. Today’s Internet browsers are also equipped with such a feature; for example, if you use Google Chrome and you’re logged in to your Google account, your bookmarks - and tabs, history and other browser preferences - are automatically saved and synchronised with your Google account. You can load these settings when using Chrome on another device. Why then should you use an extra web tool such as FavSync ( http://www.favsync.com )?
How does it work?
Start Page. You should sign up with FavSync (free of charge) or log in via your Facebook account. This takes you to a personal page with a Start Page tab at the top: it collects often-used addresses in clickable thumbnails. By default, they include Gmail, Facebook, YouTube, Google Maps and Wikipedia, but you’re free to add or remove sites.
Bookmarks. When you click on the Bookmarks tab, a new window is opened where you can specify how many bookmarks you’re planning to save - you can change this number afterwards. You can also configure how these bookmarks are to be displayed (as text or thumbnails) and how the different categories should be displayed (as columns, in a tree structure, or unstructured). Conveniently, you’re always shown an example of what everything will look like. In total, you can choose 20 different views. Tip. In View Settings you can change the view or skin.
Categories. After configuring your preferences, you can start adding your favourite websites and arrange them into categories which you can name. Tip. You can import your current bookmarks from your browser via Account Settings . Using the mouse, you can drag the thumbnails to other categories. In the “Tree” view, you can also create sub-categories by dragging them into another category. Bookmarks and categories can, of course, also be deleted.
Customise the tabs. When you move the mouse pointer over the Start Page or Bookmarks tab, you can choose the type of tab you wish to use via the cog-wheel icon: “regular” (available to yourself only), “public” (this also gives access to others via a URL, even if they don’t use FavSync) or “hidden” (only accessible to you via a password). You can also delete existing tabs - such as the example tabs Local and Hidden - or add new ones.
Browser add-on
When you log in from any Internet-connected device to the FavSync site, you will now have access to all your favourite sites. Plus, if you also install the add-on (ideally in Chrome, but also possible in Firefox), you will be given extra features: automatic suggestions for categories, adding and opening bookmarks without having to surf to the FavSync site, etc.
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