Add Bookmark Here is a Firefox add-on that improves the Firefox bookmarking behavior big time. Firefox users who have bookmark folders displayed in the browser, for instance on the bookmark’s toolbar, have now access to a Bookmark Here link in every bookmark folder. This speeds up the bookmarking as they can simply click on the folder and then add bookmark here to add the bookmark to that folder. While it is possible to bookmark via drag and drop, it is not something that most users know about or do.

When you open the options of the add-on you will notice that it offers additional bookmarking related features and options.

You can modify the position of the add bookmark here and open all in tabs menu items in each bookmark folder (top, bottom, hidden), set the mouse clicking behavior and configure where bookmarks are added to a bookmarks folder (top or bottom).

The remaining menus list additional options. Available here are options to configure left-click, right-click and middle-click behavior when clicking on the bookmark star or a bookmarks folder, and to configure the edit bookmark dialog and bookmark menu.

The program expands the add bookmarks menu automatically so that all entries are accessible directly. This is a big improvement over Firefox’s default bookmark adding menu which displays less information directly when triggered by the user.

Firefox users who work with bookmarks regularly should take a closer look at Add Bookmark Here. The extension adds several features to the bookmarking options of the browser. Especially options to configure mouse clicks can be used to speed up the bookmarking.

Firefox bookmarks cannot be protected from prying eyes by default. Users with access can see the link titles and destinations of all bookmarks. Sometimes you may want to password protect and obscure links so that they cannot be opened or identified by third parties.

The Firefox add-on Link Password offers those options. The add-on adds two new options to the right-click bookmark’s context menu. This works both in the Bookmark’s Manager but also if bookmarks are displayed via a button in the Firefox user interface.

Encrypt this link password protects the link, with an option to randomize the link text as well to obscure the bookmark further and avoid identification of the link destination this way. When Encrypt this link is selected, a new window is displayed where a password needs to be entered. The Rename links box is optional.

The link will be replaced by a linkpassword url, the link title by a random page title. In this case, the link title was replaced by “Canada – Yahoo! Search Results”.

It can happen that a very strange looking link title will be selected. One of the links for instance was renamed to “Evighetens Filosofi – Visdomsord som passa dig… – Soker “Blue”, Sida 1″. It may make sense to select a custom link title manually instead, especially if you come up with a system that tells you – and no one else – where the link leads to.

When you open a password protected bookmark, you are asked to enter the password to decrypt the link and open the website.

This may be a bit inconvenient for bookmarks that you open a lot in Firefox, as you need to enter the password every time you open it in the browser. An option to enter the password once and store it for the browser session would be handy. I’d also like to see an option to protect all bookmarks with a single password automatically that you could enter to make all links available. This would make the extension more comfortable to work with.

Firefox users can install the Link Password extension directly from the official Mozilla Add-on repository.

So what is the alternative then? A third party bookmarks manager of course. Linkman Lite is a free Windows program that allows users to manage their bookmarks. It supports a variety of web browsers, including the top four Windows browsers Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Opera.

It appears that only one set of bookmarks can be open at the same time in the free light version of the bookmarks manager. There are a few workarounds though to overcome this issue. It is for instance possible to merge the open set of bookmarks with Internet Explorer Favorites. That’s likely the best option before managing and exporting those bookmarks again. The pro version supports appending bookmarks or synchronizing bookmarks.

Bookmarks are opened via the File menu. Internet Explorer favorites can be opened via File > Open IE Favorites, other bookmarks via File > Import.

All bookmarks are then displayed in the lower half of the program window. All bookmark folders are displayed on the left side, the bookmarks on the right. Searching and sorting options are available to filter the contents in real-time. A double-click on a bookmark loads the site in the default web browser, a right-click options to manage the bookmarks. This includes editing and deleting options, options to add the currently opened site in the default browser to the set of bookmarks or to add the selected bookmark to the default browser.

New folders can be created and managed as well. Bookmarks can be moved to another folder.

The free version is limited in most regards. This can be confusing, considering that the pro version’s options are displayed in the lite version as well. A “not available” message is returned whenever a pro version is selected.

It is possible to work around the limitations, even though it is not possible to configure automatic synchronization. Linkman Lite is a nice program to merge bookmarks from multiple browsers. The program is compatible with all 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system.

That’s where the new Firefox add-on FavIcon Reloader steps in. The program offers to retrieve the favicon for all websites that are stored as bookmarks in the Firefox web browser. The extension is officially compatible up to Firefox 5, but works under Firefox 6 and higher as well if compatibility is enforced. This can be done with an add-on like the Firefox Add-on Compatibility Reporter. (see Three Methods To Force Add-On Compatibility In Firefox for three additional methods)

You access the add-on’s options with a click on Tools > Favorite Icon Reloader in the menubar.

The add-on lists all bookmarks stored in the web browser. This includes their title and the bookmark url.

All it takes to reload all favicons is to click on the load and save icons button at the bottom of the screen. The add-on populartes the icon url information. It can happen that error messages are displayed in the process, for instance when authentication is required to access a website or when a certificate requires additional privileges.

It is necessary to monitor the progress because of those error messages. A progress bar at the bottom of the screen indicates the overall progress. Once you are done, you simply close the add-on window. All favicons should have been updated by now.

Firefox users who would like to refresh all their site’s favicons can install FavIcon Reloader directly from the official Mozilla Firefox add-on repository.

Enter Replace Bookmark for Firefox. The core purpose of the add-on is to replace an existing bookmark of the same root domain with a new one. You do not have to use the add-on, but whenever you want to replace a bookmark you should as it overwrites the old bookmark with the new bookmark information.

This technique is obviously not helpful if you are bookmarking single page contents, but imagine reading an ebook or comic where each new chapter or page is displayed on its own page. It may be difficulty to remember if you have stopped reading on page 48, or 51 the last time.

Replace Bookmark is a restartless add-on for Firefox which means that it can be installed, disabled and removed without restarting the browser.

It leaves the standard keyboard shortcut for bookmarking a page untouched (Ctrl-d) but adds its own shortcut to replace one of the existing bookmarks (Ctrl-Alt-d).

Just press Ctrl-Alt-d when you are on a page and the add-on will displays a small window with all existing bookmarks of that domain.

Now it is up to you to select the bookmark from the list that you want to replace. A click on ok replaces the selected bookmark with the bookmark of the active page, and cancel cancels the operation.

Replace Bookmark is handy for users who use bookmarks to save their read progress. Firefox users can download the add-on from the official Firefox add-on repository.

Advanced bookmarks, so called bookmarklets are another form. They are a mixture of bookmarks and small applets. They usually do not contain any link information but are stored in the bookmarks folder or toolbar of the computer.

So what is the best bookmark manager? Not an easy question as it may seem to be. The answer depends highly on the individual user. A computer user who only works on one computer and with one web browser may need nothing more than the built-in bookmark manager. Users with multiple web browsers on the same computer, multiple computers with the same or different browser, mobile devices, or computer access at locations without rights to install or synchronize bookmarks may all need different products.

Sometimes it may not be possible to sync bookmarks between different devices, and sometimes it may require the use of two programs or a workflow that requires manual steps.

Lets take a look at the built-in syncing capabilities of the five web browsers Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, Internet Explorer and Safari:

Native Bookmark Syncing

All solutions have in common that an account is needed.

Firefox: Firefox users can make use of Firefox Sync to synchronize bookmarks and other data between the same and different Firefox profiles on the same or different computer systems. Firefox Sync is a built-in feature of Firefox 4, and available as an add-on for Firefox 3. Data is stored on a Mozilla server or optionally on a custom server.

Google Chrome: The Chrome browser comes with built-in synchronization of user data. Chrome users need to click on Tools > Options > Personal Stuff > Set up sync to setup the feature. A Google account is required and the data is stored online and synced whenever the user opens the Chrome browser and is signed into the Google account.

Opera: Opera Link is the name of Opera’s synchronization service. Opera users enable it in the browser by clicking on Menu > Synchronize Opera. An account needs to be created during the setup, the bookmarks and other information are saved online on Opera servers.

Internet Explorer: Microsoft’s Internet Explorer does not offer a built-in sync feature. Microsoft however has added synchronization to the Windows Live Toolbar. A Windows Live account is required to setup synchronization. IE users need to download the Windows Live Toolbar first and click the share button after the installation to setup bookmark synchronization. The data is synced with Windows Live Skydrive.

Safari: There does not seem to be a built-in way to synchronize Safari bookmarks (correct me if I’m wrong). Options are the paid Mobile Me service by Apple, or a third party workaround solution like making use of Dropbox.

Third party tools to sync bookmarks

Xmarks: One of the most popular bookmark managers thanks to its support for four out of the five browsers listed above. Only Opera is not supported by Xmarks. Users who do not use Opera, but multiple other browsers from the list above may want to use Xmarks to synchronize their bookmarks. The service is free and reliable.

Up until now we have not really looked at ways to synchronize web browser bookmarks with mobile devices like the iPhone, iPad or Android phones. There is unfortunately no standard for this yet. The best solutions are to either install a mobile web browser, for instance Opera Mobile or Firefox Mobile to sync bookmarks with a specific Internet browser, or to install an app like Chromemarks Lite, My Bookmarks App or Firefox Home to synchronize the bookmarks.

The best solution depends largely on the browsers used on the desktop computer and the mobile devices. There is no service that synchronizes all bookmarks.

Two-step syncing: It is sometimes necessary to configure two-step syncing which basically means to synchronize the bookmarks from one computer or device to another application that can then synchronize the data with the target device. Say you want to sync your Internet Explorer favorites or Safari bookmarks with your iPad or iPhone. You cannot do that directly unless you find an app that supports it. You could however configure iTunes to act as a middle-man.

Another option are applications, that are usually only available for a specific operating system. Transmute for Windows PCs can for instance comes as a free version that can convert bookmarks between web browsers and even mobile devices. The paid version adds synchronization so that it is possible to automatically synchronize bookmarks between web browsers and Android devices.

Verdict

There is no one application fits it all solution. I have created a small Excel table with links and information about the synchronization options between browsers and devices.

The spreadsheet has a lot of blanks and I’m asking for your help to fill them with information. You can download the latest version directly from Ghacks: bookmark manager synchronization.

Samfind Bookmarks Bar is an add-on that improves bookmark management in the browser. The Firefox extension merges bookmarks with search and social features. The bar can be placed freely in the browser which is unlike most toolbars that get added to the browser.

It can be placed in its own toolbar, in the Firefox address bar, in the sidebar or above the status bar. But the customization options do not stop there. It is furthermore possible to add, remove or edit items that are displayed on the screen.

Firefox users who do not want to see links to social sites like Facebook, Twitter or Reddit can remove those from the toolbar easily.

The same is true for websites, topics and search items. The add-on groups bookmarks into topics such as search, news or videos. Each topic is basically a folder that contains one or multiple bookmarks. Options are available to add, edit and delete topics and websites easily. Sites can be added from the browser’s history and the bookmarks toolbar. There does not seem to be an option to display all bookmarks stored in the browser though which makes the selection process harder than it should be.

The toolbar colors are customizable, as are other layout properties. Probably the most interesting feature is the built-in search option which can be used to search one of the bookmarks exclusively. The search basically redirects to a Google site search.

Samfind Bookmarks Bar can place icons in the Firefox interface that can be used to quickly add the current web page to one of the available topics.

The add-on lacks subfolders, or sub-topics as they might be called, which makes it harder to fit lots of bookmarks in the folders.

Firefox users who want to try the extension can download it from the official Firefox add-on repository.

Web browsers furthermore do not hinder a user to bookmark a website for a second time. Some may visualize that a bookmark already exists but none will stop the user from bookmarking a web page multiple times.

Bookmark Sentry for the Google chrome browser is a browser extension that can scan all bookmarks for dead and duplicate links.

The extension scans all browser bookmarks automatically after installation. This can take some time depending on the number of bookmarks and the folder structure.

The scanner displays the scan progression in the extension’s options. It shows the bookmark that is currently scanned, the percentage as a bar and number, the last scan, next scheduled scan and the number of problems found (which either means dead or duplicate bookmarks).

Scan results are displayed on the very same screen after a scan for duplicate or dead bookmarks finishes.

The extension displays status codes and text to make it easier for the user to identify the underlying problems. Each bookmark can be removed individually by clicking on the X at the front of each result. There is no option to delete all at once. Links are clickable to manually recheck the bookmark in question.

Bookmark Sentry will scan all bookmarks once a month by default. It is possible to change the interval to another or switch to manual checks only. The only other available preference is the time between connection scans. The default time is 10 seconds, reducing it will increase the scan speed.

Bookmark Sentry is a helpful extension for the Chrome browser. Most users are probably fine with running the extension once to check their bookmarks and disabling or uninstalling it afterwards. Only heavy bookmark users may need to use it regularly.

Update: The add-on has been removed from the Chrome web store. A Chrome extension alternative is not available. Windows users can use AM Deadlink instead which supports the Chrome browser as well.

Neat Bookmarks falls into the last category. The Chrome extension adds an icon to the address bar of the browser which offers direct access to all bookmarks stored in the web browser.

A click on the icon displays a bookmark tree menu and a search form on top. The search works in realtime and displays matching bookmarks only in the tree menu.

neat bookmarks, tree bookmarks menu

Bookmarks can be loaded like any other link in the browser. A left-click opens the selected bookmark in the active tab, a middle-click in a new tab. A right-click displays a context menu with the same options, plus options to load the bookmark in an incognito window (private browsing), and to edit or delete it. A double-click on a folder opens all bookmarks of that folder in new tabs.

Neat Bookmarks remembers the last search term and position in the bookmark’s menu. A click on the icon displays the last state, even after restarts of the web browser.

The extension supports several keyboard shortcuts to quickly navigate in the bookmarks tree. It is for instance possible to quickly jump to a bookmark by entering the first letters of it in rapid succession. The cursor keys on the keyboard can be used to navigate the bookmark tree menu as well.

The extension has five options:

• Popup stays open when opening (left-clicking) bookmarks
• Middle-click or control-click opens bookmarks in new background tab (instead of foreground)
• Close unused folders when opening a folder
• Display confirmation when opening a lot of bookmarks from a folder
• Remember previous state (scroll position and opened folders)

Neat Bookmarks has several advantages over other accessibility options. It only uses a small icon in the Chrome bar, offers a sophisticated search and remembers the last used bookmarks location.

There are a few things Epiphany handles differently than most browsers. One of those is bookmarks. With Epiphany you will not find a bookmark toolbar, but the way it does bookmarks is rather interesting. In this article I will show you how to work with bookmarks in Epiphany as well as keeping this little browser from crashing on you every few seconds.

The Crashes

When I first started working with Epiphany it crashed on most sites I visited. After doing a little research (and then a little debugging) I realized the issue was with javascript. Epiphany (in its current release), for some strange reason, doesn’t like javascript. The only way around this was to disable javascript. Yes this means a lot of features won’t work on a lot of sites – but this also means those same sites will load faster and won’t be so prone to having issues (like crashing my browser).

To disable javascript all you need to do is click Edit > Preferences and then, in the Privacy tab, un-check Enable Javascript. Click close and you’re good to go. Epiphany will now run like a champ on most sites.

Bookmarks

Now it’s time to see how the other side of the tracks deals with bookmarks. Epiphany looks at bookmarks as more of a database than a hierarchical file folder. This minimizes the interface (no bookmarks toolbar) and allows the user to associate a bookmark with one ore more topics quickly. Let’s take a look at how you manage your bookmarks in Epiphany.

Step 1: Navigate to a web site. This is done as you would do with any browser.

Figure 1

Step 2: Click Bookmarks > Add Bookmark (or <Ctrl>d) to bring up the Add Bookmark window (see Figure 1).  When the new window is up you need to do the following:

Change the title of the bookmark (most sites’ titles are far too long for Bookmark titles).

Add topics: These will aid in bookmark searching. Do this by click the check box associated with each topic.

Click Add.

That’s it. But what if you need new topics? By default Epiphany has only a few topics to select. You will need to add your own to make your bookmark life much easier. To do this open up the bookmark manager by clicking Bookmarks > Edit Bookmarks which will open up the Bookmarks Manager (see Figure 2).

Figure 2

To add a new topic all you need to do is click File > New Topic. This will create a new line in the left navigation where you simply have to type the title of your new topic. To keep your searching to a minimum, make sure you add multiple topics to a bookmark. For instance, I can associated the Ghacks bookmark to the following topics:

• Linux
• PC
• Computers
• Technology
• Work
• Writing

With that Ghacks will show up in every one of those topics.  One thing that is nice is that you don’t have to have the bookmark manager open to get to your bookmarks. You can actually show a topic in a toolbar…effectively giving you a bookmark toolbar. To do this right-click a Topic in the bookmark editor and select “Show on toolbar”. This will add a drop-down for that topic on your toolbar.

Final thoughts

Although Epiphany hasn’t fully replaced Chrome and Firefox as my one-stop-shop browser, I now use it much more than I would have previously. Of course part of this is simply because it supports RGBA (and I am a sucker for a well designed desktop), but also because of it’s small footprint, fast startup, and clean interface. Give Epiphany a try and see if you, like me, have an epiphany about your browsing.

Link Password offers an interesting alternative. The experimental Firefox add-on can encrypt links in the web browser so that their original destination cannot be seen or guessed by looking at the bookmark.

The Firefox add-on will encrypt links with the AES encryption algorithm which means that users have to enter a password for that link to encrypt and decrypt it. It is currently only possible to encrypt one link at a time by selecting the “Make new Encrypt Link” from the Firefox Tool’s menu.

Encrypted links use the newly defined cryptlink:// protocol. The add-on will automatically ask for a password when the cryptlink link is opened in the web browser. These protected links can be bookmarked.

An option to convert existing bookmarks into protected bookmarks would be nice. As would be the ability to protect multiple bookmarks with one password to use all of them normally once the password to decrypt them has been supplied by the Firefox user.

Link Password offers an interesting option for users who want to protect bookmarks in the Firefox web browser. It can be downloaded from the Mozilla add-on repository.

The bookmarks toolbar is on the other hand disabled by default to provide more room for the actual websites that are displayed in the browser.

Users who want to keep it that way can install a bookmarking extension like Atomic Bookmarks to be able to access the bookmarks relatively fast but without losing any valuable screen estate.

Atomic Bookmarks placed an icon in the Google Chrome address bar. A click on that icon displays a search form and the bookmarks in their hierarchic structure.

Bookmarks can be accessed easily by clicking on them with the left mouse button. This will open them in a new tab in the web browser. Moving the mouse over a bookmark will display information about it including the url and date it was added to the web browser.

The breadcrumb navigation on top can be used to switch between folders rapidly.

The search will search for the entered keyword in all bookmarks and display only relevant results to the user.

Using Atomic Bookmarks instead of the bookmarks toolbar saves up screen estate but adds at least one additional click to the process of selecting a bookmark. The search is however handy especially for users with lots of bookmarks.

Atomic Bookmarks can be downloaded from the Google Chrome Extensions gallery.

The Bookmark Sentry extension adds the option to scan the bookmarks in the Chrome web browser either automatically or manually. The default scan interval has been set to 30 days which means that the extension will automatically check the bookmarks stored in the Internet browser every 30 days.

This scan interval can be configured in the extension’s options. Manual scans can be performed in the extension’s options as well. The extension will check every bookmark and display a progress bar and the number of problematic bookmarks,

The scan takes some time depending on the amount of bookmarks stored in the Chrome browser and the Internet connection speed of the computer system.

A new screen with statistics is displayed once the scan of all bookmarks finishes. It displays all bookmarks with errors and separates them into not found and connection errors categories.

The bookmarks are listed with their title and url. A click on a bookmark opens that page in the web browser for a manual check. The X at the end of each row can be used to delete the bookmark from the bookmark database.

Bookmark Sentry is a useful extension for the Google Chrome web browser that can regularly and automatically verify bookmarks.

Update: The developer has pulled the extension from the official Chrome Web Store. There is no extension alternative available. Chrome users looking for an alternative beyond, can download and run the AM-Deadlink software, a bookmarks checker for the Windows operating system that is supporting the browser.

• Opera up to the latest Opera 10
• Internet Explorer up to Internet Explorer 8
• Google Chrome up to Google Chrome 4
• Mozilla Firefox up to Firefox 2

Yes you read that right. The bookmark verifier supports all major web browsers except Safari. All versions of the supported web browser are compatible with the software program except for Firefox 3. This is due to the way Firefox 3 saves its bookmarks (in a database instead a plain file). The developers have stated that they will not add support for Firefox 3 (although they could technically) because they have no “plans to to hack into foreign databases”.

The program interface itself has not changed much. AM-Deadlink will load the bookmarks of all supported and installed web browsers on startup. These bookmarks are then displayed. A click on the check bookmarks button will start the check. It might be a good idea to pay a visit to the options first to configure connection settings or proxies.

There is also a way to check the Firefox 3 bookmarks with AM-Deadlink. This is done by exporting Firefox 3 bookmarks as HTML. This HTML file can then be checked with the bookmark verifier. Bookmarks that are not longer working can be removed from the file which can then be imported into Firefox 3 again. This will add the bookmarks to the existing bookmarks which will result in a massive list of duplicate bookmarks. You might want to delete all existing bookmarks first before importing the checked bookmark file. Just make sure you have a backup at hand in case something goes wrong in the process.

AM-Deadlink 4 can be downloaded from the developer’s website. It is compatible with all versions of Microsoft Windows from Windows 9x to Windows 7.

The rest of the functionality remained the same. The bookmarks will still be stored in Google Docs and not in Google Bookmarks, apparently because of the way bookmarks are stored in the web browser. The latest builds of the Google browser, for example 4.0.223.11 and above, offer bookmark syncing between multiple computer systems running Google Chrome out of the box.

The new Synchronize my bookmarks option is located in the Tools menu of the browser.

A click on the Synchronize my bookmarks link will display a small popup window displaying a Google Account form.

Enter your credentials and the sync process should start immediately. You’ll be able to access your bookmarks in a weird location: a read-only folder in Google Docs (things will look less weird when Google Docs is transformed into Google Drive, a general-purpose online storage service). Install Google Chrome’s dev build on a different computer and you’ll be able to access your bookmarks, edit them and all the changes will be saved online.

It is unfortunately not possible to sync bookmarks across multiple web browsers using this method. An alternative that is working with multiple web browsers is the Xmarks extension which supports Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari.

Lee over at the Download Squad found a great switch for the Google Chrome browser to add a bookmark button to the Google Chrome address bar. This might be interesting for Google Chrome users who want to access their bookmarks quickly but prefer to have additional screen estate by removing the bookmarks toolbar.

The bookmarks button can be enabled by launching the Google browser with the parameter –bookmark-menu. This apparently only works in the Windows version of Google Chrome but there in Google Chrome 2, 3 and 4. A new bookmark button is displayed after launching the Google browser with the parameter that provides access to all bookmarks that have been created or imported into the web browser.

The bookmarks bar can then be disabled by right-clicking it and left-clicking the entry Always show bookmarks bar. It will still be displayed when opening a new tab but it will be hidden when a website is opened. Users who want to launch the Google browser with several switches can do so by adding a space between the switches. The easiest way to launch Google Chrome with switches is to press Windows R to open the run box and to enter chrome –switch1 –switch2 –switch3 in the run box which will launch the Chrome browser with the parameters switch1, switch2 and switch 3. via Download Squad.

Xmarks, a company that is offering plugins to sync bookmarks between installations of Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Safari, have now announced that a limited beta release for the Google browser is available on their website. Limited beta in this case means that users with an Xmarks account can join the waiting list of the Google Chrome Xmarks beta plugin. They will be notified once they are able to download the plugin for the Google Chrome web browser.

The developers mention scaling and stability reasons for limiting the beta downloads in this stage. Google Chrome users who are interested in the plugin should sign up for the alpha on the Xmarks website. They also need to ensure that they are running a development build of the Google browser with extensions enabled. Several features of the bookmark syncing plugin are currently not included in the Google Chrome version of the plugin including missing support for custom bookmark servers, syncing profiles and the discovery feature.

Xmarks for Chrome is the first Google Chrome plugin that syncs bookmarks between different web browsers.

There are actually two possible solutions to display the unsorted bookmarks folder more visibly. The first option is to go into the Firefox bookmarks manager by pressing [CTRL Shift B] and dragging and dropping the unsorted bookmarks folder into a different location. This can be either one of the toolbars or a location in the visible Firefox bookmarks menu.

The second option is to add a new bookmark in the location the unsorted bookmarks folder should appear and add the following line as the location:

place:folder=UNFILED_BOOKMARKS

The name of the bookmark can be anything. It might be required to restart Firefox before the folder is accessible in the web browser. Dragging and dropping the unsorted bookmarks folder is probably the best way of adding the unsorted bookmarks folder to another location.

The SortPlaces add-on adds many important sorting options plus the incredibly useful option to automatically sort new bookmarks according to the sorting parameters that the user defined in the add-on’s options.

The Firefox add-on distinguishes between menu, toolbar and unfiled bookmarks and offers different settings for each bookmarking category. Nine different sorting options are available in each category including sorting them by name, url, visit count, keyword or date added. The sorting order can be reversed in the same menu and it is possible to define the sort order for queries, folders, livemarks and bookmarks as well. By default queries appear above folders which appear above livemarks and bookmarks.

It is furthermore possible to enable automatic bookmark sorting and to include or exclude bookmarks or bookmark folders from the operation. It usually did not take longer than a second to sort through individual bookmark folders with dozens of bookmarks. A complete run on the other end did not seem to end at all. Maybe it is broken or maybe it is just taking very long. SortPlaces is nevertheless a great add-on for users who want to sort their bookmarks in a certain order that is not offered by default.

The Bookmarks Archiver add-on has been created as a semi-automatic option to delete or archive bookmarks that have not been visited for a certain time. The default days are set to 90 but it is possible to change that figure according to the specific needs of the individual user.

The add-on will show a prompt when the first bookmark expires that allows the user to archive or delete the bookmark. Archived bookmarks will be moved into the Archived folder that is created by the add-on automatically. It is furthermore possible to make the add-on perform the archiving or deletion automatically from then on. A click on cancel will leave the bookmark unchanged.

The add-on will automatically run on Firefox shutdown.

Bookmarks Archiver currently has a few limitations that prevent the add-on from working properly in some cases. The History function in Firefox needs to be enabled for the add-on to work at all. Visits to bookmarks will not be recognized by the add-on if the user is surfing in private mode. Finally only bookmarks that are stored in the root folder or in level 1 folders can be archived and bookmarks that are created in the Organize Bookmarks menu need to be visited once before they are being tracked by the add-on.