LogMeIn to shut down Xmarks on May 1, 2018
LogMeIn, parent company of LastPass, announced today that it will shut down the cross-browser bookmark synchronization service Xmarks on May 1, 2018.
Xmarks launched its service at a time when browsers did not support native synchronization functionality, let alone syncing data between different browsers.
We reviewed the service back in 2009 for the first time and the rocky pass in the years that followed. The creators wanted to shut down the service back in 2010 but LastPass, makers of the password manager, stepped in and acquired Xmarks in the same year.
LastPass introduced premium accounts to add a revenue stream to Xmarks. The service's password sync functionality was removed in 2011 as it stood in direct competition with the password manager LastPass.
Reliability of the bookmarks syncing service deteriorated in recent years. This led to the "What's going on with Xmarks for Firefox" article in 2017.
Xmarks shutdown on May 1, 2018
When you visit the official Xmarks website right now, you are notified at the top that LogMeIn is shutting down the service and that users won't be able to access Xmarks from May 1, 2018 on.
LogMeIn is retiring Xmarks from its line of products as of May 1, 2018. After this date, you will no longer have access to Xmarks.
Existing Xmarks users are notified about the shutdown of the service:
On May 1, 2018, we will be shutting down Xmarks. Your account will remain active until then. After this date, your bookmarks should remain available in any previously accessed browser, but they will no longer sync and your Xmarks account will be deactivated. There will be no impact to your LastPass Premium account. In addition, any remaining balance previously paid towards Xmarks will be applied as a credit towards your LastPass Premium account.
At LastPass, we’ve staked our claim in password management, and providing our community with a high level of password security. After careful consideration and evaluation, we have decided to discontinue the Xmarks solution so that we can continue to focus on offering the best possible password vaulting to our community.
Xmark users should make sure that bookmarks are synced to all their browsers and on all devices as syncing functionality will shut down.
I recommended you create a backup of the full bookmarks database to have it as a backup if things go wrong during the shutting down of the service.
You may want to uninstall the extension from your browsers after you have made sure that all bookmarks synced correctly.
Xmarks alternatives
One of Xmarks greatest strengths was that it supported cross-browser syncing of bookmarks. All native solutions that support sync synchronize bookmarks only between different instances of the same browser.
Eversync
Eversync is a free and paid service that is available as extensions for Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer, and Android and iOS. It supports cross-browser syncing of bookmarks and open tabs but seems to lack some advanced functionality such as making sure the order of bookmarks is retained.
The free version is limited to 15000 bookmarks, 500 private bookmarks and 500 archive bookmarks. Additionally, it does not support automatic syncing but only manual syncing to the Everhelper server.
The price is $4.99 per month or $44.99 per year.
Ymarks
Ymarks is a free solution that is open source. A browser extension is only available for Google Chrome, but it may work in Firefox as well.
What's interesting about Ymarks is that it comes with a server component. Good for users who value privacy, not so good for users who have no place to set it up.
It was created as part of Donation Coder's NANY 2018 event.
Floccus
Floccus is a free browser extension that syncs bookmarks to Nextcloud, a self-hosted cloud server. It is available for Chrome and Firefox but requires access to a Nextcloud server to work.
Closing Words
It is sad to see Xmarks being retired as it was one of the few cross-browser sync solutions available but it was clear that LogMeIn / LastPass had other priorities for a long time.
Now You: Do you sync bookmarks? Did you use Xmarks?
Doesn’t Windows 8 know that www. or http:// are passe ?
Well it is a bit difficulty to distinguish between name.com domains and files for instance.
I know a service made by google that is similar to Google bookmarks.
http://www.google.com/saved
@Ashwin–Thankful you delighted my comment; who knows how many “gamers” would have disagreed!
@Martin
The comments section under this very article (3 comments) is identical to the comments section found under the following article:
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/15/netflix-is-testing-game-streaming-on-tvs-and-computers/
Not sure what the issue is, but have seen this issue under some other articles recently but did not report it back then.
Omg a badge!!!
Some tangible reward lmao.
It sucks that redditors are going to love the fuck out of it too.
With the cloud, there is no such thing as unlimited storage or privacy. Stop relying on these tech scums. Purchase your own hardware and develop your own solutions.
This is a certified reddit cringe moment. Hilarious how the article’s author tries to dress it up like it’s anything more than a png for doing the reddit corporation’s moderation work for free (or for bribes from companies and political groups)
Almost al unlmited services have a real limit.
And this comment is written on the dropbox article from August 25, 2023.
First comment > @ilev said on August 4, 2012 at 7:53 pm
For the God’s sake, fix the comments soon please! :[
Yes. Please. Fix the comments.
With Google Chrome, it’s only been 1,500 for some time now.
Anyone who wants to force me in such a way into buying something that I can get elsewhere for free will certainly never see a single dime from my side. I don’t even know how stupid their marketing department is to impose these limits on users instead of offering a valuable product to the paying faction. But they don’t. Even if you pay, you get something that is also available for free elsewhere.
The algorithm has also become less and less savvy in terms of e.g. English/German translations. It used to be that the bot could sort of sense what you were trying to say and put it into different colloquialisms, which was even fun because it was like, “I know what you’re trying to say here, how about…” Now it’s in parts too stupid to translate the simplest sentences correctly, and the suggestions it makes are at times as moronic as those made by Google Translations.
If this is a deep-learning AI that learns from users’ translations and the phrases they choose most often – which, by the way, is a valuable, moneys worthwhile contribution of every free user to this project: They invest their time and texts, thereby providing the necessary data for the AI to do the thing as nicely as they brag about it in the first place – alas, the more unprofessional users discovered the translator, the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, the greater the aggregate of linguistically illiterate users has become, and the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, as it now learns the drivel of every Tom, Dick and Harry out there, which is why I now get their Mickey Mouse language as suggestions: the inane language of people who can barely spell the alphabet, it seems.
And as a thank you for our time and effort in helping them and their AI learn, they’ve lowered the limit from what was once 5,000 to now 1,500…? A big “fuck off” from here for that! Not a brass farthing from me for this attitude and behaviour, not in a hundred years.
When will you put an end to the mess in the comments?
Ghacks comments have been broken for too long. What article did you see this comment on? Reply below. If we get to 20 different articles we should all stop using the site in protest.
I posted this on [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/] so please reply if you see it on a different article.
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Article Title: Reddit enforces user activity tracking on site to push advertising revenue
Article URL: https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
No surprises here. This is just the beginning really. I cannot see a valid reason as to why anyone would continue to use the platform anymore when there are enough alternatives fill that void.
I’m not sure if there is a point in commenting given that comments seem to appear under random posts now, but I’ll try… this comment is for https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
My temporary “solution”, if you can call it that, is to use a VPN (Mullvad in my case) to sign up for and access Reddit via a European connection. I’m doing that with pretty much everything now, at least until the rest of the world catches up with GDPR. I don’t think GDPR is a magical privacy solution but it’s at least a first step.