Xmarks
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Daily Mac App: Xmarks
Need to sync bookmarks across multiple platforms and/or different browsers? You need Xmarks. The service that was on its way out, then bought by LastPass, allows you to sync bookmarks to the cloud, between machines and between different browsers. Xmarks has extensions or plugins for Safari (installed as a preference pane), Chrome, Firefox and even Internet Explorer, so it's got most mainstream browsers covered. Xmarks will sync your bookmarks to the cloud and give you access to them through the my.xmarks.com if you're somewhere without the Xmarks plugin installed. You can keep different profiles, one for work and one for home perhaps, and you can share your bookmarks with friends via RSS or the Xmarks site, all for the fantastic price of free. It's true that Safari, Firefox and Chrome will all sync your bookmarks from one computer to another, but not between different browsers. Xmarks lets you use Chrome on one machine and Safari on another. It'll even let you sync your Chrome bookmarks to your iDevice through iTunes courtesy of a little Safari syncing intermediary. Speaking of iOS, if you want access to your bookmarks through the Xmarks app on iOS, Android or Blackberry, Xmarks Premium at a yearly charge of $12 nets you that plus backup and restore for your bookmarks. Xmarks Premium also comes with open tab sync, so you can take your browsing sessions from machine to machine, browser to browser. If you've ever wanted to sync your bookmarks between different browsers, the free Xmarks makes it quick and easy. Download Xmarks for your browser from here to get started.
Xmarks finds new owner, isn't going anywhere
Look at that -- while I was sad to hear that my favorite bookmark syncing service Xmarks would be calling it quits after trying and failing to find a profitable business model, its users stepped in to support the service, and at the beginning of this month, Xmarks announced that it would be acquired by password manager LastPass without any interruption in service. That's great news; the basic syncing service will stay free, and there will now be two premium services available with the company. Premium membership in LastPass will get all of the password manager's features, and premium Xmarks service will enable priority support, syncing with mobile apps and more. Both services are available for US$12 each yearly, or $20 a year for the whole shebang. It sounds like this is a great deal for both companies, and together, the two services should be able to offer up some excellent features to customers both old and new. I'm just glad my current Xmarks service isn't dying; the browser add-ons let me share passwords and bookmarks across all of my Mac and PC browsers quickly and easily. Great to see that one of the most valuable sharing services I use has found a new lease on life. Thanks, Chris!
Xmarks calls it quits
I've been a big fan of Xmarks for a while now -- I work on a few Macs and PCs regularly, and while MobileMe is nice, I've always appreciated Xmarks' ease of use (after a one-time setup, it basically worked automatically) and compatibility across whatever browsers I happened to use. That's why I was disappointed to hear yesterday that they're calling it quits. Around 90 days from now, the servers will shut down, and Xmarks will be no more. Co-founder Todd Agulnick goes through the story of the service on that blog post. It was originally developed as Foxmarks, and it was designed to work directly with the Firefox browser to sync bookmarks there. Eventually, they brought in large numbers of users with tons of bookmarks in their browsers, but the company struggled to try and find a way to make money off of those numbers. Search became a main target, and if you're an Xmarks user, you'll know the 'tags" that would appear on Google Search pages in the browsers. But despite initial interest, that never took off, and after unsuccessfully finding a buyer for the company this past spring, Agulnick says the end has come. Fortunately, there are bookmark syncing alternatives, and most of the browsers these days have options built-in (which is why Xmarks won't move to a subscription service -- hard to sell something most browsers are offering for free). But I'll pour some out for Xmarks -- it was an excellent service. I'm just sorry it couldn't find a profitable place to settle down.
Chrome for Mac out of beta
Google has taken the "beta" adjective off of the Chrome for Mac browser, signifying that it's ready for primetime. The beta was originally released last December. Google Mac says it's ready for a stable release, and that the browser "provides not only the stability, performance, and polish that every Mac user expects, but also a seamless native Mac application experience that Mac users will feel instantly at home with." Additionally, the new release allows for full-screen mode (by hitting Command + Shift + F) and will synchronize bookmarks across computers (something I currently have to rely on Xmarks for in Firefox). And since it's Chrome, the update also adds speed bonuses and brings the HTML5 magic, including drag and drop file transfers for those sites that support the feature. Google also notes that support for a baked-in version of Flash Player will be present in future releases of the browser. It's a little buggy right now (heh), but they're aiming to have it ready and out by Flash 10.1. You can still install and use the current version of Flash, if you want to. [via TechCrunch]
TUAW Tip: Sync your bookmarks to an iPhone or iPod touch with Xmarks
I'm an avid user of Xmarks (formerly Foxmarks) as are probably many of you. I browse the Internet regularly on three different computers, and so it helps immensely to have all of my Firefox bookmarks and passwords synced. But the one fly in my ointment has been my iPhone's mobile Safari installation -- because I don't usually use Safari as my browser, I haven't yet figured out a way to get all of my usual bookmarks on to the iPhone. Until now: this writeup by Shawn0 (via the good folks at Lifehacker) presents a quick workaround to get your Xmarks-synced bookmarks up and running on your iPhone. Unfortunately, he uses Internet Explorer to do it, but given that we're all on Macs, I discovered that it worked just fine with Safari. Set up Xmarks on your Safari installation, sync it up with your usual bookmarks, and then set iTunes to sync your mobile browser's bookmarks with Safari. The one big drawback is that you'll have to start up Safari every once in a while to make sure your changes get all the way out to the mobile device, but that's better than not having them synced up at all. And yes, you MobileMe users are laughing at us Xmarks users right now, because Apple's service syncs all of these things automatically. But I've never known Xmarks to go down, and this solution costs the low, low price of free per year. If, like me, you haven't landed on a solid way to sync bookmarks out to the mobile browser yet, here you go.
