Does anyone use bookmarks anymore?

[scrabbler1]

I use them every day. But I don't have hundreds, just a few dozen (excluding recipes - almost a hundred of those in their own folder). And I've got them organized in folders, with the daily ones in the main Favorites list.

As a matter of fact, when I bought a new Dell laptop that had Win10 already installed, I started having a problem where whenever MS forced an update on me, or sometimes just on a reboot, my bookmarks would get alphabetized. I found that incredibly annoying as I have them ordered by importance to me (ER.org is 6th). I searched and experimented, but couldn't find a way to stop it. So I ended up prefacing them with aaa, aab, aac, etc. So now when MS reorders them they come out right.

I'd waste a lot of time googling the sites I visit every day. Bookmarks are much faster.

I have had my ~50 bookmarked favorites reordered into alphabetical order following recent W10 updates, too. Very annoying to put them back into my preferred order. What I did after the last one was to preface each one with non-consecutive 3-digit numbers, with the lead digit corresponding roughly to the group of favorites I assign to them. For example, the 200-series is for my financial institutions.

I use IE11 for most of my websites, but I use Google Chrome for a few of them because it loads better for some of them. No bookmarks but each of the few I use there appear on the home page so it is functionally equivalent.

As for physical bookmarks, I use playing cards from an old deck which I lost some cards from many years ago. I seem to go through a lot of them because I keep misplacing them after I finish the book and move to another one I get from the library.

 

[DEC-1982]

I use (electronic) bookmarks everyday.

I also have the URLs saved in a text file, for the few times when Microsoft updates go amuck and regressing to the saved checkpoint doesn't work and I need to reinstall the OS and restart from scratch. Seems to happen once in a while (@18-30 months).

 

[ponyboy]

i use bookmarks daily

 

[chicamuxen]

I use the Google extension called Speed Dial. It works well for me as bookmarking my 20 most visited sites.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

I use the Google extension called Speed Dial. It works well for me as bookmarking my 20 most visited sites.

+1

I find it a chore to organize and maintain lots of bookmarks, but having my most frequently-used sites readily available is nice. This extension (FVD Speed Dial) allows multiple pages of dials so I keep them organized by topic, such as finance, news, etc. I guess it’s just bookmarks in another format, but somehow I find it much easier.

OTOH, I find myself limiting my browsing to only these few sites.

 

[Tailgate]

My bookmark folders are a mess... Mostly I rely on my entry page that I can customize with tons of bookmarks in a visual and accessible way. It's free and called Start Me . I have used it for several years and love it.

One thing that is messy about my bookmarks right now is that I haven't totally decided between Safari and Chrome... the new version of Safari is supposed to block the video autoplay feature that Chrome doesn't. Nothing more annoying than a hidden video ad beginning to play without your permission.

 

[Alan]

I still use web bookmarks for sites and would never access any of my financial or shopping accounts by Googling it and clicking on a link.

 

[CoolRich59]

I'm a regular bookmark user, both electronic and physical.

This is actually a timely topic for me. For years I have used Xmarks to sync my bookmarks across machines and devices. But, I have been having a lot of sync issues with the product and it doesn't look like the product is being supported anymore.

Anyone have a suggestion for a good replacement? I use a pc at w@rk and Mac at home. I also switch between browsers (Chrome, Firefox, and Safari), so I need a solution that covers all these different platforms.

UPDATE: Just saw the posts re Speed Dial and it look promising. I just added the extension to my Chrome browser.

 

[CoolRich59]

So, yes, but couldn't you just leave the Kindle itself to them?

This is what I would do because my understanding is that, legally, you do not own books you purchase electronically.

When you purchase a book, you own the book. But, when you purchase that book in electronic format (e.g., on a Kindle), you only get a license to that book. If Amazon were to deem you in breach of your license, they could suspend or terminate your account and remove all purchases of your device.

 

[cathy63]

Not to hijack this thread, but does anyone know if I can leave my Kindle library to someone in my will or does it die with me?

-BB

Legally speaking, it dies with you. When you buy a Kindle book, you are purchasing a non-transferable license that allows you to use the content.

Practically speaking, Amazon isn't reading the obits to figure out which of its customers have died, so if you were to leave a letter with the login and password for your Amazon account to someone, then that person could take over the account and would keep access to the digital content associated with it.

 

[Lsbcal]

I guess I still use bookmarks to an extent. I have a handful on the menu bar that I use for frequent sites like my bank. I also keep a set of tabs for email accounts, FB, and an RSS reader as my homepage. What provoked my question is that out of curiosity I opened the "other bookmarks" folder and realized I hadn't been in there with it's mass of bookmarks in a long time. Sort of an interesting way-back-machine to browse through but essentially useless to me.

Could it be that your bookmarks are flat (no hierarchy) and also outdated? I think it takes a bit of constant clean up. If there are too many bookmarks at the top level it becomes hard to find stuff and basically not usable.

Usually my folders do not contain other folders. But sometimes I will move an older folder into a generally named folder. Example, after our Netherlands trip I moved the Netherlands folder into my Travel folder.

 

[target2019]

I recently noticed that I haven't accessed any of my hundreds (thousands?) of web bookmarks in years. Nor have I bookmarked anything recently. Whenever I want to find something I just use Google. I am curious about whether others are doing the same. Also, are others finding more effective ways to retrieve/remember things than bookmarks?

Rather than try to find bookmarks from a long menu, I keep 3 or 4 folders on the bookmarks toolbar. In those folders I keep the cream of the crop, meaning url's I use almost every day.
Invest | Social | News, for example.

 

[bloom2708]

I use Chrome and the "Bookmarks Bar" shown at the top has all my "go to" bookmarks. I don't add that many, sometimes remove items or re-arrange. I have a few folders on the Bookmark Bar.

Still useful to me, but I keep them in check and only for sites I revisit frequently.

 

[W2R]

I use the bookmark function of my browser all the time. I store bookmarks in folders by category. Some of my 17 folders have sub-folders. I would go nuts if I had to find every website by guessing what to search on in a search engine.

Thirty-one of my most favorite bookmarks, including one to the ER forum, are on the links bar on my browser. One click of the mouse and I'm here.

As for real, physical bookmarks while reading, no. I just mark my place in paper books with whatever is at hand, such as an old used envelope. My Kindle always remembers my place.

 

[Lsbcal]

Another technique I use a lot is having one folder in the strip at the top of my browser labeled "FREQ" for frequent. It's for very frequently visited sites. It's in the upper left. I play with this a lot sending some downward in the list and letting the best sites float to the top.

The next folder in the strip (is it called a toolbar in Firefox?) is called "Fun". That is where I have things that help me to get away from the nasty news or a declining stock market or a thread that goes too weird. This folder contains comics, astronomy, nerding things that are not troubling.

If you use these ideas, I must warn you that they are patent pending.

 

[mountainsoft]

Unless you only have a few regular sites you visit, how do you remember your favorite sites without bookmarks?

I bookmark new web sites I find in my browser. When that list gets a little too long I sort through those and delete any that no longer interest me. I move the links I want to keep to links pages on my personal web site:

Anthony's Resource Links

Occasionally I go through my various links pages, updating sites that have moved, or deleting old pages I no longer visit. I'm probably long overdue.

 

[harley]

As for physical bookmarks, I use playing cards from an old deck which I lost some cards from many years ago. I seem to go through a lot of them because I keep misplacing them after I finish the book and move to another one I get from the library.

IMO, the perfect bookmark (at least for hardback books) is the paper sleeve chopsticks come in, the cheap wooden ones you get in carryout Chinese places. I always have a couple available, and if I leave them in the book when I return it to the library, no big deal.

 

[mountainsoft]

the perfect bookmark (at least for hardback books)

Bookmarks? Who reads books anymore?

 

[HFWR]

Bookmarks? Who reads books anymore?

Mine seem to automatically open at the centerfold...