According to research conducted by comScore Media Metrix, the average U.S. computer user views 133.1 Web pages per day. No wonder bookmarks have become so popular.
Bookmarks, for those who aren't familiar with them, are shortcuts to particular Web pages. People who use the Web employ bookmarks to quickly access the pages they visit most frequently. The most popular browsers make it easy to create bookmarks. In Internet Explorer, for instance, users simply press CTRL-D when the preferred page appears on-screen. This handy key combination simply drops the bookmarked page into the Favorites folder. Users can organize their bookmarks into subfolders, but these can fill up quickly during a hectic surfing session and may become unmanageable if a user surfs the Web a lot. That’s where bookmark managers come in.
The bookmark managers featured in this month’s roundup are designed to help users keep track of their favorite Web sites, as well as their favorite blogs and subscription feeds. Some of the bookmark managers are installed as standalone utilities, while others operate online as Web-based services; all are available to try free.
Link Commander 3.0 (Standard Edition)
 The developers of Link Commander apparently believe in the two-heads-are-better-than-one philosophy. The program’s unique interface boasts twin panels, each of which contains a separate collection of bookmarks. Although a second panel may seem superfluous, the two-in-one concept actually proves convenient by allowing users to work with any two of their bookmark collections at the same time. Yes, that’s right: Link Commander lets users create multiple bookmark collections, such as one for work, one for education, one for sports, and so on.
In addition to its dual panels, the latest version of Link Commander also boasts password protection for blocking access to private or potentially offensive sites, a duplicates finder that hunts down redundant bookmarks among collections so users can delete them, and an integrated Web browser for direct surfing. Another unique feature is the Drop Trap, a transparent icon that, when right-clicked, provides direct access to the program’s various functions.
This abundance of special features is the good news about Link Commander. The bad news is that users have to figure out how to use them. We certainly needed the extensive Help files to learn about and familiarize ourselves with the utility’s nonintuitive capabilities. We wouldn’t have minded the homework so much if the program involved was a spreadsheet or finance management software. But for a bookmark manager? All we want to do is organize a bunch of shortcuts.
Link Commander is compatible with all of the most popular browsers. Technical assistance is available by email only.
Bookmark Buddy |
December 2006
Smart Choice
Bookmark Buddy
|
As is the case with most programs, the ultimate purpose of a bookmark manager is to make life less complicated and more productive. Bookmark Buddy certainly achieves this purpose.
Fast to download and quick to install, Bookmark Buddy provides a positive user experience from the very start. The program's main interface consists of three clearly labeled fields: Categories, which lists the user's primary bookmark categories; Subcategories, which lists the subcategories contained within a selected category; and Bookmarks, which lists the bookmarks contained within the selected subcategory. Users can perform basic bookmark management tasks, such as adding new bookmarks and sorting current bookmarks alphabetically. The built-in Help files provide detailed user assistance, although we rarely needed it.
Bookmark Buddy has few extras. For example, it lacks a proprietary browser and a Drop Trap feature. However, it does boast a login management component that not only lets a user link a login name and password to a particular Web site but also will fill in the correct name and password when the user visits the site in question. Bookmark Buddy can even encrypt the login information to protect it from prying eyes. Best of all, users can access this feature and figure out how to use it with minimal effort. In our opinion, this was the best feature provided by any of the bookmark managers we tested.
Needless to say, we liked Bookmark Buddy. We liked it even more because it represents shareware in the purest sense, with a free 30-day trial. The purchase price includes a lifetime of free updates and free email-based tech support. Bookmark Buddy is compatible with all of the major browsers.
iFaves
 Considering that we live in a highly mobile society, we assumed the superiority of Web-based bookmark managers before we gave them a try. It made sense to us that users would prefer a bookmark manager that could retain their personal bookmarking preferences in the form of home pages that users could access from almost any Internet-connected computer and browser.
Needless to say, we were wrong. The optimism we felt when we first logged in to iFaves quickly faded to confusion when we discovered that the bookmark management service actually required us to surf away from a preferred site in order to add that site to the bookmark database. We had to read the instructions multiple times before we felt confident enough to attempt the counterintuitive maneuver. Fortunately for us, it worked. Even so, we wish the iFaves developers would find a way to handle the bookmarking procedure that doesn’t involve clicking the Back button so often.
Our confusion didn’t end there, though. iFaves takes a unique approach to bookmark management, an approach based on the creation of tags. Specifically, the service requires users to specify defining tags and site descriptions for each new bookmark. We appreciated this feature for its technical merits but were ultimately frustrated by it when we discovered that iFaves had failed to register several of our bookmarks because we had not specified tags for them.
Users who want to take an active—make that very active—role in managing their bookmarks will probably view iFaves' tagging component as a positive. Such users will also recognize value in the service's extras; for instance, a calendar that keeps track of when new bookmarks were created and a sharing option that lets users send bookmarks to others at the time the bookmarks are created. We, on the other hand, failed to see the point of these features. We also were supremely disappointed in the support options, which consisted of nothing more than a brief introduction, a tutorial for adding an iFaves advertisement to a Web site, and a Coming Soon message where the FAQ should be.
On a more positive note, we give the developer props for maintaining a phone line. None of the other bookmark managers featured in this roundup can make the same claim.
SiteBar 3.3.8
 SiteBar is another Web-based bookmark management service that lets users store their bookmarks at an online server for access from any Internet-connected computer. Despite our experience with iFaves, we were hopeful that SiteBar would provide a positive bookmark experience. Our hopes quickly faded once we got a look at the service.
SiteBar’s developers evidently devoted few resources to graphic design. The service’s registration interface was nothing more than a series of labeled fields packed together near the left margin of an otherwise empty Web page. In their defense, the developers provided an excellent set of how-to instructions—complete with screen shots—that guided us step-by-step through the processes of registering and importing our existing bookmarks into SiteBar.
We also relied on the instructions to learn how to add new sites to SiteBar. The service employs a pop-up window in which users can verify bookmark information and specify preferences, such as whether a page should remain private and whether it includes a live subscription feed. We had to reconfigure our pop-up blocker to accommodate SiteBar, but a bigger inconvenience is that we had to open SiteBar as a Search bar in order to use it. At least it didn’t require the use of tags (though tags are available for users who like to prepare their bookmarks for easy searching later).
Who can complain about a free program, though? As long as users have fewer than 500 bookmarks, SiteBar will manage them at no charge. Users must pay—in euros—for advanced program editions. SiteBar is compatible with all major browsers, is available in 20 languages, and includes email support.
 Wanted: Manager
Whether provided by a third-party utility or a Web-based service, bookmark management is essentially a task of organizing shortcuts to the sites a user visits most frequently. The bookmark managers we reviewed help users do this. But, then again, so does the Favorites folder in Internet Explorer.
In our opinion, only one bookmark manager offered value that exceeded the effort spent obtaining it: Bookmark Buddy. We particularly appreciated its login management component, which remembers usernames and passwords for those sites that require them. For this reason, it earns our Smart Choice distinction. 
by Jeff Dodd
Buying Tips
Don’t invest in a shareware bookmark manager until you have taken advantage of its free trial period. Testing the product for 30 days will help you decide whether you really need it.
Before importing bookmarks into a bookmark manager, you may first need to export them out of Internet Explorer. To do so, open the browser’s File menu, select Import And Export, and follow the steps outlined in the resulting Import/Export Wizard. |
View the chart that accompanies this article.
(NOTE: These pages are PDF (Portable Document Format) files. You will need Adobe Acrobat to view these pages. Download Adobe Acrobat Reader)
|
Email This
Print This