Using a Bookmark Manager
Do You Need a Separate Program to Organize your Bookmarks
If you have a large collection of saved URLs or bookmarks, you might want to think about installing a utility to help you keep them all organized.
You spend so many hours surfing, and though you do bookmark the good sites that you find, it can still be a pain to dig through all those bookmarks later to try and get back to some site you saw weeks ago. You need a better bookmark manager.
Though most web browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera) have utilities in place to organize your bookmarks (also called favourites sometimes). Most of these tools are just a collection of folders that you use to sort your bookmarks into. When you have hundreds or even thousands of URLs to manage, this is not the most effective way to do it. And your bookmarks are then "trapped" within that one browser program.
There are several advantages to using a separate program to manage your bookmarks. The biggest is that it's not browser-specific, meaning you can utilize your bookmark collection if you switch browsers on a regular basis. These programs will integrate with whatever browser you are running, usually offering a toolbar or one-click method for adding to your collection of bookmarks.
One of the better features that bookmark utilities offer is a search function. Rather than dig through many layers of folders and sub-folders, you can easily search for your URL by keywords or other tags.
Some other things that a bookmark manager can do for you, is to automatically alert you when a stored URL goes bad or even let you know when there have been updates to the sites you've saved. Though if you have thousands of bookmarks, you might find that feature a little overwhelming.
You can find dozens of these bookmark managers available for download online, some that are free and some that you will have to pay for.
And if you find that you want to access your favourite URLs when you are away from your own computer, then you could also try one of the new online bookmark organizers. The most popular at the moment is del.icio.us, but there are others you can use.
With an online manager, you store your bookmarks on a web site, so you can use it no matter where you are. You can also share your bookmarks with other people this way, as well as browse through other people's bookmarks. This can be a good way to find new and useful sites.
Whether you choose an online site or a utility program on your hard drive, having a tool to manage your bookmarks can make your web surfing a lot easier and more efficient.
