Xmarks to be shut down on January 10th

Oh no! I've only just finished sorting all my bookmarks out onto Xmarks and their plugin seems to work well with Iron and FF... :(

There is a versions of the Xmarks plug-in called BYOS (bring your own server) which may be an option?
 
i used to use this, and its great, but since moving to chrome there has been no need, however shame its going, as was great for cross platform access to bookmarks that were stored online..


--------------------------
Xmarks, a popular cross browser book marking service, has announced that it will be shutting the service down and will be deleting all user data on January 10th, 2011. The service, which was gaining an estimated 3000 new accounts a day, is used by millions.

Like many free services, Xmarks states that funding is the key issue. After finding no suitable way to sustain the service financially, they will be forced to shut down the service which is currently storing more than 1.2 billion bookmarks. According to Lifehacker.com, Xmarks has promised that they wont sell the data which could be worth a small fortune to marketers.

While its a shame that the popular service is shutting down, Xmarks does point out that most browsers now do offer some sort of bookmark syncing. While not officially stated, many are hoping that this a cry for a larger company to purchase Xmarks so that the service does not fade into oblivion.

With over 5000 computers synced to over 2 million users, there is surely someone out there who wants access to this vast user base. So, while the service is supposed to be shutting down in January, don't be too surprised if it gets bought in the near future.
 
Damn... this is a shame. Faster, more reliable and just plain better than Firefox Sync in my experience, and of course the cross-browser compatability is a boon for those of us with a variety of browsers splattered across several computers.

I can't really see anyone picking it up when all the main browsers now have built-in syncing in one form or another - I guess the client might end up as open source, but I imagine it's the data storage itself which will be the sticking point. :(
 
The trouble with Chrome sync (and to a lesser extent FF sync as well) is that you have very little control over what's happening, when it happens, or any decent visual feedback - I know the whole point is that it happens behind the scenes without user intervention, but sometimes you want to *know* that a sync operation has completed successfully, rather than just putting blind faith in the browser.

You might also sometimes want to completely wipe out the server data and replace it with the local bookmarks/history/passwords from a particular PC, or vice versa, and AFAIK Chrome doesn't allow you to do this - it just merges everything, which can end up a bit of a mess in some circumstances (especially if you have a large number of syncing PCs).

And then Xmarks has other little nice touches, eg. bookmark profiles, so you could have different sync sets for home and work PCs - handy for that, errm, research project that might get you sacked if it appeared on your work PC. :D

Oh well, c'est la vie I suppose.
 
Last edited:
Hmm thats a shame, I use this all the time to sync between different browsers, computers and operating systems. I have noticed in the options it had some setting to use your own server. I don't know if that can be configured so I can still keep using it.
 
Paul11 said:
oh.. i use it all the time

is there a suitable alternative?
Click to expand...

yes & no.

i use chrome on all three of my pc's (desktop, lappy & work) sold the inbuilt one is fine for me now. i also use chrome to phone, and chromemarks to sycn with my android phone. So im covered in that respect.

I believe firefox has something like that. As for the others i can't comment.
 
Last edited:
Very sad. But the harsh fact is that maybe they should have tried to patent the idea some how, pretty impossible with software unforunately. I do hope that all the people that worked there go on and get the rewards they should have got. It makes me pretty angry that you have companies like this out there then you have the likes of Activision.

Its capitalism, money talks everything else is second.
 
just got this email

-------------------------

Dear Xmarks User,

We've always said we won't email you unless it's important; this is one of those occasions:

Xmarks will be shutting down our free browser synchronization services on January 10, 2011. For details on how to transition to recommended alternatives, consult this page.

For the full story behind the Xmarks shutdown, please read our blog post.

Thank you for being a part of the Xmarks community; we apologize for any inconvenience this step may cause you. We believe we have the best users in the world, and we hope your bookmarks find a new and happy home soon.

Asynchronously,

— The Xmarks Team
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom