First of let me mention some small details that have impressed me. The ability to search settings, without it I couldn’t find how to set default search engine. It really simplifies things. Also initially the behavior for “Open link in new tab” was weird but actually it stops you from opening a bunch of links in a page so a multitasking frenzy is stopped.
OK Bookmarks Whats Up with Them?
So everyone knows that there are bookmark syncing for other browsers, and that there are cloud products that aim to do it better. But for web-browsers it has always been the same: export/import as an html file. That html file is a monstrosity that nobody wants to deal with (there are other single html file that are powerful tools like Tiddy Wiki with tags etc). Now we can ignore that completely as most do.
My real beef is the reasoning behind bookmarks. Why do we even have them? For me its because of 3 things
- Bookmark a website that I might want to check out later when I’m bored.
- Stuff that updates for example Facebook, or Reddit. This is good for feed readers or something but they need to handle also:
- One time curiosities for example a funny video. This is often just shared and forgotten.
- Bookmark a website that I know I’m going to need later because of the information it provides. Vivaldi should integrate the description of a URL with a note which has tha URL (and perhaps most controversial of all remove bookmarks I mean do we REALLY need them?)
- Stuff that may be useful at in the future because its relevant to me somehow.
- Stuff that I know will be useful because I need it for something I am working on then. For example to write something like this and be able to show my sources.
but all of this take time and energy so when I bookmark it often becomes a sort of “read later” which just piles up because bookmark are not well designed for that. There is no recently bookmarked. There is no search. Categorizing is a bloody nightmare. Maybe tags work better than folders but you still manually have to input that (at least Vivaldi makes that easy unlike other browser where its just clumsy)
So there are solutions for two of those: “feed reader”/”sharing” (in other word social media) and some sort of “read later”. But the actually useful stuff does not have a place… and that causes me to slowly collect a bunch of once relevant information that now should be dead (but is not because that sort of maintenance of cleaning and categorizing bookmarks is better spent else where)
I would like everyone’s opinion on this. What do you use bookmarks for? because it is something that we all deal with.
I think it might also depend a little on what we’re trying to achieve at any time. Someone having to learn at a fast pace, e.g. on joining a new job or on researching new topics for a book, has very little understanding of the problem space. Creating an orderly tree of bookmarks of useful pages as they find things of interest for later can pay dividends and accelerate their learning by allowing them to plough forwards picking up a broad understanding at first but with the option of revisiting previous material in a specific area should they need more detail.
I have a friend who writes books for a living who simply laughed at the idea of a browser without a structured bookmark store. There are plenty of other users like him who use systems for ordering pieces of information, new, old, whether frequently used or never touched again. Yes, he might be better off using Notes for the same task for the times when he wants to add additional info or pull out sections of interest but why force him to do that when he’s comfortable with bookmarks?
Creating order out of mountains of information is something humans are good at, especially if they have the right tools to help them do so.
I could not agree more with you (and I think by and large, the vast majority of users today feel the same… that is, outside the exceedingly small cadre of former Opera users who are stuck in the last decade in terms of bookmarking). Very perceptive blog piece.