Syncing Browser Bookmarks is making me crazy
 

What is a good way to deal with this?

I want to be able to:

a.) Edit bookmarks in a FF browser on one PC, and have the bookmarks sync with an IE 7 or 8 on the same computer.

b.) Edit bookmarks in a FF browser on one PC, and: b.1) have the bookmarks sync in a FF browser on a 2nd PC. Both are windows.

b.2) have the bookmarks (from FF on PC #1) sync in an IE 7 or 8 browser on a 2nd PC.

c.) The sort order in IE needs to match the order the bookmarks were sorted in FF.

If I have to initiate this syncing or updating with a click or two that's ok, but no click/auto pilot/full automatic is preferred.

What does a.), b1.), b2.) and c.)?

Completely agree - been using this for a year now on 4 PCs and it is fantastic.

gglave - I tried really hard to like Google Bookmarks but I just couldn't. I like the idea but compared with Foxmarks it is just really cumbersome.

Foxmarks, combined with the Firefox 3 address bar, works incredibly well. I don't even use folders now for the most part, just star anything I'm interested in, occasionally add a couple of descriptive keywords, and just type into the address bar to find them, on any of the PCs that Foxmarks is synced with.

I gave up on keeping bookmarks synced between all my different computers years ago and switched to delicious -- it saves a lot of time and energy and my bookmarks are available from any computer anywhere.

I'll second (or third) Foxmarks, now renamed Xmarks

+1 on Foxmarks now called xmarks officially.

syncs across platforms AND browsers, now with mac safari syncing too!

A big 2nd here on Delicious.com. Has worked flawlessly for me for a long time.

+1 from here too!

+1 on Foxmarks.

+1 for foxmarks/xmarks...

it does exactly what you are looking to do.... i use it allot...so that i dont have to fire up all my comps to find out where i made a bookmark that i wanted to visit...

I actually use Delicious and XMarks to sync bookmarks across computers with Firefox on Mac OS and Linux. XMarks works great and I don't even have to think about syncing, it just happens. I use Delicious because of the tagging and social aspects.

I'm just now getting FoxMarks/XMarks installed in a second browser, and in browsers on the second computer.

And I have to say, it's very nice.

A manual IE import chokes, halts halfway through, on the seemingly simple take of importing some FF bookmarks. It inserts extended characters for simple ' - and . (apostrophes, hyphens and periods). So you get names like this "Travel Technology0%21Flyer Talk Forums". It can't even maintain the sort order under folders, and it can't deal with "http://" in the bookmark display name. I'm talking IE6, IE7 and IE8.
[/rant]

Thanks for the recommendation.

I too am using XMarks.

The reason why IE can't handle those characters (if you didn't know this already) is because bookmarks are technically files (*.url, if I recall correctly) in a Favorites folder on your PC (which I will admit does make it easy to backup Favorites).

Which means the name of your bookmarks have to abide by Windows naming conventions - no slashes and the like. It also uses the "code" for spaces (the % symbols) instead of putting in a space during the import process.

I've quit using IE entirely, except when I have to use IE6 at work.

I did know that. But evidently the people who created the manual IE import did not account for it, because it never worked in IE6, IE7 and now IE8.

I also saw for the bookmarks that would import successfully into IE, they were sorted by name, just like in a file folder view. Which never matched the source.

And now I notice when xMarks syncs boomarks, the bookmarks maintain the sort order in each folder from their source, and do not default to the sort by name. Very nice.