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Could it be that bookmarking is something people often think they need, but actually, even if they remember to bookmark something they will rarely revisit their

Could it be that bookmarking is something people often think they need, but actually, even if they remember to bookmark something they will rarely revisit their bookmarks. What people really need is a way of recalling instantly every snippet of information from every website they have ever visited on any device in a timely fashion. Which sounds tricky to implement.

rukshn 5y ago
Yes that is so true, the extension I made for Chrome changes the new tab page of your browser to all the links you saved. I did it because even I used to bookmark stuff but then forgets all about it. So having it sticking out to your face every time when you open a new tab will at least make you go out and read it.
- jonwinstanley 5y ago
  Nice. Does it just show the most recent or pick some oldies from the archive too?
dkersten 5y ago
My problem with bookmarking has always been that they quickly become just as unwieldy as not having things bookmarked, so finding a bookmarked item becomes really difficult. Plus I forget what I have bookmarked so when I want to read a thing again I don’t think to check the bookmarks. So I’ve largely stopped using them and just use it as a giant “to browse through again eventually” list instead.
- jonwinstanley 5y ago
  Haha totally. I don’t bookmark anything anymore. I use Pocket so that if ever I’m out of network I’ve got a collection of interesting articles to read but rarely remember to do that either.
  - kwhitefoot 5y ago
    I use the SingeFileZ Firefox extension to save pages that I want to be sure of being able to read again.
fellowniusmonk 5y ago
Bookmarks used to be useful with Opera up until at least version 12 (around the time they killed m2, their JS perf fell behind and chromes process isolation made it overall more stable.) because the entire bookmarked page was indexed. Chrome's poor bookmarking must be intentional to push people to search – other browsers poor bookmarking I can't as easily explain – but some browsers used to have better/more useful interfaces for these kinds of things.
NAHWheatCracker 5y ago
Yes, many things bookmarked are things that we just want to instantly recall, in conversation for example, but bookmarks don't accomplish that. Unless we have amazing memory, or put in work to build something like a memory palace, nothing accomplishes that.
Pamar 5y ago
So far the best compromise I found (and I found it here on HN, btw) was historio.us, which I have used for a couple years so far, with fairly good results (for my use case, at least).

rukshn 5y ago

Yes that is so true, the extension I made for Chrome changes the new tab page of your browser to all the links you saved. I did it because even I used to bookmark stuff but then forgets all about it. So having it sticking out to your face every time when you open a new tab will at least make you go out and read it.

jonwinstanley 5y ago
Nice. Does it just show the most recent or pick some oldies from the archive too?

dkersten 5y ago

My problem with bookmarking has always been that they quickly become just as unwieldy as not having things bookmarked, so finding a bookmarked item becomes really difficult. Plus I forget what I have bookmarked so when I want to read a thing again I don’t think to check the bookmarks. So I’ve largely stopped using them and just use it as a giant “to browse through again eventually” list instead.

jonwinstanley 5y ago
Haha totally. I don’t bookmark anything anymore. I use Pocket so that if ever I’m out of network I’ve got a collection of interesting articles to read but rarely remember to do that either.
- kwhitefoot 5y ago
  I use the SingeFileZ Firefox extension to save pages that I want to be sure of being able to read again.

fellowniusmonk 5y ago

Bookmarks used to be useful with Opera up until at least version 12 (around the time they killed m2, their JS perf fell behind and chromes process isolation made it overall more stable.) because the entire bookmarked page was indexed. Chrome's poor bookmarking must be intentional to push people to search – other browsers poor bookmarking I can't as easily explain – but some browsers used to have better/more useful interfaces for these kinds of things.

NAHWheatCracker 5y ago

Yes, many things bookmarked are things that we just want to instantly recall, in conversation for example, but bookmarks don't accomplish that. Unless we have amazing memory, or put in work to build something like a memory palace, nothing accomplishes that.

Pamar 5y ago

So far the best compromise I found (and I found it here on HN, btw) was historio.us, which I have used for a couple years so far, with fairly good results (for my use case, at least).