Google Chrome just got not one, but two ways of synchronizing your bookmarks, in the same day:
1. Xmarks Closed Alpha - Xmarks, the browser add-on that syncs bookmarks between Firefox, IE, and Safari, has now released an alpha version of the bookmark sync tool for the developer channel of Google Chrome on Windows.
2. Just a few minutes after the Xmarks announcement, Google launched bookmark syncing for users on the dev channel of its Chrome web browser, just like it promised. This allows you to keep your browser bookmarks in sync no matter which of your computers you are using. It's interesting timing, to be sure, and we'd guess the Xmarks folks were probably watching the dev channel and decided to rush the announcement to beat Google to the punch. The fact is, Xmarks still offers something fairly different from what Google's sync tool will offer: namely, Xmarks will be able to sync between Chrome and virtually any other popular browser, including Firefox, IE, and Safari. Chrome's sync tool will only work with Chrome, which means if you haven't decided you're ready to be a full-on Chrome adopter, Xmarks will probably remain the better option. Still, it's great to see progress all around with bookmark syncing in Chrome.
1. Xmarks Closed Alpha - Xmarks, the browser add-on that syncs bookmarks between Firefox, IE, and Safari, has now released an alpha version of the bookmark sync tool for the developer channel of Google Chrome on Windows.
2. Just a few minutes after the Xmarks announcement, Google launched bookmark syncing for users on the dev channel of its Chrome web browser, just like it promised. This allows you to keep your browser bookmarks in sync no matter which of your computers you are using. It's interesting timing, to be sure, and we'd guess the Xmarks folks were probably watching the dev channel and decided to rush the announcement to beat Google to the punch. The fact is, Xmarks still offers something fairly different from what Google's sync tool will offer: namely, Xmarks will be able to sync between Chrome and virtually any other popular browser, including Firefox, IE, and Safari. Chrome's sync tool will only work with Chrome, which means if you haven't decided you're ready to be a full-on Chrome adopter, Xmarks will probably remain the better option. Still, it's great to see progress all around with bookmark syncing in Chrome.
Here’s how Google explained the new addition, as well as how to implement it:
As of today’s dev channel build, we’re adding a brand new feature to Google Chrome: bookmark sync. Many users have several machines, one at home and one at work for example. This new feature makes it easy to keep the same set of bookmarks on all your machines, and stores them alongside your Google Docs for easy web access.
To activate this feature, launch Google Chrome with the --enable-sync command-line flag. Once you set up sync from the Tools menu, Chrome will then upload and store your bookmarks in your Google Account. Anytime you add or change a bookmark, your changes will be sent to the cloud and immediately broadcast to all other computers for which you’ve activated bookmark sync (using the same XMPP technology as Google Talk).
A note: the Chromium Dev version is the least stable of the Chromium browsers. Windows can crash, new features can need tweaks, and we may never see bookmark syncing ever reach Google Chrome itself. However, this new feature still tickles our fancy, so if you’re brave, subscribe to the dev channel and get the update.
