With the release of Firefox 3 Beta 4 the other day it is good to see how many extension developers have been providing updates to prepare the launch of the Firefox 3 browser. The extensions that need the most love and care are those that deal with bookmarks, and that’s because the backend of the bookmarking system in Firefox 3 has been significantly changed.
One of the extensions that I’ve been waiting the longest for is Foxmarks (review). It’s useful because it runs in the background of Firefox, and it will synchronize your bookmarks with a remote server. That way you can access your bookmarks from any computer, or sync them with other Firefox installations. And they have a mobile interface for quick access even on your cellphone or PDA.
Foxmarks is currently testing a version of the extension that is compatible with the pre-release versions of the Firefox 3 browser, but there’s a catch. You have to sign up to be part of the Beta program (must be a registered user), and according to them there is a list of people waiting to get in. If you do sign up to be part of the Beta program be prepared to submit any bugs that you find.
And as their blog points out testers may find that there are issues while using the extension:
There hasn’t been a single report of Foxmarks crashing Firefox beta 4 yet; that version was only released yesterday, but we’ve been impressed by how the quality of Firefox keeps marching forward with each release. Beta 4 may well be stable enough for general use with Foxmarks. We’re keeping our fingers crossed.
There are also reports of occasional performance problems — sometimes sync under Firefox 3 is really fast, and sometimes it’s quite slow. Surprisingly, this variability occurs on the same computer with the same bookmarks within the same session. We’re not sure what might account for the difference yet, but we’re looking into it.
So if you feel like living on the bleeding edge there’s no better combination than downloading Firefox 3 Beta 4, and then signing up to be part of the Foxmarks Beta program. 
Foxmarks Beta
Kudos to Leland for the heads up!
I can tell you it is definitely beta quality, so make sure you have a good backup before using; they kid you not when they tell you that. I have not lost my bookmarks or anything, but I have yet to get FF3 to sync. I just sent a bug report to them and do have high hopes they will work out the kinks with those of us willing to test things for them. Also, when you do this they tell you to install the beta version in both FF2 and FF3 so the bookmarks will be in the correct structure for FF3.
Thanks for the update leland! Hopefully they will be able to get a lot of the bugs ironed out soon because I know many people that are holding out on switching to Firefox 3 until this extension becomes compatible.
I got the beta invitation yesterday and haven’t had any synchronization or stability problems so far, testing Firefox 3 is definitely easier now that I have all my bookmarks at hand.
However I don’t know if I’ll be able to use Foxmarks with Firefox 3 in the future, since I often need to have my browsing history copied as well as my bookmarks. Previously I’ve just copied the history.dat file from my main profile to my portable profile when I need to spend time away from home and let Foxmarks take care of the bookmarks. With Firefox 3 there are no separate files for bookmarks and history, so that is no longer possible.
I suppose I could just copy the whole places.sqlite when I need it but hopefully Mozilla Weave or some other solution will be ready by the time Firefox 3 is released.
It’s a shame extensions always seem to get broken with major FF updates…don’t they know about backward compatibility?
I just use Gmarks and my favorites are always there
I’m a Gmarks user too! Love it!
I have used Foxmarks since it was first released and have loved it for the most part except for some of the issues upgrading 1.x to 2.x which took a bit to be ironed out. I still have yet to get Foxmarks working in Firefox 3. I suspect one of my extensions is the cause, I noticed NoScript caused an issue in FF2 earlier this week when I was trying to forcibly upload all my bookmarks to over write my remote copy. I tried disabling that in FF3 but so far no go. I keep reporting my findings knowing that eventually the problem will be solved. The biggest issues for extension developers at this point are some of the big changes under the hood with the new java script engine and sql lite. I suspect it’s some of those changes that are effecting it in my use. I found a blog that talks about a lot of these changes for those who like to peek under the hood check out [starkravingfinkle.org]
I recently got an invite to use the Foxmarks Beta for Firefox 3 and I haven’t had any troubles. I set it up, started syncing, and it has correctly done its own thing ever since. I’m not using Firefox 2 anymore though, which might eliminate some of the issues.
Did you create a new account when you did this? I’m thinking some of it might be that I am using the same account I have had since the 1.x days and I am wondering if something is messed up. Oh well, they are due for another update so I will test again and see what happens.
After installing the extension I just chose to wipe out the bookmarks on their server with the ones on my computer. It had been awhile since I had used Foxmarks, and so I had some pretty old bookmarks on there. So I essentially started fresh on their server.
I have managed to get it synced once, though I did not know it had done it until later because it crashed each time I had tried that day. I guess just once it managed to finish before the crash thus allowing me to find my bookmarks. There is an obscure bug in FF3 that is causing the problem. I have been sending bug reports and crash reports to try to help track the problem. I even tried a new account and cutting out bookmarks until I had almost none left. So far I am still trying to get it to work reliably, but until the bug is squashed I suspect it will still be hit or miss. If you are only using FF3, then I suspect you won’t have a problem. I am trying to keep FF2 and 3 in sync, and that seems to be where some of the issues are. I will let you know more as I find out more over the coming days…
I just got a notice that there’s a new version of the Foxmarks. Maybe that will solve some of your issues.
That version did not fix the issue, but thanks for the thought.
It was actually due to a bug in Firefox that won’t be fixed before it gets released to the public. The Foxmarks team came up with a work around which I tested today and should be released by the end of the week. So with this fix all the major issues with using Foxmarks between Firefox 2 and 3 are now fixed. They also added a new feature this week in their web site where you can set profiles, for example, home and work so only bookmarks for the current profile get synced yet the web site has everything. You can read more about the new feature at [blog.foxmarks.com] Even if you are testing the beta for Firefox 3 you have to sign up for the new profiles beta.