Live Bookmarks

Feb 8, 2006

One of the hidden gems in Firefox is the live bookmarks feature. I have only recently begun using it, and I can't see how I ever lived without it. Keeping track of multiple blogs and websites has never been easier, and the integration right into the bookmarks system is so incredibly seamless. I don't doubt that there are more powerful feed aggregator applications, but this feature is just what the doctor ordered for my needs. Now to find more sites to add to my list...

firefox
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4 Comments

kip

2:00 AM on Feb 8, 2006
Yeah me too, discovering live bookmarks finally made RSS seem like something other than a complete waste. I never liked RSS before that because it's essentially the same thing they called "Push Technology" eight years ago. Now I have a "Blogs" folder on my toolbar and I can scroll down and quickly see if anyone has any new posts.

Ananjan

1:20 PM on Feb 8, 2006
Hey thanks man! I was trying out the googlebar lite, when I came across your blog and got to know about the live bookmarks. Its rudimentary, but yet its great. I have always been intimidated by the huge number of options on rss aggregators. I think this is much simpler to use. However, I have not figured out how firefox decided how many update links to show, and how old the oldest link on the drop-down list should be. Is there a way to control it?

Jonah

2:07 PM on Feb 8, 2006
I don't think you can control how many links show up in a live bookmark menu. The RSS feed itself is what dictates that (if I remember correctly). Perhaps more powerful aggregators allow you to alter that feature... Even with this limitation, Firefox's live bookmarks are the perfect fit for me. A real time saver in surfing the web!

kip

5:52 PM on Feb 8, 2006
The RSS standard officially limits the number of items in a feed to a maximum of 15, but I don't think this is enforced in many aggregators (the Penny Arcade RSS feed frequently gets longer than that and Firefox doesn't complain). As for Atom feeds, I don't know if there is an official limit (I think live bookmarks work with Atom feeds too).

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