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Vivaldi Wishlist: a multi-browser Bookmark editor with plugins and duplicate detection

Since Vivaldi is going to the trouble of making a browser for end users, I thought I’d post a few wishes for what you create. As a programmer myself I know how much easier it is to design for requirements first up.

I accumulate many bookmarks. I liked to keep them in order but when they are shared over many browsers, that makes that difficult. There used to be a wonderful simple program called Columbine Bookmark Merge http://www.abdn.ac.uk/tools/ibmpc/columbin/ but it is now defunct because it supported browsers that have gone out of fashion.

Since then I’ve not found a really good bookmark editor and merger. Some suggestions would be:

  • A tool integrated into Vivaldi because it is a real value add.
  • The ability to import bookmarks from other browsers into any folder you choose.
  • Sort by Name, Last Accessed, Web Address, Access frequency
  • A really good GUI so that sifting and sorting can be quick and simple. For example, right click on the uncategorised link and it offers you “place here” and a list of top level folders to put it in, hovering over one of those folders offer you “place here” and the list of its sub-folders etc.
  • It should also provide tags and symbolic links to other folders / entries given that some links belong in multiple places.
  • A plug-in based architecture for import and export of bookmarks so the tool won’t be obsoleted by new browsers or new bookmark formats.
  • O( log n ) duplicate detection. Columbine had great duplicate detection labelling duplicates with Dolly the sheep icons, but it was O( n**2 ). Also the duplicate icon should take you to the duplicates (i.e. identify where they are).

 

Regards,

Michael

This relates to my other feature suggestion especially regarding privacy:  Synched Bookmarks with privacy https://vivaldi.net/blogs/entry/vivaldi-wishlist-a-bookmark-sync-with-privacy

 

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Vivaldi Wishlist: a Bookmark Sync with Privacy

Since Vivaldi is going to the trouble of making a browser for end users, I thought I’d post a few wishes for what you create. As a programmer myself I know how much easier it is to design for requirements first up.

Firefox has bookmark sync capability, and the idea of syncing my bookmarks across multiple computers is fantastic, but it is not usable for me because it does not allow you to quarantine bookmarks to particular groups of computers. My workplace has commercial and security in confidence requirements which mean that it is inappropriate for me to have certain links shared to my home computers. Similarly there are political and satire sites I visit that are inappropriate for a work environment that sees even twitter as a threat.

So since you are going to build a Sync facility for Vivaldi, I offer the following suggestions for the functionality of your Sync:

  • The ability to restrict the Syncing of particular folders to a group of computers or Vivaldi installations. E.g. If I labelled a bookmark folder as restricted to work, it would not be copied to home computer, or a volunteer computer. I imagine that if I created the labels {Home, Volunteer-Organisation, Work} that I could restrict the syncing of any folder sub-tree to any subset of {Home, Volunteer-Organisation, Work} I chose to mark the root folder of that tree with. The default for unlabelled folders would be to share to all installations.
  • The ability to encrypt your SYNC with strong encryption so that Vivaldi and in particular those who might hack Vivaldi or its software service suppliers never get access to any of the bookmarks. The encryption key should be chosen by the User and be at the highest available encryption standard.

Regards,

Michael