I got inspired by this article to look into such a solution. I tend to use different browsers on different devices, so using one browser vendor everywhere is not the solution. Main reasons are storage space available, device performance and basically general opinion about a certain browser or another, that might change or not. I previously used the browser's native bookmarks importer tools, but I always ended messing up their structure, then switching back to a certain browser and re-exporting the same bookmarks and ending up with duplicates.
So I got into using third party services, but I'm unsure what to choose. Here's what I tried:
- start.me - I actually had an account here since when I tried Palemoon once. It's a really complete solution, that I can use to replace other services as well. You end up with a customizable web page, where you can add not only bookmarks, but also RSS feeds, notes, tasks, weather and whatever you can find on the web and embedd there. And since it's a start page (hence the name), you can easily access all these if you set your page as the home page of your browser. You can also create up to 3 start pages with a free account, so I can have one page as home page for desktop browsers, one the phone ones and maybe one for a tablet when/if I'm going to have one. This should sound like heaven, right? Problem solved. Well, not exactly. There's no way I can set up 2FA on my account there, and they are not so private - they collect user data to show you ads (especially if you're a non-paying customer).
- Courtesy of my Fedi server, I also have a small Nextcloud account, with the Bookmarks app installed. I think this option is the most private option I have available, as I do not think my server admin would sell my data to a third party or whatever ๐. It's also the most limiting one, being able to only save up to 200 bookmarks, but since I am not using bookmarks as a reading list, only for saving interesting websites or apps, I think I am fine. However, I need the Floccus app installed on my phone (not sure if the UI of the Bookmarks app is manageable enough on mobile) to access the bookmarks. I did not find any way to display these bookmarks in an overview of some sort on the web, that I can set as a home page, similar to how start.me functions (even without all the extra stuff that is non-bookmark related). Maybe there is something that I am missing?
- I was also eyeing Raindrop.io as an option. It has lots of features and integrations, add-ons for basically every mainstream browser, 2FA (just like Nextcloud). I do not have an account there, unlike the other options, however. And I also don't see a way to see these bookmarks as a dashboard or something that can be set as a home page. Am I missing something? I also see they are heavily advertising their smartphone app, so if there's no integration that I can set on IFTTT or the likes, I don't think I have any solution for this.
So, if you were me, which solution would you choose? Is there anything that does what at least one of these options does, minus the drawbacks mentioned?
Edit: I am also okay with using my personal cloud storage accounts for something like this.