In the context of the

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web se ...

, a bookmark is a

Uniform Resource Identifier A Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) is a unique sequence of characters that identifies a logical or physical resource used by web technologies. URIs may be used to identify anything, including real-world objects, such as people and places, conc ...

(URI) that is stored for later retrieval in any of various storage formats. All modern

web browsers A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a User (computing), user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its Computer file, files from a web server and then displays the page on the user' ...

include bookmark features. Bookmarks are called favorites or Internet shortcuts in

Internet Explorer Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a series of graphical user interface, graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft which was used in the Microsoft Wind ...

and

Microsoft Edge Microsoft Edge is a proprietary, cross-platform web browser created by Microsoft. It was first released in 2015 as part of Windows 10 and Xbox One and later ported to other platforms as a fork of Google's Chromium open-source project: Android ...

, and by virtue of that browser's large

market share Market share is the percentage of the total revenue or sales in a market that a company's business makes up. For example, if there are 50,000 units sold per year in a given industry, a company whose sales were 5,000 of those units would have a ...

, these terms have been synonymous with ''bookmark'' since the

First Browser War A browser war is competition for dominance in the usage share of web browsers. The "first browser war," (1995-2001) pitted Microsoft's Internet Explorer against Netscape's Netscape Navigator, Navigator. Browser wars continued with the decline o ...

. Bookmarks are normally accessed through a menu in the user's web browser, and folders are commonly used for organization. In addition to bookmarking methods within most browsers, many external applications offer bookmark management. Bookmarks have been incorporated in browsers since the

ViolaWWW ViolaWWW is a discontinued browser, the first to support scripting and stylesheets for the World Wide Web (WWW). It was first released in 1991/1992 for Unix and acted as the recommended browser at CERN, where the WWW was invented, but eventually ...

browser in 1992, and

Mosaic A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...

browser in 1993. Bookmark lists were called ''Hotlists'' in Mosaic and in previous versions of

Opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...

; this term has faded from common use.

Cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...

, another early browser, also had bookmarking features. With the advent of

social bookmarking Social bookmarking is an online service which allows users to add, annotate, edit, and share bookmarks of web documents. Many online bookmark management services have launched since 1996; Delicious, founded in 2003, popularized the terms "social ...

, shared bookmarks have become a means for users sharing similar interests to pool web resources, or to store their bookmarks in such a way that they are not tied to one specific computer or browser. Web-based bookmarking services let users save bookmarks on a remote web server, accessible from anywhere. Newer browsers have expanded the "bookmark" feature to include variations on the concept of saving links.

Mozilla Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current and a ...

introduced

live bookmarks Mozilla Firefox has features that allow it to be distinguished from other web browsers, such as Chrome and Internet Explorer. Major differences To avoid interface bloat, ship a relatively smaller core customizable to meet individual users' ne ...

in 2004, which resemble standard bookmarks but contain a list of links to recent articles supplied by a news site or

weblog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...

, which is regularly updated via

RSS RSS ( RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many di ...

feeds; however, Mozilla removed this feature in 2018. "

Bookmarklet A bookmarklet is a bookmark stored in a web browser that contains JavaScript commands that add new features to the browser. They are stored as the URL of a bookmark in a web browser or as a hyperlink on a web page. Bookmarklets are usually smal ...

s" are

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...

programs stored as bookmarks that can be clicked to perform a function.

Storage

Each browser has a built-in tool for managing the list of bookmarks. The list storage method varies, depending on the browser, its version, and the operating system on which it runs. Netscape-derived browsers store bookmarks in the single HTML-coded file ''bookmarks.html''. This approach permits publication and printing of a categorized and indented catalog, and works across platforms. Bookmark names need not be unique. Editing this file outside its native browser requires editing HTML.

Firefox 3 Mozilla Firefox 3.0 is a version of the Firefox web browser released on June 17, 2008, by the Mozilla Corporation. Firefox 3.0 uses version 1.9 of the Gecko layout engine for displaying web pages. This version fixes many bugs, improves standard ...

stores bookmarks, history, cookies, and preferences in a transactionally secure database format (

SQLite SQLite (, ) is a database engine written in the C programming language. It is not a standalone app; rather, it is a library that software developers embed in their apps. As such, it belongs to the family of embedded databases. It is the m ...

). Internet Explorer's "Favorites" (also "Internet Shortcuts") are stored as individual files named with the original link name, and the filename extension ".URL", for example "Home Page.URL" collected in a directory named "Favorites" which may have subdirectories. Bookmark names must be unique within a folder. Each file contains the original URL and Microsoft-specific

metadata Metadata is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive metadata – the descriptive ...

. Browsers have varying abilities to import and export bookmarks to favorites, and vice versa.

Bookmarklets

Bookmarklets are

programs stored as bookmarks. The term is a

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsapplet In computing, an applet is any small application that performs one specific task that runs within the scope of a dedicated widget engine or a larger program, often as a plug-in. The term is frequently used to refer to a Java applet, a program w ...

''. Bookmarklets are possible because the JavaScript

URI scheme A Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) is a unique sequence of characters that identifies a logical or physical resource used by web technologies. URIs may be used to identify anything, including real-world objects, such as people and places, conc ...

allows JavaScript programs to be stored as URIs, which can be stored in bookmarks. Bookmarklets have access to the current page, which they may inspect and change. As such, they can be simple "one-click" tools which add functionality to the browser. Bookmarklets are typically installed by navigating to a web page that links to a JavaScript URI, right-clicking the link, and clicking the bookmark option. Web developer Steve Kangas got the idea from the

Netscape Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was onc ...

JavaScript Guide, and coined the term ''bookmarklets'' in 1998.

Brendan Eich Brendan Eich (; born July 4, 1961) is an American computer programmer and technology executive. He created the JavaScript programming language and co-founded the Mozilla project, the Mozilla Foundation, and the Mozilla Corporation. He served as ...

, the inventor of JavaScript, explained bookmarklets as follows:

Live bookmarks

Live bookmarks are Internet bookmarks powered by

, particularly in

. They allow users to dynamically monitor changes to their favorite news sources. Instead of treating RSS-feeds as HTML pages like most

news aggregator In computing, a news aggregator, also termed a feed aggregator, feed reader, news reader, RSS reader or simply an aggregator, is client software or a web application that aggregates syndicated web content such as online newspapers, blogs, podc ...

s do, they are treated as bookmarks that are updated in real-time with a link to the appropriate source. Live bookmarks are updated automatically; however, no browser option exists to prevent or control the automatic live bookmark updates. Live bookmarks were available in Firefox from 2004 until December 2018; since then, Firefox no longer supports them.

References

External links

* {{web browsers, fsp Web browsers Internet terminology

Storage

Bookmarklets

Live bookmarks

See also

References

External links