Last year Google rolled out a new bookmark manager for its Chrome web browser. It was pretty. It automatically organized your bookmarks into categories. And it was designed with sharing in mind.

It was also unpopular with power users… so Google has announced that it’s reverting to the older version of the Chrome bookmark manager.

bookmarks_02

Chrome’s older bookmark manager may not be pretty, but it puts you in control of the management of your bookmarks. You can create your own folders, drag and drop bookmarks to change their position, and use the search box if you’ve got too many bookmarks to quickly browse for the one you’re looking for.

Prefer the newer manager? You can continue to use it by installing Google’s Bookmark Manager extension from the Chrome web store. But by default, the new version is out, and the old one is back… at least for now.

bookmark manager

Google says it remains “committed to improving Chrome’s bookmarks experience,” but the company has decided to bring back the older version in response to user feedback. In other words, we could see another new bookmarking system in the future.

Personally, I’m not sure I care all that much… Years ago, I made a point of keeping my Firefox bookmarks clean and organized. But to be honest, I kind of forget from time to time that Chrome even has a bookmark manager. I almost never visit chrome://bookmarks to view it. Instead I just start typing the first few characters of a website and Chrome will usually suggest the rest of the URL for sites I’ve frequently visited in the past, whether I’ve manually bookmarked them or not.

What about you: do you still use bookmarks the way you used to?

via OMG Chrome

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7 replies on “Google Chrome’s old bookmark manager is back”

  1. Waiting for that d*mned box to open just to add or delete any bookmark was frustrating, to say the least. The unneeded giant image while displaying only three files to choose from at a time was ridiculous. An inexcusable push of surface over substance and usability.
    Do not, I repeat, do not make any more “updates” to bookmarks. Just give users another extension like that Inbox thing for Gmail users.

  2. Yes, just as I enjoy browsing my installed programs I enjoy browsing my bookmarks. Using search certainly works, but nothing replaces the ability to browse.

  3. I’ve been running beta CrOS since July of last year, and I don’t recall the bookmark manager being any different than the old style. I use it about once a week. I actually wish my bookmarks would be automatically sorted in some way, having over 4000 in a mess of folders. I end up just using the search function to find what I’m looking for.

  4. Hurrah! You mean they actually listen to their users once in a while? This might be unprecedented

    1. I stop caring about Google’s changes some time ago. When they can and will eliminate features and ruin the interfaces without giving a ***** so will I. The gone Groups search, the gmail overhaul, Chrome interface changing every version… I just move to other software/services where I can.

  5. Happy to see this change. I found the “new” bookmark manager extremely cumbersome to use. A valuable lesson for UI developers. Just because something is prettier doesn’t mean it’s better.

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