March 29, 2011
Syncing Bookmarks And Favorites With Internet Explorer 9
Previously:
Battle Of The Browser Updates
Comparing The New Internet Browsers, aka Microsoft And The LastPass Problem
Syncing Bookmarks And Favorites With Firefox 4 And Chrome 10
![ie9logo_thumb[19]](http://www.brucebnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/ie9logo_thumb19.jpg "ie9logo_thumb[19]")
Microsoft is bringing up the rear for a reason.
Since it’s not obvious how to do it, let’s type “IE9 sync favorites” into Google. The first choice takes us – well, it takes us to an obsolete third-party site. But the second choice! Ah, that must lead right to the official Microsoft answer: “Sync your favorites using Windows Live Toolbar.” Perfect!
![ie9syncgooglesearch_thumb[4]](http://www.brucebnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/ie9syncgooglesearch_thumb4.jpg "ie9syncgooglesearch_thumb[4]")
We don’t want a toolbar but the page promises that favorites will be synced and stored in our Skydrive account for online access, and that’s good, right? So bravely click the link on that page to “Install Windows Live Toolbar”!
Hmm. That link goes to the Windows Live Essentials 2011 page, and there’s no mention there of a “Windows Live Toolbar.”
There’s a “Bing Bar.” Maybe that’s it – after all, the “Bing Bar” is the new version of the annoying Windows Live Toolbar. And yet over on the Bing Bar page, there’s no mention of syncing favorites. The Bing Bar looks completely useless, instead of almost completely useless like its predecessor.
Let me end the suspense. There is no method from Microsoft built into Internet Explorer 9 to sync Internet favorites among computers. It was removed from the add-on toolbar a few months ago and moved over to Live Mesh, the crippled program that deserves to be ignored. (Before its most recent name change, when it was still called “Windows Live Sync,” it inspired one of my most heartfelt rants. The failure of Live Mesh represents everything you need to know about Microsoft’s lack of vision and inability to lead us into the world of cloud computing.)
You’ll recall the other things synced by Firefox and Chrome in addition to bookmarks. They sync a variety of things related to web browsing – browser preferences, history, tab groups, saved passwords, and the like.
Live Mesh will sync Internet favorites “and if you have Microsoft Office installed, you can sync your styles, templates, custom dictionary, and email signatures.” That’s it. Syncing an Office custom dictionary is helpful to some people, I’m sure, but it’s not exactly a grabber on the feature list.
I’m not going to detail the process of setting up Live Mesh. It makes me irritable. I uninstall Live Mesh when I find it and send people to Dropbox instead. Dropbox doesn’t sync favorites but it is otherwise better than Live Mesh in every conceivable way.
Technical note: I feel like I should mention this, since I do it. It’s possible to make Dropbox sync your IE Favorites. It’s really geeky. It requires installation of the Dropbox Folder Sync add-on, which moves folders into Dropbox and replaces them in their original locations with symbolic links. It looks easy but in reality it’s powerful and things break if you get too happy with it. If the words “symbolic links” frighten you, don’t go there.
Tomorrow: Syncing Bookmarks And Favorites With Xmarks
12 Responses to “Syncing Bookmarks And Favorites With Internet Explorer 9”
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July 2nd, 2011 at 4:15 pm
I figured that some time ago: I have a friend who is a Microsoft lover and almost religiously evades an answer is the answer is NO. So after I didn’t hear in about an hour I knew IE9 can not sync favorites! Go Microsoft!
July 21st, 2011 at 9:28 am
[...] you read on how to use an add blocking add-on such as Simple-Adblock with Internet Explorer. Now if only IE9 could sync bookmarks [...]
September 17th, 2011 at 7:17 am
Well now that Mozilla has completely and utterly ruined Firefox woth version 6, what choice is there but to use IE. Chrome is not up to snuff with its security encryption for many sites.
Way to go Mozilla!!!
September 18th, 2011 at 7:45 am
I haven’t gotten any feedback about Firefox 6. In fact, Firefox seems to have lost its luster – IE9 is pretty sturdy and I run into Chrome frequently but I seldom run into anyone enthusiastic about Firefox. My clients aren’t typical – they skew older and more conservative. It’s been pretty noticeable in that group.
September 22nd, 2011 at 11:26 pm
Hi, but u can copy & keep the favorite folder in windows.
September 25th, 2011 at 9:52 am
I don’t think your comparing the right things (easy to do in the mess of MS cloud stuffs), I beleive Live Mesh is now targeted at stictly Windows Settings Syncronization. Where Sky Drive would be the proper comparison for Dropbox. Sky Drive clients are not available for as many platforms as Dropbox, but it does give you more free space.
September 25th, 2011 at 10:08 am
Not quite true. Live Mesh has been so poorly designed and promoted that it’s not even clear how to use it. It absolutely can be used to sync folders between computers – that’s meant to be its primary purpose. It’s not fully integrated with other Skydrive services but Live Mesh can be set to use online storage space (“Skydrive”) as an intermediary, so both computers don’t have to be on at the same time. http://explore.live.com/windows-live-mesh
At the demonstrations last week of Windows 8, Microsoft hinted that it had big plans for Live Mesh to let it sync files among computers and other devices, like Windows Phones and Windows tablets. But they gave no details and seemed to evade answering questions about whether Live Mesh would ever be as useful as Dropbox.
November 20th, 2011 at 7:30 pm
Live Mesh works well for syncing folders across computers using SkyDrive.
I really like the ability to map SkyDrive to my Win7 as a network drive. That is useful! Complain all you want but having cloud storage (25GB) free directly connected (visible to all my apps) is great.
I found how to do it here…
http://www.howtogeek.com/56096/how-to-use-skydrives-25-gb-as-a-mapped-drive-for-easy-access/
November 20th, 2011 at 9:03 pm
Although technically that’s true, my experience when I tried it matched the reports of many of the people who left comments on that page: it was slow as molasses, unituitive to set up, and frustrating to have to set up a new shortcut for each folder rather than having root access. The Skydrive team has either been muzzled or shows a distinct lack of creativity – or perhaps Microsoft is terrified of what would be unleashed if they made it convenient to use its servers for online storage. It’s so easy to imagine how Skydrive could be fully integrated that the failure to do it has to reflect some top-level decision.
Interesting article last month on LiveSide.net, a site devoted to covering MS Live services: “What is Skydrive waiting for?” Excerpt: “SkyDrive is Microsoft’s big chance, and maybe last chance, to capture some hearts and minds in the consumer space. Coupled with Windows Live Mesh (which we’ve heard little about either, except for some lame trickery about syncing your desktop backgrounds in Windows 8. Who needs that? What we need is seamless files synchronization across devices and across platforms), SkyDrive has all the pieces in place to blow the doors off the competition, yet Microsoft drives their consumer offerings with one foot firmly on the brake.”
Sad, but true.
December 13th, 2011 at 7:34 am
Well what a disaster !You guys have gone from Bookmarks and Favorites to lynching Bill Gates and waffling on about everything but a solution.
Just instal xMarks and sync between any browser. I use it from Ie9 to Chrome to Firefox on my Linux Installation…and I believe IE9 is a better browser than Chrome, I have them all and IE9 is just great these days. You should just remove all the Bing stuff and add Google accelerators and Translator and Search and you have the best goddam browsing experience you can get…All thanks to Google and Bill…:-)
Happy Xmas all
December 14th, 2011 at 12:14 pm
You’re absolutely right! The next article in that series was about Xmarks. After I wrote that, I began using it and now I can’t imagine not having it running all the time.
February 13th, 2012 at 10:27 pm
It took me about 10 minutes (including download/instal time) to setup Windows Live Mesh (I didn’t download all the other stuff that comes in the package) to sync my favorites between two computers. And it seems to work just fine.