Useful Bookmarklets For Casual Web Users

This is a guest post by Sumesh.

Bookmarklets are bookmarks whose URLs contain small bits of JavaScript code, that can accomplish specific tasks. These range from the crazy and wacky to useful and time-saving bookmarklets. Since we’re using bookmarklets to save time, we shall leave the crazy and wacky ones for another post.

To save these bookmarks, just right click on the link to the bookmark and save it into your bookmark folder.

Once saved, simply go to that bookmark for the required action. You can see my collection of bookmarklets on the right. I have organized it into a folder placed in the toolbar, so that any bookmarklet can be accessed with 2 clicks. Onto the favelets then.

• Add to Mixx :

  Mixx is a Digg-like social media website growing in its popularity. Mixx has almost no spammy stories and less Apple/Linux bias, so I recommend it if you are getting tired of Digg’s bias. This bookmarklet submits the page(that you are viewing) to Mixx in a new tab.

• BugMeNot :

  BugMeNot.com popularized the concept of sharing user logins. Websites invariably require registrations for various purposes, which creates unnecessary hassle. To save time, you can simply search for the website at BugMeNot.com and use any of the logins that others have created for all to use. To save even more time, you can use this bookmarklet to skip the searching step.

• Lookup on Archive.org

  Archive.org indexes millions of web pages, and stores various versions of them. By searching for a website in Archive.org, you can pull up various versions of the page from history. Interesting tool to see how your favorite blogs and websites transformed through the years.

• Rewrite links to Google Cache

  Replaces links on a page with links to Google cache pages. Googlebot crawls pages submitted to Digg very quickly(thereby increasing chances of caching). I haven’t tested it yet extensively, but it might be useful to access dugg pages that go offline during heavy traffic.

• Shorten URLs with is.gd

  is.gd is my favorite URL shortener because of the size of domain (only 4 letters!). This bookmarklet creates shortened is.gd URL of the current page, with one click. 

• Shorten with TinyURL

  If you are a TinyURL loyalist, you can use this bookmarklet that shortens the URL of the current page with one click. However, I would still recommend sticking to is.gd because, with widespread use, TinyURL isn’t so tiny anymore.

• Subscribe in Google Reader

  Google Reader is the most popular feed reader. When you want to subscribe to RSS feed on a page, can click the bookmarklet. You will also have to confirm the subscription from within Google Reader.

Of course, there are tons of other bookmarklets provided by the websites themselves (is.gd and TinyURL provide bookmarklets), and there are so many creative ways in which you can use them. Heck, you can even make bookmarklets for those websites that already don’t have one. Share your favorite bookmarklets in comments – we would all do well with some more creative bookmarklets.

(By) Sumesh, a technology enthusiast who writes software and web application reviews and tips at TechZilo ( subscribe to feed ), and blogging, SEO and WordPress tips at BlogCreativity ( subscribe to feed ).