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Share bookmark lists and save webpages offline, with Blinklist

August 3, 2012 By 4 Comments

Blinklist is a great free way to save webpages offline for later reading and to share them with others. You can save pages into lists and access them on your own unique webpage from any internet capable computer or device.

There are more ways to organize Internet bookmarks than there are fish in the sea, it seems, but Blinklist is one way that offers some different features than the standard bookmark bar on your browser.

While it can be somewhat confusing to shift to blinking instead of bookmarking, it can also be very rewarding, if you’re open to new ways of doing things.

Blinklist lets you save URLs in lists that you can share publicly or with other users or groups, allows you to tag your links, and will provide you with your very own Blinklist webpage that you can access from any computer or mobile device. You’ve seen all of this before, but what you will not frequently see is this: Blinklist will actually save your webpages offline on your computer, allowing you to always find and read the content you seek.

Blinklist Screenshot

But Blinklist has ways to go before it can take on other services such as Pocket and Springpad. In some ways it borrows from both, combining the offline saving feature of Pocket with the list sharing and tagging aspects of Springpad.  Blink’s distinct URL is a nice feature and, unlike the two other services mentioned, it seems to envision itself as a replacement to the bookmarking function rather than a ‘Read it Later’ service that is Pocket or the content-curating/management service that Springpad wants to be.

One major drawback, though, it the absence of mobile (iPhone/Android) apps. Yes you can simply use your mobile browser to view your Blinklist page, but this is not quite on par with the Pocket app, for example, which can download your pages for offline web reading only when your device is has access to WIFI (as an example). Still, a worthy contender that we hope will get even better.

Check out Blinklist.


 
 
 
B.C. Tietjens

B.C. Tietjens

Born and raised overseas in a military family, B.C. Tietjens visited and lived in many places all over the world. He has worked on a number of publications and enjoys writing for different audiences, on such diverse subjects as relationships, technology, prestidigitation, self-improvement, entertaining children, and biographical stories. He currently writes primarily for Freewaregenius and enjoys the heck out of it.
August 3, 2012
B.C. Tietjens
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  • Marco

    Thanks for sharing.
    It could be another interesting read-it-later solution if only it would work. Probably it requires Goggle Gears, if so I’m not really interested about installing more stuff just to have another read-it-later. Actually I’m happy with ZooTool, it uses just a bookmarklet (apparently the blinklist one doesn’t work), easy to use, visually better imho.

  • Rob

    B.C., I have to ask: Did you actually TRY this site?

    It sounded pretty good from your description, but when I tried, it, I found it to be a colossal waste of my time.

    I signed up with Chrome (which the site identified as SAFARI for some reason), and was advised that the offline saving feature apparently only works with Firefox and Google Gears. I clicked on the “Get Google Gears” link and was taken to the Google Code Blog Post announcing that Google Gears was discontinued…Dated MARCH of LAST YEAR!

    The site’s only support links go to a Twitter feed that has not been updated since May and a third-party support forum littered with spam posts on topics such as “Basement Waterproofing” and no apparent answers from the site’s support team for months. The forum has a section for “recent praise”, with the most recent “praise” comment from over a year ago!

    I thought the site might work for me with Firefox, which I rarely use, so I fired up my Firefox, logged in, tried to install the Firefox extension, and was told it was not compatible with Firefox 12. So I updated Firefox to version 14, tried again, and was told the extension was not compatible with Firefox 14 either. Obviously the extension has not been updated in a LONG time.

    Attempting to use the site only yielded error messages of “Opps. Action Failed. Please try again.” (the developer apparently can’t even spell the word “Oops”)

    Now, I suppose it could be just me. Maybe it’s something weird about my OS or browser settings, even though I tried it in 2 different browsers (3, if you count Firefox versions 12 and 14). When I logged into the site I did get a message about migrating links from an “old system” which could have been posted yesterday or a year ago. I also skipped the step of uploading my browser bookmarks, because I didn’t want to take the time or share my private data while I was still just trying things out, and maybe skipping that step rendered the site inoperable for me.

    But it really looks to me like this site has been abandoned, and has been gathering dust for some time.

    It’s too bad…as the previous commenter noted, it would have been a useful tool if it actually worked. I suppose I’ll give ZooTool a try, as the previous poster suggests. I really hope that in the future you will put more effort into ensuring that a product delivers on its promise before blogging about it. I read this blog to SAVE time exploring for freeware on the web, not to have it wasted.

    Other than that gripe, I really enjoy Freeware Genius, and reading your articles.

    • Samer

      @ Rob: to be honest, this review was written about 2 weeks prior to its publication. It may be the case that Blinklist has since become prone to errors, as I have also encountered strange 404 pages and errors while trying to retrieve my password. Hopefully these issues will be fixed going forward.

  • B.C. Tietjens

    Rob,

    The version I tested had none of these issues but I do see them occurring now. I can only suppose that they did, indeed, become a problem after launch. Apologies for that one. It’s a danger with software that’s net published, where reviews may not be 100% accurate due to current changes and incarnation of the present. Thankfully it doesn’t happen a majority of the time or our jobs here would be that much tougher! Thanks for reading and your enlightening comments, very much!

    ~B