Instapaper

Bookmarks get messy for me. I tend to find myself creating a list of things in a "later" folder of bookmarks and dumping in an enormous list of websites, cat pictures, YouTube videos, and everything I come across while browsing the internet. This just doesn't work well. For starters, you'll ignore every single link in that mishmash of silly putty (not to say that the links themselves are bad!). You just push it there into your read it later bin.

I've found that the system used in web browsers just doesn't cut it for me. And so, here I am using Instapaper instead.

This web service is simple. To quote, it's "a simple tool to save web pages for reading later." How it works is that you create an account ID (you don't need a password, but you can use one) and then you can just start adding links in to your reading queue using a bookmarklet or your phone. Your webpages (be it images, articles, videos) will be saved an a convenient link in your web account. For example, if I wanted to add this blog to the website, I could navigate to the link and just press a bookmark button from there. Voila.



It's easy to use, and what makes it better than an endless list of bookmarks is that Instapaper works like a true reading list. You can press the "text button" in order to get a text-only version of your page that excludes all images and gives you pure and readable print. The "archive" button allows you to hide that website from your main list and keep it in storage in case you ever wish to revisit it in the future. It's simple to use and absolutely works well. In fact, if you look at the website itself, there are very few images on the site itself to make it quick and snappy.

If you're fed up with constantly fixing your bookmarks and constantly ignoring them, try out Instapaper. You can also get it on your iOS devices and Kindles to read on the go.