
WorldBrain's Memex: Bookmarking for the power users of the web - lelf
https://getmemex.com/
======
fit2rule
This is still not as powerful as my one, simple trick to handle all bookmarks,
ever: Print to PDF.

I've been doing it since last century, and I have 10's of thousands of PDF's
of every single web page I've ever found interesting, sitting right there in a
directory on my computer. Its indexable, searchable, grok'able, available off-
line, allows me to harvest data without fuss, and gives me access to anything
I can remember about the article, almost instantaneously.

    
    
        $ ls -l ~/PDFArchive/ | grep -i "bookmark" | grep -i "manage" | wc -l 
    

= I've seen 20 other bookmark management 'solution' articles in 20 years

.. nothing beats print-to-PDF. Its just awesome.

~~~
ropeladder
It's too bad browsers don't have an easy way to print to browser-page-sized
PDF. Standard 8.5x11/A4 paper sized PDFs of webpages tend to look pretty
terrible.

I used to use the Scrapbook plugin for Firefox but I realized for the most
part just plaintext might be best. So I'm in the process of setting up a
workflow that will save article in markdown in one click and sync between my
phone and my computer.

~~~
jannes
You could try the awesome SingleFile extension: [https://github.com/gildas-
lormeau/SingleFile](https://github.com/gildas-lormeau/SingleFile)

It might be a good compromise between PDF and plain text. It's pretty nice
because it essentially serialises a snapshot of the current DOM tree, so it
works with all kinds of JS-generated pages.

The files should be relatively grep-able, because it's normal HTML. Of course,
you might want to strip HTML tags for more sophisticated searching.

~~~
ropeladder
SingleFile is a really great extension, but I wanted something a bit more
pared down that I could easily use on both mobile and desktop and sync between
them using Syncthing. So I'm trying to copy some of SingleFile's UI and graft
it on to Markdown-Clipper.[1] And also add the ability to save the images that
get picked up by Readability (which Markdown-Clipper uses).

[1] [https://github.com/enrico-kaack/markdown-
clipper](https://github.com/enrico-kaack/markdown-clipper)

~~~
gexla
Joplin already has this feature via browser extension. It has a mobile app,
but never tested it myself.

~~~
dyukqu
Thank you for this! I've just tested it on desktop and I think it's wonderful.

------
lrpublic
This is an interesting perhaps meta-relevant topic for HN.

How many of us bookmark or otherwise record interesting posts from here and
elsewhere?

How many of us ever refer that accumulated digital memory?

I have about 7,000 links with notes accumulated over the last few decades.

I’ve read a lot of them, but the hard to acknowledge reality is that even with
a refined workflow, recording my links in a near perfect taxonomy, to a
repository with full text search and spaced repetition reminder cards, the
things I remember are those that I took the time to read.

I suspect most people here has a comparable metric to share.

Maybe the best bookmark repository is nul:

~~~
ORioN63
I've been fighting my ~3000 (~70% untagged) bookmarks for a while.

Right now, I've gave up on silly tags like "Postgres" or "Python". Currently,
I'm trying to adapt the bookmark concept into different uses cases. The main
one is sessions, but I have a few others niche ones, like "read later" and "a
tool a day".

Honestly, my takeaway from managing my bookmarks, is that, snapshotting a
session, is the closest thing I have to a "hot" start. I instantly recognize
what I was working on and I remember why I opened/kept open those tabs.

~~~
ebertucc
I've had a similar experience.

I used to meticulously sort and tag individual bookmarks but rarely review
them. Storing sessions and other "playlists" of bookmarks puts them in a form
that I actually return to.

Plus this method takes far less time and effort than tagging and bagging pages
according to an ever-expanding set of custom taxonomies.

I'm sure others have been using bookmarks this way for a while but it felt
like a revelation to me :)

------
dig1
My tools of choice for advanced bookmarking and offline read:

* org-mode [1].

* org-board [2] for offline archiving.

* Org Capture [3] for getting links or text chunks from browser.

* git repo for tracking history.

With org-mode I can create really complex connections between articles and
citations, add tags, have TODO lists and many more. To visualize things and
connections, org-mind-map [4] can be useful. Because everything is text, grep,
ripgrep, ag, xapian and other similar tools works without problems.

I'm aware this setup isn't for everyone (you need to be Emacs user), but I
still need to find proper alternative with this amount of flexibility, keeping
everything in plain text format.

[1] [https://orgmode.org/](https://orgmode.org/)

[2] [https://github.com/scallywag/org-board](https://github.com/scallywag/org-
board)

[3] [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/org-
capture/kkkjlf...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/org-
capture/kkkjlfejijcjgjllecmnejhogpbcigdc)

[4] [https://github.com/the-humanities/org-mind-map](https://github.com/the-
humanities/org-mind-map)

~~~
rukuu001
In the last week I’ve gone from using org-mode grudgingly in conjunction with
a wiki, to just org-mode and realizing I’ll never be able to live without it
again.

------
iamben
About a month or so ago I moved to a new Mac. I had the option of porting over
all my bookmarks, starting fresh, or sorting them out. I took a lazy Sunday
and sorted through ~7000 bookmarks I'd accumulated in the 7 years I had the
previous Mac.

About 50% of the sites or pages were now offline. 45% were irrelevant to me,
either because I was no longer interested, they'd been superseded by something
better, or they were outdated code snippets or examples, etc. 3% I (finally)
read or skimmed, none of these changed my life. 2% were useful sites, mostly
collections of things (stock imagery, audio samples) I would struggle to find
in Google now or I don't manually type in frequently. I added keywords to the
titles (you can't tag in Chrome) and sorted them into folders.

I was also a tab monster. I'd have ~150 or open at all times (thanks Great
Suspender!) - usually things I wanted to read later or come back to.

I drew a line - tabs get 48 hours and then they're closed. Websites only get
bookmarked if they contain something likely to last and I'd struggle to find
if I Googled again. Both the tabs and the bookmarks created unnecessary mental
load. Every suspended tab and "read me later" bookmark became another weight
around my neck that screamed "still haven't got around to me, eh? Fail!" Now
I'm working to the "read it asap or act on it asap - or it's not something you
_really_ wanted." I guess a kind of Marie Kondo for my head, which is really
rather freeing.

Perhaps Memex is a good middle ground. A chance to drag up the past as and
when _my life_ is ready for it, without the future affecting the present. I'll
give it a go.

------
rollinDyno
Something I noticed when I use "Read Later" style applications to save pages
is that I will, most of the time, forget about how I arrived at a certain
page. This is important to me because it gives me the context to decide a
perspective on the page.

If I was able to save pages while also knowing where I found them and maybe
make a comment about why I found it interesting, then I would be able to
organize my knowledge in a way that mirrors my train of thought.

Are there any tools capable of doing this?

~~~
kirubakaran
[https://histre.com/](https://histre.com/) has tree-style web history, taking
notes on those web pages, and more. Disclaimer: I'm the founder.

It automatically creates a knowledge base for you. The paths you took to
arrive at a piece of information is just one part of the puzzle that it puts
together for you.

The main idea is that we throw away a lot of the signal we generate while
doing things online and this can be put to good use for ourselves.

Some related features that Histre has: \- Sharing collections of notes with
your teams \- Saving highlights \- Hacker News integration. The stories you
upvote are saved in a notebook, which can be shared with your friends, or even
made public.

I'm focusing on search. Most knowledge base apps have terrible search imho.

~~~
ramraj07
How are you planning to attack mobile use? More than half my browsing happens
on mobile now!

~~~
Groxx
Not sure if their plugin works for it or not, but: Firefox has had extensions
on Android for years. Should work fine.

------
abuiles
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned
[https://web.hypothes.is/](https://web.hypothes.is/) \--- it's a non-profit
trying to solve the same idea. They are actually trying to advance on the
ideas of the w3c annotation's working group and do everything open source.

~~~
yewenjie
It really frustrates me that its 2020 and they still don't have a real
extension for Firefox, the only thing preventing me from regularly using it.

~~~
BlackForestBoy
We are about to develop a bi-directional integration with Hypothes.is and
Memex together with the Hypothes.is team.

(Oli here from WorldBrain.io)

~~~
yewenjie
That would be really nice.

------
valbaca
I've been using Pocket for free since 2011: getpocket.com It's not great or
perfect but it's good enough for "to read later" and keeping a running
"grimoire"

I've tried other methods: chrome bookmarks, evernote, plain-text, etc but
nothing provides:

1\. Ubiquity with just one login

With Pocket, everywhere I browse I can add to pocket, including at work. I
don't want to ever use my Google login at work b/c I don't want my work Chrome
bookmarks (which are basically work-internal websites) to conflict with my
personal ones.

Pocket is available on my phone, iPad, browser, and work browser quickly and
easily.

2\. Has tags.

I stick with about one tag per item. I don't need it to be fully tagged out,
but just a general one. Typically by programming language or topic.

One special tag is "someday" which is how I get very long items (like online
books) out of my short "To Read" queue.

3\. exports

I haven't needed it but it's nice to know that I can easily export my
bookmarks, with tags, to html. From there I can convert to something else if I
want.

I've tried GTD and other "universal" systems and my current system is a bit of
a mess (mostly because of the work-life dichotomy), but at least my "save to
read later" flow is simple:

1\. Go to hacker news 2\. send to pocket 3\. when I've got time, scroll
through my to-read and pick one that packs into the amount of time I have

It does one thing and does it well enough for me.

~~~
fao_
> Has tags.

You could build this into the command script that's currently the top post, I
wrote a program for universal file-system supported tags:
[https://finnoleary.net/koios-tutorial.html](https://finnoleary.net/koios-
tutorial.html)

------
dr_dshiv
Wow, I have been looking for just this tool. First, the ability to highlight
and save interesting passages on the web. Second, something to give me value
from my own browsing history. Third, an honest, open, paid service that
aspires to the vision of the original Memex. I really hope this succeeds.

------
nikisweeting
There are a ton of tools that do similar things, check out:

[https://github.com/pirate/ArchiveBox/wiki/Web-Archiving-
Comm...](https://github.com/pirate/ArchiveBox/wiki/Web-Archiving-
Community#Web-Archiving-Projects)

------
avolcano
The site is weirdly ambiguous about this but: I am assuming by "offline-first"
they mean that the "full-text history capture" never leaves my device, right?
Or does it get synced optionally? Or only synced to other devices I have?

It's baffling to me that they put "privacy-centric" front and center and then
do not in any way explain what that actually means.

~~~
karlicoss
Yep, the sync is optional (and the only thing they take money for, which makes
sense)

------
yewenjie
I have been using Memex for more than a year now. Here are the things that
really annoy me

\- occasional freezing and sudden disappearance of your bookmarks

\- no real way to programmatically access your Memex database. I know they
have released the storage backend, but the lack of helpful documentation is a
deal-breaker.

\- lack of collaborative annotation (the way Hypothesis does)

\- only few results in search results!

~~~
aaadult
the data is just in the folder u select when u choose local hard drive as
backup location. and the format is quite friendly for programmatically
accessing.

------
fudged71
I'm excited for this resurgence of archiving, searching, highlighting,
bookmarking, note-taking, etc

~~~
donmcronald
I want a self-hosted version of something like this. I currently use
historio.us, which is one of the only services I pay for, but I'd much rather
have a good self hosted option. I've been looking for years.

~~~
rakoo
Maybe Archivebox ([https://archivebox.io/](https://archivebox.io/)) can suit
your needs ? Archiving is what it does, but there's nothing built-in for
searching

~~~
nikisweeting
The ArchiveBox wiki also has a list of many similar projects even if you don't
even up using ArchiveBox itself:

[https://github.com/pirate/ArchiveBox/wiki/Web-Archiving-
Comm...](https://github.com/pirate/ArchiveBox/wiki/Web-Archiving-
Community#Web-Archiving-Projects)

~~~
donmcronald
I read through all of those a few days ago actually. It's a really awesome
list. Thanks for publishing it.

ArchiveBox 0.4 will probably be the first thing that has a chance of replacing
my existing solution.

------
methou
I remember using this software last time, it is wayyyy~ too buggy, it stalls,
crashes, and slows down the browser. Also that import feature is actually
crawling the site, beware if you are using a proxy or something with rate
limit.

~~~
Semaphor
Is it still buggy? I had a similar experience, but it looks and feels a lot
smoother and faster now.

~~~
BlackForestBoy
It's way better now but still some way to go!

Kind of a bummer that this trended one week too early - next week we'll
publish a big release with performance, UX and stability improvements.

~~~
Semaphor
Been running it in the background since this thread came up. Everything is
stable and fast so far. I’ll see what happens after I import my history
tonight ;)

But that is great to know, I’ll hold out for that update then, even if I have
some problems. And I’m happy to see you finished premium, that didn’t exist
the last time.

------
rob-olmos
Not sure if Memex has this, but one feature I like with Toby is that I can a
save window as a "session" and it makes a "collection" of all the tabs. Works
well since I do window-per-topic that I'll come back to later.

I believe Toby lacks text search for the page's contents, so it's mainly just
easier/better organization for bookmarks, and would be nice if the data wasn't
only tied to their cloud, or if I could make an easy backup.

~~~
kirubakaran
What do you think of this? : [https://histre.com/blog/save-restore-
tabs/](https://histre.com/blog/save-restore-tabs/) [1]

You can save all the tabs into a Histre notebook.

The advantages are:

1\. It's a web app, so a window of tabs can be saved in Chrome and restored in
Firefox, for example.

2\. Searchable

3\. Can be shared with your teams

[1] Disclaimer: I'm the founder

~~~
mathfailure
It's a service, so it gets 'no' just for that reason.

------
pedalpete
What do you guys think of their pricing? It appears more of a "here are some
features you probably don't need, but if you want to give us a few bucks..."

Curious if anyone has had success with this type of pricing model. We've tried
it on my current app, and get a few bucks a day, but it doesn't compare to our
B2B business.

Thinking of something similar in a new app we're building.

------
ohlookabird
I really like my self-hosted Wallabag for this. There are browser extensions
for Firefox and Chromium (and possibly other) and works well on my Android
phone and online. It's a nice layout and most websites work well with it. I
use it both for bookmarking and as read-it-later tool. Kudos to the devs!

------
tsp
I have been using Pocket [0], Instapaper [1] and Pinboard [2] over the years.

I am currently using Pocket and Pinboard in parallel: articles / websites that
I want to read later are sent to Pocket (untagged), websites that I might want
to get to back later are tagged and sent to Pinboard.

While my archive on Pinboard works quite well I am very disappointed by the
support. Either the developer does not answer at all or months later. Not
acceptable for a paid service.

While Memex looks interesting having no API makes it a pass for me (for now).

[0] [https://getpocket.com/](https://getpocket.com/) [1]
[https://www.instapaper.com/](https://www.instapaper.com/) [2]
[https://pinboard.in/](https://pinboard.in/)

~~~
BlackForestBoy
Oli here from WorldBrain.io

A bit of a timing issue here :) We are about to have a big release with lots
of improvements, including an API, performance, UX and bug fixes.

Our API will be served via Storex [https://medium.com/@WorldBrain/storexhub-
an-offline-first-op...](https://medium.com/@WorldBrain/storexhub-an-offline-
first-open-source-zapier-f8841810fd9c)

~~~
reanimated
It would be great if we could change color of the highlights. On some pages,
especially with dark modes, green doesn't work.

------
carapace
I tried this for a couple of months but the search results were disappointing.

I think something like "Stealth" (
[https://github.com/cookiengineer/stealth](https://github.com/cookiengineer/stealth)
) will prove to be a better strategy.

~~~
StavrosK
Hmm, how could the results have been disappointing? It just searches for text,
how bad can it be?

~~~
carapace
I would search for terms that I _knew_ were on pages that should be indexed
but they wouldn't be in the results list.

~~~
StavrosK
I installed it yesterday and noticed that it doesn't actually index much. It
should be, but it's not, the pages aren't added. If they are in the index, it
finds them in a search, but very few pages are.

~~~
BlackForestBoy
Oli here from Memex.

It may be that you have not touched the indexing preferences (which only index
pages that are visited for more than 5 seconds)

Is that the reason, or does it still not work?

~~~
StavrosK
No, I changed everything (set it to 20 seconds), it still doesn't work. I stay
on pages (here, for example) for minutes, and they don't get indexed. I have
disabled the bar and hotkeys, if it matters.

------
cparsons3000
I've literally used over 10 bookmark managers in the last 10 years and
Bookmark OS ([https://bookmarkos.com](https://bookmarkos.com)) is the only one
that I've stuck with

~~~
egberts1
Yes, HTML-only bookmark manager like BookmarkOS is very good especially if you
used a disparate amount of platforms like Windows desktop PC, Linux laptop,
and iOS Mobile.

------
kasperset
This somewhat reminds me of HistoryHound. Unfortunately, it is MacOS only.

[https://www.stclairsoft.com/HistoryHound/](https://www.stclairsoft.com/HistoryHound/)

------
kstrauser
My first impression was "oh, another Pinboard competitor" (which historically
don't fare well). What's the elevator pitch for why I should use Memex instead
of that?

~~~
anotheryou
Full-text search across everything you have ever seen (not just bookmarked).

~~~
kstrauser
Ah, thanks! That's a good summary.

~~~
karlicoss
also, highlighting/annotations

------
sneak
When did it become acceptable to embed networked surveillance like Sentry into
cryptographic tools? To me, that entirely defeats the purpose of end to end
encryption.

Whether the key is generated on the server and provided to you, or generated
on the client and potentially uploaded to the server due to embedded defect
surveillance: that's simply not end to end encryption.

------
greenice
Does WorldBrain Memex save any data about the sites I bookmark?

I‘ve been using Onenote for the past 10 years to bookmark or save websites.

It had worked OK to share from mobile but my Onenote notebook is now
approaching 10 GB in size.

And I have a pretty bad experience with syncing as it doesn‘t reliably sync in
the background if I don‘t regularly open the app on mobile (especially on
iOS).

------
wakkaflokka
I keep wanting to use this because I love the idea, but the implementation
last time I tried didn't seem to jive with me. I navigate the web with
Tridactyl, and I think some of the keybindings were interfering - which would
be my fault.

With that being said - I love the idea, and will continue to check every so
often on the status of the project :)

~~~
anotheryou
I also disabled all keybindings and overlays and it can still be useful for
search.

------
dangoljames
This extension (Memex) flies wide of the mark. I won't elaborate beyond saying
that as a tool it suffers technically from the constraints imposed by the
operational context of browser extensions and as a business enterprise it's
focus on revenue generation cripples it as an effective tool in the technical
sense. Additionally, it lacks much of the functionality one anticipates in the
most simple of tools of any abstraction, such as the ability to directly and
conveniently edit previously committed atomic text.

Also you guys' successful use of pdfs for offline preservation is intriguing
and I find it interesting that it satisfies your needs, but I think it only
half a solution. I need something that can periodically and passively digest
my annotated bookmarks semantically, producing a pool of 'hot terms', deep
search the web for them in the background, and bring to my attention things
that meet a configurable 'level of interest'. Additionally I'd want such a
system to be a core part of a personal research management tool that would
integrate any content I might drop on it in the deliberate, overt sense as
well.

------
egberts1
Awful lot of different overhead for a server. What I am still waiting for is a
nice single command (or Docker) to host this privately without the use of a
3rd-party go-between (even if it is E2E-secured.

Closest thing I’ve found is Mozilla Sync but none of their mobile app are
configurable to use your own server ... yet.

------
nishparadox
I had used this for some time in the past (on and off), periodically. One
caveat I found was it was taking a huge toll on my browser (often, I felt the
lags). Not sure if that's the problem now or not.

Eventually, I ended up not using it and started using other tools (specific
tools for specific tasks).

~~~
BlackForestBoy
Kind of a bummer that this trended one week too early - next week we'll
publish a big release with performance, UX and stability improvements.

Especially we focused on indexing and page load performance.

------
haaaris
I'm currently building a similar tool, but for groups and teams. Would
appreciate any feedback if anyone's keen on checking it out :)
[https://www.inverse.network/](https://www.inverse.network/)

------
jgreg
PSA: One of my favorite firefox features, you can type an asterisk (*) in the
address bar and continue typing to quickly search your firefox bookmarks.

Granted, it might not scale to a huge number of bookmarks as well as some
other methods mentioned here.

------
NikolaeVarius
I guess this possibly competes with pocket/wallaby/similar?

I see mozilla as a contributor.

------
Yizahi
Me: Sees "Pricing" page in the contents. Middle click it to open in new tab to
check what they want. Sees homepage again.

Apparently bookmark extension site is above making proper links which can be
bookmarked.

------
nikolay
I was one of the first backers who paid for their lifetime subscription.
Except it was nowhere to be found and my account was essentially "free". Nice
way to treat your early adopters, guys!

~~~
BlackForestBoy
Oli here from WorldBrain.io

I am confused. We never offered lifetime subscriptions. However what we did is
give people who supported us between 4 and 5 times the supporter amount in
credits they can use to upgrade. We sent an email around to everyone at the
end of last year.

(You're the only "Nikolay" in our customer DB, so I gave it a check and you
have tons of credits still left)

The reason it was "free" for you at checkout is because the credits were
applied.

Hope that clarifies things.

------
loughnane
Is a good way to think about this as Memex = Evernote + Genius + Privacy?

------
qwerty456127
For G-d's sake, please remove the confirmation request popping up every time I
click to remove an entry. It drives me mad!

Also please add full (not change-set) export.

------
jkmcf
A feature I miss from an old, discarded read later service was browser search
bar integration.

It was very convenient searching from one place across multiple locations.

------
vorpalhex
Well done. Compelling free tier, reasonable paid upgrades that add features
instead of removing limits and an actually really exciting product.

------
jalopy
Does it capture the web content I view? Or just index it to retrieve the web
at it's original URL later?

~~~
anotheryou
For full text search it has to save the text obviously, but right now you
sadly can't retrieve it.

It's on top of the roadmap though :) [https://www.notion.so/Release-Notes-
Roadmap-262a367f7a2a48ff...](https://www.notion.so/Release-Notes-
Roadmap-262a367f7a2a48ff8115d2c71f700c14)

------
symplee
Looks great. Would be awesome if it had a hook to easily generate Anki
flashcards from text selection.

------
Mennabah
Is it coming to Safari anytime soon? Although I don't think it's mentioned in
your roadmap

------
Yizahi
Why does it need a metric ton of permissions? To everything - data, history,
notifications etc.

------
joyceschan
The website is suspended by their host

------
fastball
What is WorldBrain?

~~~
severine
More details:

[https://community.worldbrain.io/t/data-sovereignty-and-
priva...](https://community.worldbrain.io/t/data-sovereignty-and-privacy-more-
of-it-please/268/12)

[https://medium.com/bettersharing/steward-ownership-is-
capita...](https://medium.com/bettersharing/steward-ownership-is-
capitalism-2-0-76a1c50a6d88)

edit: _corrected 1st link_

------
ollo
Why should I use this instead of Zotero?

~~~
egberts1
Because Zotero has no native App for iOS or Android.

