Bookit - 3.7.5

it doesn't work with Firefox 3. this developer has trashed his reputation after taking everyone's money and disappearing when the software broke. take note of the name and never buy anything from this crook ever again.

My advice: stay away. I've never loved this application due to its illogical and ugly UI. But it did what I wanted it to do - get my Firefox and Safari bookmarks the same, and keep them organized the way I liked. So I was happy to use it.

But the developer's slow response to update the app to work with Firefox 3 and their subsequent condescending blog post on the topic shows you DON'T get what you pay for. Here's what I'm talking about:

From the developer's blog, Sunday, July 20, 2008: "As many of you already know, Bookit does not currently support Firefox 3. Of course we want Firefox 3 support in your hands as soon as possible, trust us, we do. Unfortunately Firefox 3's release landed at an inopportune time. You see, We are currently knee deep on Bookit 4 (which supports Firefox 3) and aren't quite done with it....Now, all we ask from you is a little patience while we wrap it up. You see, We do this little operation in our free time after our regular 9 to 5 so development isn't as fast as everyone (including us) would like...For the next couple months, your Firefox 3 bookmarks won't be in sync, but listen - it will be OK - trust me. So instead of shooting off an email telling us how much we suck because we don't support Firefox 3 yet - which wastes our time and yours - how about you take a big deep breath and do something enjoyable with your time. Luckily, it's summer and there are a lot of great things to do outside while you wait for Bookit 4."

I would be much more patient if I hadn't had to pay for this application. If they're going to charge for it, they should be ready to support the basic functions. That's basic customer service and their blog post is insulting to their paying customers. If this is some spare time lark that I have to wait for them to get around to then they shouldn't present themselves as a legitimate software company ("everyday software") and they really shouldn't charge for it. Most developers I know who do work in their spare time at least have the decency to make it freeware or open source (if it was open we would have had an update by now!).

The developers don't seem to realize (or don't care) that we don't want to wait for the wished-for features and cool new stuff.. we want it do what we paid for it to do. Considering Firefox and Safari dominate the Mac platform then it should be an immediate priority to make sure those two browsers sync, as I am positive that is the primary function the vast majority of purchasers bought the software for.

I guess according the them this post is a waste of time, but the time it took me to write this is a lot less than the amount of time I've been without the functionality I paid for. And if I was a new user looking at this app I would want someone to warn me about this - especially since the description here doesn't make it obvious that it does not work with the current Firefox.

So I recommend new users stay away - unless you like to pay for software that may not do what you bought it for.

BTW - if they had made a fix for this version I'd gladly PAY for 4.0 because I would have been happy with 3.7.5. Especially if they were to improve the horrible & illogical UI. The only way I'll stick with it is if I just can't find a replacement (unfortunately, they are hard to find).

I complained to the developer about the lack of support for FF3 by saying that it was "a bit lame" not to have that support at this point. The response:

"Frankly put, if you don't like it, use something else."

This was followed by a series of email exchanges where the devs told me how much they were "offended" by my complaint.

LOL....it appears this is a company run by teenagers or those with a teenage mentality.

The reason why this broke in Firefox 3 is that FF3 moved away for using a bookmark,html file in the user's identity folder as a repository for bookmarks. It is now using sqllite I believe and the bookmark file is called places.sqlite.

However I think I found that you can open the Bookmark organizer (Bookmark Menu-Organize bookmarks) then after clicking on All Bookmarks in the Left column, click the star in the toolbar and export html. put the file in the top of your default user's folder (usually ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/somecrazynumber.default). Then Bookit will sync this file to Safari and back. Then back in Firefox's Bookmark Organizer do an Import HTML, and find this file again.

Seems to work in simple circumstances. I haven't tested it thoroughly yet so be warned. Always Backup!

v3.7.5 will not sync from Safari to Firefox 3. i tried many systems and machines and it will not work