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Xmarks extension alpha for Chrome arrives

The widely used bookmark synchronization plug-in is available in alpha form to those selected to test it. Xmarks hopes to open testing to more people soon.

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2 min read

Some selected Chrome users who want to synchronize browser bookmarks with their other browsers now can get a start.

Xmarks, whose browser addition can keep bookmarks synced across Firefox, Internet Explorer, and the Mac OS X version of Safari, has released an alpha version of a Chrome extension to selected testers.

"We've been swamped with requests to create a version of Xmarks for the Google Chrome browser. We're hard at work on that and, thanks to some new APIs (application programming interfaces) from Google, are pleased to report that we have Xmarks synchronization working in the Windows developer channel for Chrome," Xmarks' Colin Bleckner said on the Xmarks blog Sunday. Xmarks formerly was called Foxmarks.

"We're doing this (closed test) so we can catch any serious issues we may have missed before letting thousands of users try it out. Hopefully we'll be able to ramp up our user count quickly," Bleckner said in a mailing list message.

The move comes just after Google released its own bookmark synchronization feature in the Windows version of Chrome, but it doesn't synchronize bookmarks with other browsers or even with the Google Bookmarks service.

Google is working hard on its extensions support in Chrome, but the feature remains a work in progress. Indeed, Aaron Boodman, a Chrome extensions developer, marveled that Xmarks produced even an alpha given the pace of change. "I'm shocked you could get anything at all done with us breaking everything every other release," he said in a mailing list message about Xmarks' announcement.

Another early extension for Chrome, one for Yahoo's Delicious bookmarks service, also is available.