Netvouz Buttons updated

The Firefox extension for Netvouz has been updated by its developer. It now supports Firefox 3.1 beta versions. You can also display your most recent bookmarks (Netvouz new view) or all your bookmarks (Netvouz all view).

If you want to use any of these two new options open Tools -> Add-ons in Firefox. Then click The Extensions tab on the top, highlight the Netvouz buttons row and click Options. Select your preferences in the dialog that pops up.



Thanks again to John Pedersen for all his work on the extension!

//Henrik

Netvouz adds Safe Browsing service - Surf safer with Netvouz

As part of our ongoing activity to improve link quality we have now added a safe browsing service which warns you if you are about to visit a potentially harmful web site by following a link on Netvouz. From now on all bookmarks on Netvouz are regularly checked to discover web sites that are either known for distributing viruses or other harmful code (malware), or are known phishing sites which may attempt to trick you into sharing personal information.

If you click a link on Netvouz which leads to a suspected site, instead of sending you directly to the site (which could be harmful for your computer) Netvouz takes you to an information page explaining the consequences of visiting the site. When you have understood the consequences you can continue to the suspected site if you want. So Netvouz does not block any web sites or prevent you from visiting them, but we do warn you when you are about to visit a potentially dangerous site by following a link on Netvouz.

Below is an example of what the warning page may look like (click it to enlarge).

The Netvouz safe browsing system currently relies on the Google Safe Browsing service to find suspected web sites, but we plan to also take advantage of other safe browsing services to further improve the precision.

The safe browsing system is active for all links displayed on the Netvouz web site (both public and private links) as well as all links delivered thru any kinds of feeds (RSS, JavaScript, or HTML feeds).

With our automatic link checker (which regularly scans your bookmarks and verifies that they are valid) and recent spam filter for our search engine we have already proven that we care about your links, and this new service further manifests our intentions to become the best place to store your bookmarks online. At least if you care about them.

Give it a try! Sign up and upload your bookmarks to Netvouz, and enjoy a smarter and safer way to surf the web.

//Henrik

P.S. Did you notice the new cool icons for the Netvouz buttons Firefox extension? They will be incorporated into the next update of the extension, soon to be released on Mozilla Add-ons web site.

More sorts. Less duplicates.

The observant Netvouz user may already have seen the new features we have added the past week, but for the rest of you here's a quick summary.

First there are some useful new sort options which let you view your bookmarks sorted by last visit date and by number of clicks. These let you see which bookmarks you have clicked recently as well as which you have clicked most. You find these sort options in the Netvouz Show menu as "Sort by visit date" and "Sort by visits". A click is registered only when you are logged on and only when you click your own bookmarks.

We have also added a check which notifies you when you bookmark a web site you already have. We then load and display your existing bookmark (if you have several copies we load the last modified) so you can update it instead of saving a new. If you really want to save another copy you can use the Netvouz File -> Add Bookmark menu option or just click the Copy link next to the bookmark.

In addition to this we have also added a P3P Privacy Policy which should make Netvouz work better in recent versions of Internet Explorer which, apparently, have a tighter control of cookies. A P3P policy states what information a web site collects about its users and how it uses this information. Rest assured, Netvouz only collects standard server logs and uses cookies only to determine if you are logged on or not and what your display preferences are, and we do not use this to contact you with any spam email or so, only to improve our web site. We hate spam just as much as you do!

Work continues - this week we will work further on improving link quality and also implement Safe Browsing!

//Henrik

Access your Hotpicks even faster!

Today as part of a maintenance release, I have added support for so called access keys (or accelerator keys) on Hotpicks. This means that you can now access the first nine Hotpicks displayed on any page using the keys 1-9 on your keyboard.

Depending on your browser you need to combine the numeric key with other key(s). The list below shows the combinations for some popular browsers:
Firefox: Press Shift-Alt-[Key#]
Internet Explorer: Press Alt-[Key#] and then Enter
Opera: Press Shift-Esc and then [Key#]
Safari (Mac): Press Ctrl-[Key#]

Where [Key#] is the key 1-9.

If more than 9 Hotpicks are displayed only the first 9 are accessible using access keys. To access the remaining you have to click the link with your mouse, as usual.

Access keys was added to better support our mobile visitors. Using a cell phone or PDA and Netvouz as the start page mobile users can now access their favorite web sites with just a single click or keypress (depending on the mobile device).

//Henrik

P.S. I am now working on some major improvements that I will roll out over the next coming weeks. I am really excited about these changes so I have a big smile on my face, 24h a day :-)

Netvouz wants some del.icio.us RawSugar

I read on TechCrunch that RawSugar is having difficulties and may shut down or sell. So after a conversation with the RawSugar team I decided to offer RawSugar members an alternative.

So now Netvouz imports bookmarks directly from a RawSugar account. Just enter your RawSugar username and password and we will retrieve your RawSugar bookmarks and import them to your Netvouz account. The import is done in real-time and your bookmarks will retain the same visibility settings as they have on RawSugar.

But we will not just import your bookmarks into a flat hierarchy as on del.icio.us and most other services. No, we will actually convert your RawSugar tag hierarchy into Netvouz folders and put the bookmarks in the most relevant folder! So this will mimic your whole RawSugar account in the Netvouz way. If you do want a flat structure you can of course choose not to create Netvouz folders. But I understand many RawSugar users are concerned about moving to other services and losing the power of folders.

Take a look at http://www.netvouz.com/RawSugarDemo for an example. This import was done from a RawSugar account and as you can see Netvouz has recreated the whole tag hierarchy as a folder structure. Isn't that beautiful!

So from Netvouz to all RawSugar users - Welcome to Netvouz!

Oh, I almost forgot. We can now also import straight from del.icio.us as well. Works the same way except your bookmarks are imported into a flat structure.

//Henrik