When you like the website you have visited and would like to be able to return quickly, you can save the website in a bookmark manager on your browser. These bookmark managers make your internet experience much faster and more streamlined.

Bookmark managers go by different names in different browsers. If you use Internet Explorer, your bookmarks manager is called your “favorites” folder, a term that has been interchangeable with the “bookmarks” folder since the browser wars began in the mid 1990s.

The first time bookmark managers came into being was when the Mosiac browser used a feature called “Hotlists” in 1993. In the subsequent decades, online bookmark managers have become far more streamlined and have more advanced features.

Bookmarklets are JavaScript programs stored within the browser as bookmarks. Users can easily find the program within their browser and run it by clicking on its bookmark. By doing this, they expand the range of functions that the browser is capable of performing. Bookmarklets perform a range of tasks. Among other things, they can change things like font size or color within the browser, send the site’s URL to a social bookmarking site or Google search, or translate the page into another language.

Live bookmarks are bookmarks that are updated in real time by RSS feed.

Social bookmarking began as a way for users to save and share their favorite links. Delicious, which was founded in 2003, popularized terms like “tagging,” which have now become popular. Tagging bookmarks allows users to easily browse their bookmarked sites by category. Today, sites like Reddit and Digg are popular ways for users to share content amongst themselves. Sometimes social bookmarking is even used to supplement web searches.

The best bookmark manager for you will vary based on your personal preference, your browser, and your operating system. Different bookmark managers serve different functions. Some organize your bookmarks, some import or export to other managers, and some share links online.

When sifting through the many websites we visit every day, bookmark managers are an invaluable tool to help us organize our favorites so that we can revisit them easily. They also help us share content with our friends, family, and colleagues!