Lots of people now have multiple computers, at home and at work, and many use more than one Web browser. That makes it hard to keep bookmarks straight. If, for instance, you bookmark a Web site as a 'Favorite' on your PC at work using Microsoft's Internet Explorer, it doesn't automatically show up as a bookmark in Apple's Safari browser on your Macintosh at home.

    But I've been testing a new, free program, available now, that aims to solve this problem. It synchronizes your bookmarks automatically among all your computers, Windows or Mac, and across all the main brands of Web browsers -- Internet Explorer, Safari and Mozilla's Firefox. On PCs running Windows XP or Vista, it works with Internet Explorer and Firefox. On Macs, it works with Safari and Firefox.

    The program is called Foxmarks, and it's from a San Francisco company of the same name. The Foxmarks software has been around since 2006, but worked only with the Firefox browser -- hence the name. Yet Firefox isn't the dominant choice on either Windows or Mac. So the company decided to expand the product to Internet Explorer, which is the built-in browser on Windows (and thus No. 1 in the world) and Safari, which is the built-in browser on Mac.

    This new version, available for download at foxmarks.com, doesn't merely synchronize your bookmarks between copies of the same browser. It synchronizes them between different browser brands, even if some are running on Windows PCs and some on Macs.

    In my tests, Foxmarks worked well, with a few minor caveats. After using it for five days, I now have exactly the same set of bookmarks (or Favorites, in Internet Explorer's parlance), arranged in the same order, on multiple computers -- Windows and Mac -- in a total of 12 different copies of Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari.

    There's a different version of Foxmarks customized for each of the three main browsers, but each talks to the same password-protected Web account, which contains the latest version of your bookmarks. When you add, delete, rename or rearrange any bookmark in any browser on any of your computers, the Foxmarks software sends the change up to the Web account. Then, the next time any of your other browsers checks with the Web account, it receives the change.

    For example, in my tests, I bookmarked a Wikipedia article in Firefox on my Dell running Windows Vista. Foxmarks then caused that same new bookmark to appear in Internet Explorer on the same Dell, and in both Firefox and Safari on my Apple Macintosh computer. And, on each machine, the new bookmark for the Wikipedia article was in the same location.

    In another case, I changed the order of two bookmarks in the Bookmarks Bar in Safari on one of my Macs, and the same re-ordering was replicated on a Windows PC in the Links Toolbar of IE and in the Bookmarks Toolbar of Firefox.

    If you don't want exactly the same set of bookmarks on all your machines, you can set up different profiles with different bookmarks for your work and home computers.

    You can access the password-protected Web site containing your bookmarks from any PC, even if it isn't one of yours, and can view a customized version of this site via the browser on an iPhone or other smart phone. You can even set up a mobile profile that will show you just a subset of your bookmarks in your phone's Web browser, though you can't sync bookmarks to and from a phone.

    From the Web, you can alter your bookmarks, and these changes will then be pushed down to the browsers on your computers. You also can share bookmarks with others via email or an RSS feed.

    There are other Web-based repositories of bookmarks, notably a service called Delicious. But none that I know of automatically synchronizes bookmarks among browsers and computers, which is the main function of Foxmarks.

    Foxmarks has another feature: It can also sync stored passwords for Web sites you frequently visit. But this trick works only in Firefox, and in my tests didn't work properly all the time.

    The software has a few other limitations and glitches. The Internet Explorer version is still labeled a beta, or test, version because it still produces occasional syncing errors, especially in Vista. That was true in my tests, and I'd be wary of using it with Vista, though it performed solidly in Windows XP. It works reliably only with Internet Explorer 6 or 7, not the pre-release version of Internet Explorer 8, which the company isn't yet supporting.

    On the Mac, Foxmarks works only with the current Leopard version of the operating system and the current version 3 of Safari. It doesn't work with the Windows version of Safari.

    And syncing isn't instant. It can take as long as an hour for each computer to check with the Web site and get the changes.

    The company plans to keep Foxmarks free, but is hoping to make money from future, unspecified products.

    Foxmarks is a clever, well-done product that can help users of multiple computers and multiple browsers to keep their Web lives in order.

    如今很多人都有不止一臺(tái)的電腦：家里有一臺(tái)、辦公室有一臺(tái)；很多人還不止用一種網(wǎng)絡(luò)瀏覽器，這樣你的網(wǎng)絡(luò)書(shū)簽（也就是IE中的“我的最愛(ài)”）就很難統(tǒng)一起來(lái)。打個(gè)比方，在辦公室個(gè)人電腦上用微軟的IE瀏覽器上網(wǎng)時(shí)，你將某個(gè)網(wǎng)站標(biāo)注為“我的最愛(ài)”，可你家里那臺(tái)Mac電腦的蘋(píng)果Safari瀏覽器是不會(huì)自動(dòng)將其標(biāo)上書(shū)簽的。

    不過(guò)最近我試用了一個(gè)剛推出的免費(fèi)新程序，該程序能夠幫你解決這個(gè)問(wèn)題。它可以自動(dòng)同步你每臺(tái)電腦中的網(wǎng)絡(luò)書(shū)簽，適用于Windows系統(tǒng)和Mac系統(tǒng)，涵蓋了IE、Safari和火狐(Firefox)等一眾主流瀏覽器。也就是說(shuō)，在運(yùn)行Windows XP或Vista系統(tǒng)的個(gè)人電腦上，它和IE和火狐瀏覽器兼容，也適用于Mac電腦的Safari和火狐瀏覽器。

    這個(gè)程序就是舊金山Foxmarks公司推出的Foxmarks系統(tǒng)。Foxmarks系統(tǒng)大約在2006年便已推出，不過(guò)當(dāng)時(shí)僅適用于火狐瀏覽器，所以起了這么個(gè)名字。不過(guò)Windows系統(tǒng)也好，Mac系統(tǒng)也好，火狐都不是用戶最多的瀏覽器，所以Foxmarks公司決定將其擴(kuò)展至Windows系統(tǒng)內(nèi)置的IE瀏覽器（當(dāng)然也是全世界用戶最多的瀏覽器）及Mac系統(tǒng)內(nèi)置的Safari瀏覽器。

    這個(gè)新版軟件可以在foxmarks.com上下載，它不僅僅可以同步同一種瀏覽器不同版本的書(shū)簽，還可以同步不同瀏覽器的書(shū)簽，甚至Windows電腦和Mac電腦之間的書(shū)簽也能通過(guò)它實(shí)現(xiàn)同步。

    在我的測(cè)試中，F(xiàn)oxmarks運(yùn)行效果很好，只有幾個(gè)微不足道的瑕疵。在試用了五天后，我在Windows電腦和Mac電腦上十二種不同版本的IE、火狐和Safari瀏覽器上已經(jīng)有了完全一樣的書(shū)簽，次序也完全一致。

    Foxmarks有分別針對(duì)這三種主流瀏覽器的版本，不過(guò)都對(duì)應(yīng)于同一個(gè)設(shè)置有密碼的網(wǎng)絡(luò)賬戶，該賬戶中保留了用戶最近的書(shū)簽信息。你在任何一臺(tái)電腦的任何一種瀏覽器上添加、刪除、重命名或者重新排布書(shū)簽時(shí)，F(xiàn)oxmarks軟件都會(huì)把相關(guān)改變的信息發(fā)送至這個(gè)網(wǎng)絡(luò)賬戶。當(dāng)你下一次通過(guò)其他瀏覽器查驗(yàn)該網(wǎng)絡(luò)賬戶時(shí)，便會(huì)接收到修改的信息。

    比如，我在測(cè)試的時(shí)候，在我運(yùn)行Vista系統(tǒng)的戴爾電腦上使用火狐瀏覽器登陸網(wǎng)站，給維基百科的一篇文章加了書(shū)簽。Foxmarks便在這臺(tái)戴爾電腦的IE以及我的蘋(píng)果Mac電腦的火狐和Safari瀏覽器中也都加了同樣的書(shū)簽。而且，維基百科這篇文章的書(shū)簽在兩臺(tái)電腦中的位置也是一致的。

    還有一次，我在一臺(tái)Mac電腦上調(diào)整了Safari瀏覽器的Bookmarks Bar中兩個(gè)書(shū)簽的次序，這個(gè)調(diào)序在Windows電腦IE的Links Toolbar和火狐Bookmarks Toolbar中都得到了體現(xiàn)。

    假使你并不需要同步每一臺(tái)電腦上的書(shū)簽，那你也可以在工作電腦和家用電腦上設(shè)置不同的書(shū)簽內(nèi)容。

    你可以在任何一臺(tái)電腦（不是你自己的電腦也可以）上輸入密碼，進(jìn)入保存有你的書(shū)簽信息的網(wǎng)頁(yè)，也可以通過(guò)iPhone或其他智能手機(jī)的瀏覽器進(jìn)入這個(gè)網(wǎng)頁(yè)一個(gè)定制化的版本。你還可以創(chuàng)建手機(jī)網(wǎng)絡(luò)瀏覽器的書(shū)簽配置，不過(guò)手機(jī)的書(shū)簽無(wú)法做到同步。

    在這個(gè)網(wǎng)頁(yè)上，你可以變更原先設(shè)置的書(shū)簽，這些改動(dòng)隨后會(huì)傳輸至你所用電腦的瀏覽器。你還可以通過(guò)電郵或RSS跟他人分享你的書(shū)簽。

    除了Foxmarks之外，還有其他一些網(wǎng)絡(luò)書(shū)簽工具，比如常見(jiàn)的Delicious書(shū)簽工具，不過(guò)據(jù)我所知，這些工具都無(wú)法實(shí)現(xiàn)自動(dòng)同步不同瀏覽器及電腦之間的書(shū)簽，而這正是Foxmarks的主要功能。

    Foxmarks還有一個(gè)功能：可以將你存下的一些經(jīng)常使用的網(wǎng)站密碼進(jìn)行同步。不過(guò)這個(gè)功能只適用于火狐瀏覽器，而且在我試用時(shí)，并不是每次都管用。

    該軟件還有其他幾個(gè)局限及不足。其用于IE瀏覽器的版本仍被標(biāo)注為beta版或是測(cè)試版，因?yàn)樗�在同步IE書(shū)簽時(shí)偶爾還會(huì)出錯(cuò)，在Vista系統(tǒng)中尤為如此。我在測(cè)試時(shí)就碰到了這樣的情況，所以我在Vista系統(tǒng)中使用Foxmarks時(shí)會(huì)特別地謹(jǐn)慎，不過(guò)它在Windows XP系統(tǒng)中表現(xiàn)還是很穩(wěn)定的。此外它目前僅適用于IE 6和IE 7版本，還不能夠支持最新的IE 8版本。

    在Mac電腦上，F(xiàn)oxmarks只適用于最新的Leopard操作系統(tǒng)和最新的Safari三版，不適用Safari的Windows版本。

    此外，同步也不是即時(shí)實(shí)現(xiàn)的。電腦需要一個(gè)小時(shí)后才能從網(wǎng)站處獲取到相關(guān)的變化信息。

    Foxmarks公司計(jì)劃繼續(xù)免費(fèi)提供Foxmarks軟件，他們把盈利的希望寄托在未來(lái)的其他產(chǎn)品上。

    Foxmarks是一款設(shè)計(jì)巧妙的好產(chǎn)品，用戶通過(guò)它可以在多臺(tái)電腦、多種瀏覽器間有條不紊地享受網(wǎng)絡(luò)生活。