Read It Later

October 31, 2008 9:31 AM

Given that you're a Metafilter user, if you're also a Firefox user, you may want to check out the Read It Later extension. It's not an unfair assumption to assume that Metafilter users tend to do a lot of online reading (who, us?), and the Read It Later extension is well-suited to help you manage your online reading while not cluttering up your bookmarks. It began as a bookmarklet but now has its own online site, RSS feed, intracomputer syncing, caching of pages for offline use, integration with Google Reader, and customizable keyboard shortcuts, and has really matured into a really great (free) extension.

Not Pepsi Blue -- just a recommendation of a really nifty extension.

posted by WCityMike (35 comments total)

So, wait. Now I can use favorites for just stuff I really like and don't have to use it as a bookmark for stuff to read later anymore? I'll check it out.
posted by cimbrog at 9:34 AM on October 31, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Now I just need to unfavorite all the stuff I've ever favorited on MeFi and... oh hell with it. (Thanks, actually; looks useful!)
posted by not_on_display at 9:42 AM on October 31, 2008

Sounds good. I'll take a look at it later.
posted by Dumsnill at 9:46 AM on October 31, 2008 [6 favorites has favorites]

And for non-Firefox users, there's always Instapaper, which works with any browser.
posted by chrismear at 10:03 AM on October 31, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Ooh, I hope the Reader integration is good.
posted by grobstein at 10:07 AM on October 31, 2008

RTFLL
posted by Citizen Premier at 10:13 AM on October 31, 2008

Okay, what does RTFLL mean? Read the fucking something? Rolling [on] the floor laughing loudly?
posted by WCityMike at 10:24 AM on October 31, 2008

not compatible with FF v0-2.x
posted by Fupped Duck at 10:26 AM on October 31, 2008

To be honest, an extension which claims to file things away for you to read later but actually just forgets about 90-95% of them would be better for most people. That way you can feel virtuous about saving that so-so-important article to read later and then (look, you weren't going to read it anyway) if it ever occurs to you later on that you never got around to reading it later you can just say "Oh, that gosh-darned extension forgot about it again!" It won't ever even occur to you, though, unless it was actually important, so everything works out automatically without making a lot of clutter and wasting bits storing things.
posted by Wolfdog at 10:29 AM on October 31, 2008 [9 favorites has favorites]

this is a pretty good idea in theory. I tried instapaper for awhile but found it just didn't work for me. Knowing that the page isn't cluttering up my tabs or your bookmarks, I just tended to forget about it completely and not bother coming back to it. Simpler to just use delicious, where clutter isn't much of an issue, and throw a couple of tags on it. Still, there is an idea in there somewhere, so I'll probably give this a look.
posted by markavatar at 10:35 AM on October 31, 2008

I like this add-on too.

Of course, I never actually read anything I've added...
posted by merelyglib at 10:38 AM on October 31, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

OK, so some techy person, splain me this: if you install plug-ins like this from third parties you don't know - the Lifehacker types probably have 20-30 at any given time - how do you then feel safe doing things like online banking or shopping? Aren't you giving really high-level access to your online activities to strangers?
posted by jbickers at 10:42 AM on October 31, 2008

Instapaper does this, and with a bookmarklet. It's genius, I click something and bam, I can access it from any browser, including my phone browser.
posted by Happy Dave at 10:44 AM on October 31, 2008

(24 FF tabs currently in my browser, making this my 25th tab)

I have my... own system.... for keeping track of things I intend to read sooner .. or later. And with session saver, these 24 tabs (clicking.. ah yes.. tab #3 is from September..) will keep on repopulating, every time I start FF...

(closes 3rd tab in embarrassed realization)
posted by cavalier at 11:04 AM on October 31, 2008 [4 favorites has favorites]

I'm favoriting this post so I can read more about the extension later.
posted by edlundart at 11:05 AM on October 31, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Yeah, I just open a tab and then close it 3 weeks later unread like everyone else.
posted by DU at 11:11 AM on October 31, 2008

Okay, what does RTFLL mean? Read the fucking something? Rolling [on] the floor laughing loudly?

Read the fucking link (later).


I thought it would be obvious...
posted by Citizen Premier at 11:13 AM on October 31, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Maybe because I'm using FF3, but this extension seems a little redundant to me. "Cluttering up my bookmarks" isn't much of a problem, really - I have a bookmarks folder called "Misc." that I use expressly for those pages I intend to read later, just one time. When I'm done, I just right-click that bookmark and select "Delete".

A bigger concern to me - FF3 being a big enough memory hog as it is, especially with enough extensions - is adding yet another extension that contributes to the memory bloat.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 11:27 AM on October 31, 2008

(24 FF tabs currently in my browser, making this my 25th tab)

I've just spent hours trying to read all the pages I have open so I can close them. Seeing this thread, I decided to check how many tabs I had left.

127.
posted by martinrebas at 11:30 AM on October 31, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I use Instapaper, which is awesome. And if you have an iphone, the Instapaper app is also great.
posted by chunking express at 11:37 AM on October 31, 2008

Given that you're a Metafilter user

I take offense at that. I am not merely a Metafilter user, I sir, am a Metafilter connoisseur!
posted by blue_beetle at 11:54 AM on October 31, 2008

I was going to say abuser. But I can quit anytime I want to. Honest. Just watch me.









Well, I could if I wanted to.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 12:01 PM on October 31, 2008

I prefer to use the ScrapBook extension for pages I plan to read or really enjoyed reading, because it saves the full page and (if so desired) links from that page to others. I now only have a handful of bookmarks that really are shortcuts to things I visit often, I'm sick and tired of pages being gone when I want to refer back to them.
posted by Harkins_ at 12:01 PM on October 31, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

When they develop a FF extension that includes a single-click way to immediately respond to emails that I (a) haven't yet read, but know i need to; (b) have read, but don't consider important enough to warrant an immediate response; and (c) have read, and consider responding to be so important that I have to wait until I have more time to respond in the way that the email deserves --- well, then I will be a happy, sane, and productive person. And my email queue will dip below 400.
posted by googly at 12:05 PM on October 31, 2008

grobstein: Ooh, I hope the Reader integration is good.

What, Google Reader? There's got to be offline access for that around already - I've got an app for that installed on my ipod touch! *searches* Google Gears supported this over a year ago.
posted by Pronoiac at 12:24 PM on October 31, 2008

I may check this out. Mostly I use delicious. But what I really need is some what to bookmark things on my work computer so I can read them at home. Unfortunately, I've got IE and can't DL or install anything on my work computer. So I think I'm stuck with e-mailing links to myself and then marking them with delicious and then never reading them.
posted by threeturtles at 12:45 PM on October 31, 2008

jbickers: OK, so some techy person, splain me this: if you install plug-ins like this from third parties you don't know - the Lifehacker types probably have 20-30 at any given time - how do you then feel safe doing things like online banking or shopping? Aren't you giving really high-level access to your online activities to strangers?

Easy as pie!

1. Find the extension. Usually, it's somewhere like C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\mbz0oq3p.default\extensions\{b3a1a37c-f2ad-410b-b12d-fe182bc24981}\.
2. Dig in there and pore over the source code. See anything suspicious?

Seriously, though, you generally have to rely on the assumption that other people are going to raise holy hell if an extension tries anything sneaky. And for people that do read source code, it is at least possible to audit Firefox extensions because the source code is not compiled. This isn't the case for, say, InputManagers in OS X.
posted by cobra libre at 1:20 PM on October 31, 2008

I am SO downloading this when I get home. Too bad they won't let me install anything at work.

*also has 25 browser windows up*
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:39 PM on October 31, 2008

I use this, I have used this for a while, and I like it.
posted by paisley henosis at 3:33 PM on October 31, 2008

I have my... own system.... for keeping track of things I intend to read sooner .. or later. And with session saver, these 24 tabs (clicking.. ah yes.. tab #3 is from September..) will keep on repopulating, every time I start FF...

Wow... your Firefox is way more stable than mine. Full crashes lose my session state (at least on Linux, which is the only place I use it), so that would be an unworkable system.

Not sure how useful this is though, bookmarks (site and/or browser) are sufficient for me... and like some others said, I rarely even go back and read those.
posted by wildcrdj at 8:18 PM on October 31, 2008

Thanks for the link, but I found this about a month ago and find it really useful. One of these days I'll go through my 100-plus bookmarks and pare them down to size.
posted by zardoz at 5:25 AM on November 1, 2008

Does this actually work for anyone, at least in terms of workflow? I tend to mark dozens of articles as "to read" via Instapaper but somehow never get around to actually reading them.
posted by anirvan at 11:21 AM on November 1, 2008

I use toread to email links to my home email address so I don't get distracted by non-work stuff at work. You can add a bookmark to toread that automatically emails the link to you.

I have the added bonus of not checking the email I send the links to that often, so I often neverread.

It's my system, and it works... sometimes.
posted by Helga-woo at 11:53 AM on November 1, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

wildcrdj, oh, I crash occasionally, but I do have a session addon attached that usually does a boffo job of taking snapshots I can restore. Have you tried any of the FF3 addons for managing sessions?
posted by cavalier at 7:04 AM on November 2, 2008

Awesome, and installed. I used to use del.icio.us for this, but I found that because I had to tag things, I didn't use it consistently enough to actually have a roster of interesting things to choose from when I went back to it. So it was a mix of bookmarks and del.icio.us, but then I had overlap and got grumpy everytime I clicked on a link I'd already read. Maybe this will solve my problem.

It won't, of course, but a girl can dream, right?
posted by Phire at 2:30 AM on November 3, 2008