Bookmarklets are becoming increasingly popular, and with good reason. If you haven’t started using these helpful Internet assets, you may want to start. Here’s an overview:

What is a Bookmarklet?

The word Bookmarklet was coined by combining the terms bookmark and applet:

• Bookmarks are used in Web browsers to store URLs that users may want to revisit in the future
• An applet is a programming term for a small application that performs a single specific task
• A Bookmarklet is a simple and tiny JavaScript program, stored for easy access in your Web browser, that allows you to accomplish helpful things when you’re browsing the Internet

Simply put, a Bookmarklet gives your browser added functionality. Bookmarklets are easy to use, activated by a single click—just like a Bookmark. And, by the way,  most Bookmarklets are free

An important thing to know about Bookmarklets: they’re safe. You don’t  install any software, for one thing. For another, they’re composed of only a few lines of code: anything improper programmed into a Bookmarklet would be detected by the software community PDQ.

Why Use Bookmarklets?

Here’s a simple example of why people like Bookmarklets.

While writing this story I browsed to an article in the March 12, 2010 Financial Times entitled “Google to Shut China Search Engine.” You can see the original story, surrounded by all sorts of distracting text, in the photograph immediately below.

Because I like a clear focus, I decided to use one of my favorite Bookmarklets, Readability. I located the Readability Bookmarklet in my browser’s Bookmarks, clicked on it—et voila! I was instantly able to read without distraction, as you can see from this photograph:

What Tasks Can Bookmarklets Accomplish?

There are hundreds—and maybe even thousands—of Bookmarklets available these days. Here are just a few examples of Bookmarklets that can take tasks designed to make your online time easier, more fulfilling, and/or more productive:

• The Password Generator Bookmarklet makes up passwords for you and thereafter signs you in. All you need to remember is one master password, which it uses to make a unique password for each site. It types the password into any password fields on the current page for you, whether you’re registering for a new account or logging in on a subsequent visit.
• The Posterous Bookmarklet lets you select text, video, music or photos from any web page and post it instantly to your posterous with one click.
• The Save Page as PDF Bookmarklet does just what it says: it will take the page in any browser and turn it into a PDF.
• The iPhonlets Bookmarklet lets you add bookmarklets to your iPhone or iPod Touch directly, without syncing to a desktop computer running Safari.

There are Bookmarklets that: save pages you want to read later; perform mathematical computations; allow you to share Web pages with your friends; list all links on a page; stop annoying auto-play music on a page; let you leave yourself a short note while browsing; look up word definitions; send text by SMS; and…well, you get the idea.

Two good starting points to explore the Bookmarklet world are marklets.com and bookmarklets.com. Both give a solid overview of Bookmarklets; more important, both contain categorized lists and descriptions of many available Bookmarklets.

How to Add Bookmarklets to Your Browser

It ’s incredibly easy to add a Bookmarklet.

With Internet Explorer, right-click on the Bookmarklet and select “Add to Favorites.” With Firefox, right-click and choose “Bookmark This Link.” And with both Firefox and IE you can also simply drag the Bookmarklet name to the links bar.

From then on, click on the Bookmarklet whenever you want to use it–just as you would a bookmark.

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© Suzanne Rodriguez
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