Make your browser smarter with bookmarklets
Browsers, in general, are applications that obtain web content from a web server (HTTP, HTTPS, and other supported protocols) that they connect to, whether it’s a static or a dynamic content. They are also packed with features that maximize your productivity when you’re surfing the web, and one of those features are bookmarks. Bookmarks are a list of your favorite websites that you may often access or that you may archive it for later use, and, depending on the browser, are synchronized across devices and are able to be categorized into groups.
However, browsers also support URLs that are not HTTP and HTTPS, and one of them is javascript:, which is necessary for bookmarklets. A bookmarklet is a one-line URL that contains the minified JavaScript code that works against documents, and it can modify contents of a document and send an alert. For example, javascript:alert("Hello world!") is a URL that tells JavaScript to execute the alert function. Executing this on your browser leads to this:
Before giving you the steps on how to add a bookmarklet, you’ll need to exercise caution. Bookmarklets are JavaScript code that is executed without warning, and this code might perform malicious and/or unwanted operations, such as exfiltrating data from your session.
Chromium browsers
To add a bookmarklet on your PC with Chrome, Chromium, and Chromium-based browsers, you can usually drag a bookmarlet to your bookmarks bar. Alternatively, follow these steps:
Open the browser, and find a bookmarklet you wish to add.Copy the bookmarklet to your clipboard.Open Menu > Bookmarks and Lists > Bookmark Manager.Open the hamburger menu, and press Add to Bookmark.Paste the bookmarklet URL to the URL field.Add the name of the bookmarklet to any desired name.Press Save.When you click on the bookmarklet, you should see:
Alternatively, you can search for the bookmarklet, and click on the bookmarklet, like below:
Firefox
To install a bookmarklet to your Firefox browser on your PC, you can drag the bookmarklet to the bookmarks bar. Additionally, you can manually add the bookmarklet by following the steps:
Open the hamburger menu, click on Bookmarks, then Manage Bookmarks.Click on Organize > Add Bookmark.Write the name of the bookmarklet.Paste the bookmarklet URL.Press Save, then navigate to a desired web page.Open the bookmarks list and click on the bookmarklet.You should then see the below alert message:
Chrome for Android
To install a bookmarklet to Chrome on your Android phone or tablet, follow these steps:
Go to a desired website, and tap the star icon in your address bar. You might need to open a hamburger menu on phones.Copy the bookmarklet URL from the site.Tap the star icon again, and remove the URL and the name.Paste the bookmarklet URL to the URL field, and add a name.Exit the page, then navigate to the desired webpage.Tap on the address bar, and write the name of the bookmarklet.Tap on the bookmarklet, not a search icon, and you should see this:
It works with simple and complicated bookmarklets. Once you’ve learned how to add a bookmarklet, why not try out some of the most interesting bookmarklets, such as this?
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