It’s arduous to maintain up with the whole lot you come throughout on the internet, resembling an article you don’t have time to learn in the meanwhile or a video you’d wish to run once more later. Years in the past, I began getting the higher of this subject with Pocket, a widely known app that permits you to bookmark an article to a separate server after which retrieve it to learn at your leisure. Since then, various comparable companies have appeared, providing a wide range of options — and a wide range of costs.
What follows is an outline of Pocket and among the out there apps. All of them (with one exception) supply free variations and sync throughout various gadgets, together with internet browsers, Android gadgets, and iPhones.
Pocket has developed a properly designed interface with plenty of choices that allow you to kind your articles from latest or oldest, select favorites, show them in listing or grid format, and archive those you need to hold or manage them by way of tags. Its homescreen exhibits you your most up-to-date saves together with its personal listing of “Pocket-Worthy Reads.” You’ll be able to share your articles by way of social media or suggest them throughout the app for others to seek out. There’s a set of curated reads; extensions for all kinds of browsers, together with Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari; and apps for Android and iOS gadgets.
Pocket is now “a part of the Firefox household,” and as of June eleventh, 2023, Pocket customers had been notified that they wanted to transition to Mozilla accounts. Nonetheless, in case you use Pocket and have already got a Firefox account or don’t thoughts creating one, you possibly can merely convert the account and proceed with Pocket as earlier than.
Paid model: The Premium model ($4.99 a month or $44.99 a 12 months) provides a everlasting library of the whole lot you’ve saved (in case it disappears from the online) in addition to full-text search and different options.
Like Pocket, Instapaper began out as a easy internet add-on and has gone via a number of iterations (and house owners); at present, it’s a part of an unbiased firm known as Instapaper Holdings. The net app has a pleasant and easy UI; whereas there is no such thing as a grid view, you possibly can flip thumbnails on and off. It affords (and syncs throughout) internet browsers (utilizing a Chrome extension, Safari extension, Firefox extension, or bookmarklet), iOS, Android, and Kindle. A free account helps you to save an infinite variety of articles, movies, and different content material. It’s also possible to spotlight textual content within the articles you’ve saved, create as much as 5 notes a month, and edit the identify, hyperlink, or abstract of every article.
Paid model: The Premium model ($5.99 a month or $59.99 a 12 months) provides full-text seek for your saved paperwork, limitless notes, a everlasting archive, and text-to-speech.
Raindrop could not have the simplicity of Instapaper, however it has a load of options that might be useful, particularly in case you’re severe about your information collections. (And it is without doubt one of the favorites of Verge editor-at-large David Pierce.) The net model helps you to view your articles in a wide range of codecs, together with an fascinating one known as Moodboard. Like a lot of the others listed right here, the free model of Raindrop affords an infinite variety of bookmark saves on an infinite variety of gadgets; these embrace apps for Macs, iOS gadgets, Android gadgets, Linux gadgets, and extensions for Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge browsers. You’ll be able to share with others and edit titles, tags, and descriptions.
Paid model: The Professional model ($3 a month or $28 a 12 months) provides AI ideas, full-text search, cloud backup, and a everlasting library of all of your bookmarked websites, amongst different options.
PaperSpan is an old style, easy app that’s nice if you would like a extremely plain bookmarking service — and it guarantees no advertisements and no monitoring, which is a plus. You’ll be able to create separate folders in your saved bookmarks, however that’s about it; there are cell apps for iOS and Android and extensions for Chrome and Firefox. In contrast to different companies listed right here, there are not any good graphics, highlighting, or selection between lists and grids. However in case you simply save articles so as to have the ability to simply learn them and don’t care about all the flamboyant add-ons that the opposite choices supply, that is for you.
Matter is at present solely out there for iOS gadgets and the online, with extensions for Chrome, Safari, and Firefox browsers. The free model permits you to do a wide range of read-it-later duties, together with highlighting, including notes, and listening to an audio studying of the article; the homepage affords ideas as to what you would possibly wish to learn subsequent. The iOS app affords considerably greater than the online model, permitting you to set a studying aim and add your Gmail tackle to tug your newsletters into the app. It’s also possible to sync highlights to note-taking apps resembling Notion or Obsidian or ship articles to your Kindle.
Paid model: Matter Premium prices $14.99 a month or $59.99 a 12 months and provides HD audio in a extra pure voice, AI transcription of podcasts and YouTube movies, and integrations with different companies.
Omnivore is a comparatively current open-source bookmarking app that exhibits promise. It has an easy UI that permits you to see your articles in lists or as a gallery; as with lots of the extra refined readers, you possibly can spotlight an article, add notes or labels, or archive them. Apparently, you possibly can see your notes and highlights as a sidebar each within the article itself or within the gallery / itemizing. There are extensions for a wide range of browsers, together with Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari, and cell apps for iOS and Android. If you wish to do greater than the fundamentals, it’s most likely finest in case you’re snug with open-source software program, however on the entire, it is a helpful and usable app.
Paid model: None; customers are requested to donate if they need.
Readwise’s Reader, which helps you to save all kinds of content material sorts, together with YouTube movies (and their transcriptions), is the one app listed right here that’s for-pay solely. The Verge’s David Pierce just lately beneficial it, and I need to say, it’s intriguing. Reader provides a bar to the highest of your browser that permits you to overlay notes, tags, and extra, on to the unique article as you’re studying it. A checkmark on the extension icon exhibits it’s lively; uncheck it, and the markups disappear out of your authentic article however not from the copy that’s been saved to Reader. You might be additionally supplied with a private electronic mail tackle that permits you to ahead newsletters and different inbox-cluttering emails on to Reader. I solely want there have been some type of fundamental free model.
Paid model: You get a one-month free trial (maybe two, in case you ask for it). After that, you could subscribe to each Readwise and Reader for $12.99 a month or $119.88 a 12 months.
Replace, September ninth, 2024: This text was initially printed on February twenty fourth, 2022; entries have been up to date, and new apps have been added.
