ChromeMarks - sync your Google Chrome bookmarks to your Android

Use Google Chrome or a Chromium browser..?
Like the way that the bookmarks are stored in the "cloud"..?
Want to use one of those bookmarks on your Android device..?

Well, as luck would have it - I've just released a new Android application to the market called ChromeMarks:

Here's a shot of some bookmarks in my browser

Here's a shot of the same bookmarks synced to my phone

This program will connect to the Google Sync service, retrieve your bookmarks and store them on your phone. Press any bookmark to fire it up in your browser of choice. Click on a folder to navigate through your list. A mere click of a button and any recent updates will be retrieved and merged.

The program works by communicating with Google 100% the same way as Google Chrome does - I do not do anything differently to your browser. The same with each update - they are performed exactly the same.

This is the first release - I suspect there are a few bugs, and there is even a big list of new features to add.

KNOWN ISSUES:

1. The stock Android browser does not understand Folders - so it is unlikely I could ever find a way to merge these so they work in the default browser.
2. Other android browsers tend to store bookmarks in their own custom database. I'd like to see if I could merge with them, but I don't want to tie myself down to individual programs.
3. This is a ONE-WAY process *currently* - all updates are synced to your phone, but at the moment, there is no way to make updates on your phone and sync them back to the cloud. Yet.
4. Bookmark data can take a significant amount of space. With 900 bookmarks and folders, the database is almost 0.5mb in size. In a later release, I'll flick the flag to allow Froyo users to stored it on the sd card.
5. Similarly, the amount of data returned from the Google Sync service can be heavy - especially for the very first sync. If you have a lot of bookmarks and are on a limited data plan, I recommend doing the first sync on wi-fi. For example, my 900 bookmarks and folders was a 473k download. There is nothing I can do to make this smaller - I'm using the exact same messages that your browser uses when first setting up a sync.
6. Very little error trapping and handling of problems. For example - if you enter the wrong password, you may get problems. If Google prompt for a captcha, you may get problems. If you don't have bookmarks stored, you may get problems. These are on the list to fix soon.

TO DO:

1. Performance improvements. The code to retrieve data from the sync is using the java libraries provided by Google. But they are a bit heavy and do trigger a significant amount of garbage collection each time you do a sync. For that reason, the sync process can be a bit slow. I'd like to make it slicker.
2. Updates. I'm not quite sure how as I imagine it would be fiddly to have to note a url, fire up a new app and then press buttons to add it in another app. I'll try to see if I can hook into various places - one idea is to catch the request ot save the url to the local stock browser and then automatically fire up my app and say "would you like to sync this to the cloud?" and ask you to choose a folder.
3. Favicon fixes. A large number of my bookmarks in Google Chrome appear to be missing favicons. Maybe this app could retrieve the missing ones..? And then maybe it could sync them back to Google..?
4. Automated sync. Obviously it would be nice to make it instantly update from the cloud. But that would require a permanent data connection, and could be costly on your data plans. So maybe a timed sync to go off at a time of your choosing..?
5. Better error trapping - especially if Google prompt for a captcha or you get your id/password wrong.
6. I don't like storing the user's id and password. Rest assured they are not abused by me in any way and are stored with all the other private data in the application. I'd like to try to use something like OAuth, but would prefer to merely "ask" the phone to authenticate using the details you've already supplied it, and return me a key to use for the sync.
7. Search/Filter. Could be nice to be able to press the search button, enter some text and get a list of bookmarks and folders that match.
8. Integration of some kind with other android browsers. Would love to find a way to get the bookmarks and folders visible in some of the browsers. Dolphin looks to be promising especially since GoMarks appears to work with it.

It has taken me a significant amount of time to get this app to work, hence, it is a priced app in the market. Sorry if you are in a zone where you cannot access priced applications - you need to contact Google about that.

Enjoy! H.

Updated: 02 Oct to strikethrough out of date stuff.