Microsoft swallows Onfolio

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Web services, Microsoft

Microsoft swallows Onfolio

by Nitin Badjatia Mar 8th 2006

Continuing on a quest to buy everything that Google or Yahoo haven't bought already, Microsoft announced the acquisition of Onfolio today. Onfolio, for the uninitiated, is one of the most powerful web bookmark, page capture, research assistant tools available for Windows. The big M will be adding Onfolio onto its Windows Live Toolbar as a free offering. I'm sure that won't go well with those who ponied up $99 for their copies of Onfolio, but hey, now the rest of the world can share the wealth of your 'seed funding'. It will be interesting to see what Microsoft does with the Firefox integration of Onfolio, since nearly everything that is going into the Live strategy requires the proprietary Internet Explorer browser. Before you point your IE browser to Onfolio's website, be forewarned that the free version isn't available until "the afternoon". Now, whose afternoon is the global giant referring to?

Tags: onfolio

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Pete said 10:25AM on 3-08-2006

whose afternoon

Tech_Junkie said 10:55AM on 3-08-2006

Was looking around and I don't see any firefox offerings anymore, very interesting. Does anyone else still see the firefox extension on there site, maybe I just missed them.

GTD Wannabe said 1:01PM on 3-08-2006

Wow, I have to say I'm disappointed. I've been using Onfolio and it's great at what it does. Unfortunately, I've mostly be using it as a really really good RSS reader, but that's more me, as opposed to the software. And it's not that I'm anti-Microsoft, but really, do they need to own everything? I've been trying to move away from their web stuff, since IE just can't compare to FireFox. Now, I feel that the lovely little evolutionary branch of Onfolio + FireFox goodness has just been snipped. Sigh.

Jason Clarke said 1:12PM on 3-08-2006

So is it official? Has support for Firefox been pulled from Onfolio? That will make me one very upset user.

Jnetty said 1:58PM on 3-08-2006

looks interesting. I hope it can work with Firefox also. I'm all Firefox only, only use IE when its my last option.

ohh #3
Microsoft is just competing agains Google. Google is buying everything also. Every week they bought off some new service. But at least google works on both browser where microsoft doesn't.

jnetty said 11:53PM on 3-08-2006

So, the onfolio software is up for download now, but you need to download the windows live toolbar and it seems to work with IE only.
I wanted to try it, but not if its only for IE. Any alternitives?

mtelesha said 8:22AM on 3-09-2006

The wqorst part of the whole deal is that the reference features of Onfolio has been stripped. That was the main use for the program. There has been word at onfolio.com that the new plugin works with Firefox except the links are all launched into IE.

Quaoar said 12:51PM on 3-09-2006

I used Onfolio back when it was 1.0 and found it to be a great web research/collection tool. Plus, the developers were very responsive and friendly on the forums. I sure hope everybody there got a piece of the acquisition action.

If you're a Firefox user (like me) and need to collect local copies of web pages for research, take a look at the ScrapBook extension. It's not nearly as robust as Onfolio, but it gets the job done.

Neville Franks said 6:16AM on 3-14-2006

A somewhat belated response but you might be interested in taking our product, Surfulater, for a spin. It works with Firefox and IE and lets you save anything you see on the Web or on your PC, organize, edit, search, cross reference, attach files and more.

It is very easy to use, stores content in XML, uses HTML templates to let you use it as a PIM and enables you to carry your information around on a USB stick.

Free trial available at http://www.surfulater.com Blog at http://blog.surfulater.com

If anyone has any questions or suggestions please do let me know.

Featured Time Waster

Civiballs is a beautiful, soothing physics puzzle Time Waster

I have an absolute weakness for physics games, and while Civiballs isn't the strongest physics-based game, what it lacks in the physics department it makes up for a few times over in style and fun.

In Civiballs, you are presented with a few colored balls, and your goal is to get those balls into the same-colored urn on the level. The "civi" part of Civiballs is that there are 3 sets of levels to play, each representing a different civilization. While the civilization doesn't affect gameplay, the artwork for each level is beautifully themed to it's appropriate era.

To play the game, you are given only one tool - a sword with which to cut the chains that are holding the balls. The puzzle part of the game is in figuring out what order, and with what timing to cut each chain. Do it right, and all the right balls end up in the right urns, with no stray balls entering an urn (a no-no). Do it wrong, and you get to start over again.

Civiballs is not terribly deep on gameplay; the entire game can be completed in about 15 minutes. But if you enjoy this type of game, it will be a very enjoyable 15 minutes.

View more Time Wasters