To keep themselves up-to-date, more and more users operate with bookmarks and tend to store more and more links on their computer. So harnessing the multitude of web links has to be managed one way or the other. There are the bookmark managers with huge storage capacities but they seldom come close to what the user wants.

Linkman is a small utility (the installer is about 3MB and the installation folder is a little over 7MB). The application was designed especially for harnessing the URLs and the storage capacity goes as far as thousands of web links. Organizing them in folders or categories is a cinch. Also, adding the bookmarks from browsers like SlimBrowser, Opera, Avant Browser, Firefox or IE is no problem for the $29 URL manager.

The interface may seem to a less advanced user a bit overwhelming as it is populated with lots of menus, shortcuts and options that take a little time to be comprehended. But a few minutes in the company of the tutorial included in the help file will teach you the basics and, from there on, you can build by yourself.

The application comes well equipped with a myriad of options like the ability to indicate web page changes, checking for URL validity, search by keyword support, proxy support, password protection, URL rating, importing/exporting options, Drop Basket etc, just to mention a few of them.

If you have no URL to add to the software there is no problem as the application comes strapped with about 200 links from different categories and domains. It took me a couple of minutes just to collapse all the folders available (of course, I could have spared my effort and used the Expand/Collapse commands in the menu bar). The areas include MP3, News, Winamp Streams, Gaming, Hardware, Science, Software, Video Card, Fun etc. and once expanded each category will display more subcategories; so all you have to do is pick your choice.

Imagine searching inside a database of thousands of links. It's pure torture, but Linkman comes prepared and each time you add a link to the collection you can append several keywords that will definitely come in handy when trying to look for the needle in the haystack. To make your search results more accurate, the application allows adding a plus of information to the URL, like name, a brief description, shortname and a little comment. All these features can be selected during the search.

The Fast Links option was created for fast accessing habitual URLs you use every day. They can be accessed either from the Drop Basket (the little Earth icon that stays pinned on top of every application), the system tray icon or directly from Linkman's menu bar. You can edit them by simply opening the Fast Links edit box and typing in a name and the URL.

A very handy tool to gather links into one single folder is Link Collector. This utility incorporated in Linkman allows you to search for URLs, Folders or Empty folders using criteria like name, path, keywords, comment or description. The options available include copying the matching results to a new folder, moving them or simply selecting them. This way you can gather a number of links and export them to your computer.

Another criteria for finding the right links is rating. Linkman lets you rate every single URL in your collection on a scale from one to five (it can be extended to 100). This way you will always know how useful an item in your collection is. Additionally, Link Collector tool permits wildcards so there is no strict condition to type in the criteria correctly. In this respect, you will find very useful examples in the help file.

The flexibility of the application goes as far as changing the looks of the interface or the position of the link treeview and the search bar. More than this, you can manage the bookmarks in a dual paned window and drag the URLs from one folder to another, just like in a regular file manager. If you work in only one pane and add or delete links you can use the Synchronization function to average out.

Tools menu is the juiciest of all as it shelters the software's configuration settings, URL validation and page change, duplicate deleting options and the Rating color configuration. The latter is my favorite because it allows you to set the color for each rating level, append a name to the treeview and a comment (you can save multiple URL collections on your hard drive and load them).

Settings screen is simply baffling due to its numerous tabs and options. The user can practically fiddle with the settings for every option incorporated in Linkman. Backing up the data can be scheduled to take place at a user defined time interval (in minutes).

If you have multiple browsers installed on your computer, the software will automatically find them. All you have to do is go to Browser tab and press the Search button corresponding to the desired browser. URL launching can also be controlled (with double click, opening in a new tab, set the browser to open them etc.).

If you do not like the plain looks of the interface, you can add a little color to the environment by going to Interface in Linkman Settings window and set the colors for the treeview background/lines, active/inactive filenames, set the GUI/ treeview font. I wish there could be something to be done with the upper part of the main window interface in what concerns the coloring so that there wouldn't be a discrepancy. But the developer failed to provide the necessary tools. From this point of view, I think adding some skins would have been a better idea.

One click of a button can start the process of checking for dead links and the web page check. The validation/page change screen contains a series of words destined to help you in reducing the time for the operation (a collection can add up to a thousand links). Thus you can make a superficial selection of the links to be verified (check only selected items, update moved pages, update keywords, report only major changes are a few of the options available).

For a quick editing of the Fast Links and for launching the Daily Links you can use the Desktop Toolbar. It can be expanded or shrunk for not intruding on your desktop. The tools available here include the search bar for fast finding of the desired links and launching them. After all the settings have been made in the application you can practically use only the desktop toolbar in your work. This little tool can be of great help in your daily browsing activity as it provides fast access and search for the desired URLs without having to activate Linkman's interface. Desktop Toolbar can be moved either to the upper part of the desktop area or at the bottom, right above Windows Taskbar.

The Good

The application is comprehensive enough to cover all the aspects related to URL managing. You can set a time interval for the backup to be performed so that you lose none of your links. The treeview solution inspired from file managers makes work extremely simple.

The user has the possibility of adding comments, descriptions and even keywords for the links in the collection. And as this was not enough, a rating system is also available.

The Drop Basket comes in handy as it contains all the links of your collection, be they Fast links or those located in one of the two treeviews available. It can also be used to quickly add an URL directly from the opened browser.

With Desktop Toolbar accessing your URLs is easier then ever. All you have to do is enter the desired text in the search query bar and the connected link will be immediately displayed.

The Bad

The price is OK this time. There are bookmark managers that do not offer so many options and cost the same. However, immediately after installing the application, I was alerted that I had 30 days to test it. After a computer restart (for Linkman independent reasons) I was baffled to learn that my trial period was over.

I had no problem with testing the application as only the "Save" function was hindered, but the default settings kept recurring and at every restart of the program Linkman kept finding Firefox and at hovering the mouse over the tray icon it launched the browser (probably just to spite me).

The Truth

Very nice and handy piece of software. There are no stability issues and does its job great. You may feel like the Drop Basket is a bit intrusive, but you can change the "Earth" image with any GIF image on your computer. This way it would seem more familiar.

Some users may think that the myriad of options are detrimental to the ease of use of the software and may be right, but I could not find a useless option in the software. They all have their purpose and use.

NOTE: The mouse hovering over the tray icon and triggering a Firefox launch is linked with having Mozilla Thunderbird running on your computer. Closing Thunderbird will stop the Firefox automatic launch and fix the problem. The developer is working on fixing the issue.

NOTE: The bug launching Firefox at mouse hovering over Linkman system tray icon while Thunderbird was open and the trial expiration bug have been fixed, the latest build being available on Softpedia.

Here are some snapshots of the application in action:


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