Desktop Web Link

Basic items you need to start working on a computer can be accessed by default through desktop shortcuts. Browsers themselves also provide the options to create quick access links to your favorite pages, but if you want to access them like regular files, then you might want to use applications like Desktop Web Link.

A major advantage is that the application skips you both the time, and effort needed to go through a setup process. This enables you to keep it stored on a USB flash drive to use on your personal, and work computers. Another consequence is that registries are not modified in the process, thus not having any impact on the target PC’s stability.

All the application has to offer can be found in a pretty compact main window, with a few fields at your disposal, one of which doesn’t even necessarily need to be filled in. Needless to say that one of them stores the URL which takes you to the target website. There’s no clipboard watcher to help you out, so you need to manually copy the address from a web browser, or write it down.

Apart from the link itself, you also need to specify a shortcut file to save to. Unfortunately, the associated browse dialog asks for an existing files, but Windows can’t create blank shortcut files. A simple way to bypass this issue is to simply write down the name of the new shortcut, followed by the HTML extension, so that it opens up in the default web browser.

An additional field can be used to provide an icon so the shortcut looks cool. Sadly, the application can’t automatically retrieve a thumbnail from the target website. Apart from adding, you can also remove shortcuts, but the process requires you to fill in requirement fields again, taking more time than simply pressing “delete” on your keyboard.

All things considered, we come to the conclusion that Desktop Web Link comes with good intentions, but take way too much time to generate a simple file, which can just as well be saved directly from your web browser. Saving the shortcut file can leave you scratching your head because of the ambiguous method, and might make you look for alternatives after the first few seconds of use.