Hi, we're sorry that your disappointed in the removal. We do know that some people use the field, but we also have other factors that we have to take into account.

You may be interested in looking at some of the note related add-ons:

https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments/notes https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/search/?q=notes

They are likely to make it even easier to access and update whatever it was that you stored in your description field previously.

In case you don't already know, Google Chrome also doesn't have a description field for bookmarks.

Hi and thank you for the speedy reply. By all means, hide the description, but give me the option to restore and use this field. Firefox still stores the data, because when I backup bookmarks to HTML, there it sits.

Find it hard to believe so few people make use of this field, warranting its removal.

At some stage in the future, we'll be removing the data from the bookmarks store. The backup/export options are to allow for the easy saving of data before we do that.

Either way, I still feel like you are not listening to users needs. The ability to save data relevant to that bookmark is now not possible at all. In the past I could right-click, update, save. So easy...

See also the Release Notes.

• https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/62.0/releasenotes/

Hi HiltonPreston, I understand that separating Descriptions from bookmarks is painful, but support volunteers can't change that; it's done. We can help with how to access the information going forward.

Export Bookmarks to a locally saved Web Page (HTML File)

Please see this article: Export Firefox bookmarks to an HTML file to back up or transfer bookmarks. That creates a web page, so you can open it in a Firefox tab, or in any browser. You'll notice the descriptions nested below the linked titles of the bookmarks that have descriptions.

Optional: Migrate Bookmarks to Zotero

There probably are a number of tools you could use to manage notes and annotations on your bookmarks. This is one of them.

Zotero is an open source bibliographic/research tool for collecting references. Zotero knows how to read a Firefox HTML bookmarks file and will preserve the descriptions. You can keep your storage purely local, or you can optionally sync with the Zotero cloud.

This is a one-way trip: you can send new references to Zotero from within Firefox using a Zotero add-on, but you won't be able to read/edit bookmark descriptions from within Firefox.

If you want to try it:

The Zotero research tool is available for Mac, Windows, and Linux from https://www.zotero.org/

When you import a bookmarks.html file, it creates entries for each page but it flattens the folder structure, so it comes out like this:

• bookmarks.html, with top-level Bookmarks Menu items
  • Bookmarks Toolbar folder
  • Folder1
  • Folder2
  • Other Bookmarks folder

When you click a bookmark, Zotero displays the Title, URL, and "Abstract" which contains the imported Description. (Screenshot #1) Double-clicking the item will launch the page in the default browser.

Zotero also has an optional Firefox Connector webextension, which allow saving new pages to a Zotero collection (either under the bookmarks structure, or other folders the user created in Zotero). (Screenshot #2)

(I didn't look at cloud sync.)

Using a second program is less convenient than using Firefox features or a fully self-contained Firefox extension. However, it might suit your needs.

Hi and thank you for your reply. This is a great alternatively, thank you.

Bookmarks without relational data attached to it, are for me completely useless.

I hope you are happy now. There is not even a addon integrating a proper bookmarks manager.

I use Chrome already everyday. I will use the bookmark description on firefox but see the websites on Chrome in the past. At least there are better solutions over there already, you had it implemented but now removed it and no option to bring it back to normal? Thank you for nothing Mozilla.

Now I don't even need to open Firefox anymore. R.I.P

Hi ocho786, could you describe this in more detail:

I use Chrome already everyday. I will use the bookmark description on firefox but see the websites on Chrome in the past. At least there are better solutions over there already, you had it implemented but now removed it and no option to bring it back to normal? Thank you for nothing Mozilla. Now I don't even need to open Firefox anymore. R.I.P

Anyway, I agree it's not efficient to use Firefox as a viewer for bookmark descriptions, considering how many clicks it takes to look at those. If that was your only use for Firefox, it makes more sense to use a tool like Zotero or another reference manager.

Do Support Volunteers give any feedback at all to the Project Decision folks when a decision alienates users? When we keep having to find work-arounds to keep the platform useful, the platform is no longer useful. I've used FireFox from its inception, but I'm afraid it's reached the point of diminishing returns.

Hi Chas_R, user advocates monitor the forum. Sometimes I file bugs. We're busy trying to help users find lost data and help with crashes. Everyone has to pick their battles.

I've used Firefox since it first came out. I've got years of comments stored in that field, and coded prompts to remind me of passwords for sites for which I have not stored the password for security reasons.

The existence of that field was a huge convenience (the automatically downloaded descriptions were useless to me, but the ability to include my own comments was critical). Running a second program as a work around is a kludge.

I understand that the volunteers here do not have the power to change this. Where do we go to register our disappointment and ask that the field be restored?

Standard8 said

Hi, we're sorry that your disappointed in the removal. We do know that some people use the field, but we also have other factors that we have to take into account. You may be interested in looking at some of the note related add-ons: https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments/notes https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/search/?q=notes They are likely to make it even easier to access and update whatever it was that you stored in your description field previously. In case you don't already know, Google Chrome also doesn't have a description field for bookmarks.

By all means... change firefox to be like Chrome. I swear, it's like the developers of firefox think we want Chrome. If I wanted chrome, why would I be using firefox to begin with?!?!?

Stop removing features we use!

First, you murdered extensions, which many relied on and now many things that could be done cannot and there aren't useful alternatives.

Status bar is gone, still bugs me to no end.

Now this.

Why even bother with firefox anymore if your goal is to become chrome?

Guess I'll downgrade to 61.0.2 and stick with that.

I use the bookmark for personal use and business use. If I wanted to store my bookmarks in a notes file, I'd do that already. Thanks for making something else useless.

jscher2000 said

Hi ocho786, could you describe this in more detail:

I use Chrome already everyday. I will use the bookmark description on firefox but see the websites on Chrome in the past. At least there are better solutions over there already, you had it implemented but now removed it and no option to bring it back to normal? Thank you for nothing Mozilla. Now I don't even need to open Firefox anymore. R.I.P

Anyway, I agree it's not efficient to use Firefox as a viewer for bookmark descriptions, considering how many clicks it takes to look at those. If that was your only use for Firefox, it makes more sense to use a tool like Zotero or another reference manager.

Right click, properties? Doesn't get much easier than that.

olds97_lss said

jscher2000 said

Hi ocho786, could you describe this in more detail:

I use Chrome already everyday. I will use the bookmark description on firefox but see the websites on Chrome in the past. At least there are better solutions over there already, you had it implemented but now removed it and no option to bring it back to normal? Thank you for nothing Mozilla. Now I don't even need to open Firefox anymore. R.I.P

Anyway, I agree it's not efficient to use Firefox as a viewer for bookmark descriptions, considering how many clicks it takes to look at those. If that was your only use for Firefox, it makes more sense to use a tool like Zotero or another reference manager.

Right click, properties? Doesn't get much easier than that.

Not when the user's primary browser is Chrome and they are only using Firefox to look up bookmark descriptions.

Users who cannot live without this feature could consider switching from the regular release of Firefox to the Extended Support Release of Firefox 60. It will have feature stability and get critical security updates for 10-12 months, so this change won't come until next Fall. Firefox 61.x, on the other hand, won't get any security updates.

While Firefox ESR was designed for businesses, there's nothing to stop individuals from using it. There is an article about it here: Switch to Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR) for personal use.

If anyone tries this, please make a backup first -- Back up and restore information in Firefox profiles -- and let us know how it works out.

I don't know why switching to the 60 ESR build isn't being recommended in these thread about the Bookmarks Description field being removed. Firefox 60 and 60 ESR have that field and will have it until Firefox 68 ESR, well into 2019. And the update to 68 ESR won't happen until Oct 2019 when Firefox 70 and ESR 68.2 are released. https://wiki.mozilla.org/Release_Management/Calendar

How quickly we support contributors forget the debacle when Quantum was released and "everyone" was switching to the 52 ESR builds to keep their Legacy extensions for another 7 version releases (just over a year). How is this situation that much different? Other than "Descriptions" being gone now affects a smaller subset of Firefox users when compared to losing Legacy extensions.

Chas_R said

Do Support Volunteers give any feedback at all to the Project Decision folks when a decision alienates users? When we keep having to find work-arounds to keep the platform useful, the platform is no longer useful. I've used FireFox from its inception, but I'm afraid it's reached the point of diminishing returns.

All the time when I feel it is necessary, but my own issues or complaints! I don't advocate for other users by providing Feedback that anyone can do for themselves. But "alienate users" isn't the goal when Mozilla removes features like those Bookmarks Descriptions. The end goal is to remove the old or ancient features like annotations, the Description field for Bookmarks, which was keeping Firefox from adding new, more important features for the future. In this case getting rid of "annotations" overall will help greatly with asynchronous (i.e. run off the main thread) - whatever that means.

Someone has already made a extension : https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/bookmark-notes/

Thanks for that Extension. I was hoping someone would come up with something like this.

Still P.O.'d at Mozilla for dropping this feature. I don't care at all about the automatically downloaded descriptions - I can't think of a single one that I found useful. However, having a conveniently accessible, user-editable field is crucial to me.

HiltonPreston said

PLEASE BRING BACK BOOKMARK DESCRIPTIONS! I would love to know the reason for removal? You think it is redundant, but its very important to many people. This removal could quite literally force me to use Google Chrome exclusively Not happy with my preferred browser right now!

Health! Chrome is a poor browser, and it is an alternative to IE, not a Mozilla. Go to Chrome - go to IE. As an alternative to the innovations of firefox, you can consider the browser TOR(https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en) or Waterfox(http://waterfoxproject.org/), made on the engine Mozilla. They have a description field. The truth is not known how long these browsers will support the description. Or roll back to the latest version of Firefox 61.0.2 and disable updates - however this is a dead-end option.

It's a shame that developers of firefox do not even explain why they removed the description field.

All the best. With respect.

Sergey_2018 said

It's a shame that developers of firefox do not even explain why they removed the description field.

What difference would it make now? The "ship has sailed" - IOW that Description field is gone from Firefox already.

Plus the "job description" for developer doesn't include justifying changes made in Firefox to end users of Firefox. But that has been explained in multiple different support threads by more than one support contributor in this forum over the last 6 or 7 weeks already; starting back when the change was spotted in the Fx 62 Beta build stage long before Fx 62 was released.

Yes, I agree that "Chrome is a poor browser", But more to the point of this thread, I don't think Chrome even has a Bookmarks Description field, Unless I wasn't looking int the right place for it, because I haven't used Chrome at all. But do have Chrome installed for times when a Firefox user strikes a comparison with Chrome and I want to see how Chrome does the "thing" being asked about