What is CyberFinder?

Lately I've been thinking of the Internet as an extension of my subconscious; a wildly disorganized collection of marginalia, factoids, and pointers to information that may not matter today but might tomorrow. I don’t expect to find a tool for organizing my id, but I do want tools for storing and retrieving resources I find in my Internet travels.

The bookmark metaphor that many Internet applications use to track URLs (Universal Resource Locators) works — if you visit only a handful of sites. CyberFinder 2.0, a control panel from Aladdin Systems, tries to extend that metaphor.

CyberFinder links Internet applications such as Netscape Navigator and Fetch at the Finder level. You assign hot keys for launching and capturing URLs from just about any app based on the file type. So if your mom sends you the URL for her Web page, you can highlight the URL and hit a hot key to launch your Web browser.

But these features are already available in shareware. The full version of Peter Lewis's Internet Config (in fact, CyberFinder uses a part of this freeware product to help link applications) offers hot-key URL launching and even links your applications’ preferences. With a little more work you on get similar functionality from KeyQuencer, a $10 shareware macro program by Alessandro Montalcini.

What differentiates CyberFinder is a hot key that lets you capture and collect a group of URLs into a library. The software displays libraries in Finder-like windows you can view, sort, and edit. An icon represents each URL; to open an URL, double-click on its icon or drag the icon into a drag-aware apps open window. (You also drag to reorganize library files.) CyberFinder translates bookmarks or hot lists from most Web browsers into editable libraries. If you’ve struggled with Netscape's dreadful bookmark tools, you’ll appreciate this. Doubleclick on the Netscape Bookmark file stored in your Preferences folder, and create folders for different categories and subjects as easily as in the Finder. Then drag and drop each URL into the correct folder.

The Last Word CyberFinder integrates the Internet right into the Mac's OS via the Finder. Unfortunately, that also limits CyberFinder's usefulness. The Finder isn't a robust organizational tool for URLs, and CyberFinder has no real search function. Bookmarks are an unsatisfactory solution for large collections of Internet links; but compared with shareware that has similar functionality, CyberFinder isn't a much better option.

Hawn, Matthew. (March 1996). CyberFinder. Macworld. (pg. 82).

Download CyberFinder for Mac

Architecture

68K + PPC (FAT)

Compatibility notes

Emulating this? It could probably run under: Basilisk II