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I like to read and research articles offline. I am interested in a freeware software that will organize my articles, let me take notes, save the URLs or whole article for offline use. I may need it to write research papers for school as well, so would need some annotation features if possible. I tried Evernote, but it seems to crash on me and loses my data.

Bob Tate
2012-04-14 01:33:00
I recommend Bookmark Flash ,  it save bookmarks and text notes in local , and you can sync data by Dropbox .
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Barry
2011-01-12 16:07:00
I know you said "free" and I want to say I'm not carrying water here for Microsoft but the users I know who have OneNote say it's their favorite app - just saying
ed
2011-01-08 09:33:00
CintaNotes is specifically designed for note-taking while online. The magic begins when you need to dig in and search your notes.http://cintanotes.com/ed
historydoll
2011-01-01 02:58:00
If you have a Mac, look at the various versions of DevonThink.
Aibek
2010-12-31 13:30:00
Evernote - http://www.evernote.com/Clipmarks - http://clipmarks.com/
Lynne
2010-12-31 10:23:00
The one great advantage of Zotero (mentioned by Glenn) is that it makes doing your bibliography and sources cited very easy. It was created specifically for students to organize their research. It got me through college, and i still use it for my own personal research. The one disadvantage, depending on your preferences, may be that it only works in firefox.
ANDREI T
2010-12-29 22:02:00
The Notes panel in Opera browser has the following features: - paste any text from clipboard or write it down - autosave (no "save button") - easily copy/paste any text from Internet (select -> rightclick -> "copy to note") - any note created with "copy to note" IS a bookmark linking back to the original page - synchronization is automated, assuming you enable Opera link and make a myopera.com account. - all notes are automatically indexed, for quick search - all notes can be easily forwarded as emails, assuming you have Opera mail enabled - folders and separators can be created for better organizing - spell-check (various languages can be downloaded and installed)There is no annotation feature, you would have either to use the notes as annotations to the original pages or use some convention to comment on the text you copied within the notes.
2010-12-29 17:04:00
Try Evernote!It's cross platform (Mac, Windows, iPhone, Android, web-based too), and has a clipper with full page/selected text options.The ability to add items to notebooks that may create on different topics, as well as keywords and full text search makes this a great tool for organizing info and finding it later just based on search, if that's your preference. When you web-clip it takes the website url also, for reference.I really recommend it, the basic version is totally free (with the only limitation being attached file support and data-size limits) !www.evernote.com
Decs
2010-12-29 12:29:00
If you're using Linux, there are a few excellent applications to do this.Tomboy (http://projects.gnome.org/tomboy) - A bit lightweight and basic, but it gets the job done, and you can sync it with multiple desktops if you're using UbuntuOne.Zim Desktop Wiki (http://zim-wiki.org) - Just what it says, a desktop wiki. It's very scalable. It's what I usually use to dump and organize random info.BasKet Note Pads (http://basket.kde.org) - It's been a while since I used this, but I remember it worked well enough.
Tilman
2010-12-29 11:05:00
I recommend PersonalBrain. I use it for all the things that you mentioned and for much more. It is not exactly freeware but its free version is adequate enough for most people. Check it out: www.thebrain.com
Vineeth Reddy
2010-12-29 04:56:00
Read it Later addon or bookmarklets readitlater.comevernote
Glenn
2010-12-29 04:07:00
If you use Firefox, you can use the Zotero plugin (http://www.zotero.com). I have found Zotero to be very useful in sorting, tagging and finding the pin in the haystack of the hundreds of PDF's I have.
2010-12-28 08:58:00
There is a desktop applicationCanaware NetNotes http://www.canaware.com/default.aspx?g=topics&f=43Canaware NetNotes is a handy freeware which offers you the ability to capture, save and organize your favorite web pages into your own knowledge base.You can capture a complete web page or the portion you like such as images, specific paragraphs or source code snippets by a right-clicking in the Internet Explorer and Mozilla firefox , and the potential dangerous scripts hidden in the web page will be removed automatically.You can also categorize, organize, view, edit and search the articles in the knowledge base with a WYSIWYG article editor.
DianeCoville
2010-12-27 16:20:00
I recently heard of a new software out there: Posterbee: http://www.posterbee.com/Not sure if this is exactly what you are looking for. This software is FREE, and actually has the benefit of sharing within a workgroup but probably can be used for individual needs as well.