Free For All Links: Modern Alternatives

The FFA Links script created community link directories. Today, social bookmarking, curated lists, and modern link aggregators serve similar purposes.

Link Sharing

Social Bookmarking Platforms

Pinboard

Personal bookmarking service. No ads, fast, reliable. Full-text search of bookmarked pages, tagging, and archival features.

From $22/year No ads Archive feature
Raindrop.io

All-in-one bookmark manager. Beautiful interface, collections, tags, full-text search. Browser extensions for all browsers.

Free tier Pro from $3/mo Cross-platform
Pocket (Mozilla)

Save articles, videos, and stories. Read later across devices. Owned by Mozilla, built into Firefox. Text-to-speech feature.

Free Premium available Mozilla

Community Link Sharing

Hacker News

Social news site for tech and startups. Community-submitted and voted links. High-quality discussion focused on technology.

Free Tech focus Community-driven
Lobsters

Computing-focused link aggregator. Invite-only registration reduces spam. Tag-based filtering, no ads.

Free Invite-only Computing focus
Reddit

Largest link aggregation platform. Thousands of subreddits for every topic. Voting system surfaces quality content.

Free Every topic Subreddits

Curated Link Lists

Awesome Lists

Curated lists about all kinds of topics. Community-maintained on GitHub. High quality standards, regularly updated.

Free CC0 License GitHub-based
Product Hunt

Discover new products daily. Community voting, collections, and discussions. Great for finding new tools and services.

Free Products Daily launches

Self-Hosted Link Managers

Shaarli

Personal, minimalist, super-fast bookmarking service. No database required, flat-file storage. PHP-based.

Free / Open Source MIT License Self-hosted
linkding

Self-hosted bookmark manager. Simple setup with Docker, full-text search, tag management, browser extensions.

Free / Open Source MIT License Docker

Feature Comparison

Feature FFA Links Modern Platforms
Spam protectionNoneAI + moderation
Quality controlNoneVoting/curation
SearchBasicFull-text
CategorizationManualTags + AI
Mobile accessNoApps available
Social featuresNoneSharing/following
PrivacyPublic onlyPrivate options

Recommendation

Personal: Raindrop.io or Pinboard

Community: Reddit or Hacker News

Self-hosted: Shaarli or linkding

Curated: Awesome Lists

Why FFA Died

  • Massive spam abuse
  • No quality control
  • SEO manipulation
  • Search engines devalued
  • Better alternatives emerged
All Examples FFA Links Overview