I'm looking for a freeware utility that will painlessly do the following:

- Keep my Netscape BOOKMARK.HTM file and my Internet Explorer FAVORITES folder synched.

- Scan through the collection of bookmark links and let me know which ones are broken and optionally delete them.

Anyone know of one?

Hey, that's a great idea! I sure could use that too. And add to that that I would like it very much if this utility was capable of exporting my bookmarks from explorer/netscape WITHOUT sorting them in alphabetical order.
For some reason I like the way my bookmarks are sorted, and every time I reinstall my PC (something that seems to happen more and more frequently) it takes me 15 minutes to sort my bookmarks again the way I like them to be.

Surely such a utility must exist?

For a long time, I used a freeware utility called Columbine Bookmark Merge. I don't know if it has been updated in a while and it only does part of what you want (It doesn't do link checking).

Also, while this utility will handle Netscape 4.x, I couldn't find any utility that handles Mozilla, Opera or Knoqueror. To my dismay, Mozilla bookmarks now seem all bound up in some sort of XML format and I see very little sign of utilities that deal with it (I had a heck of a time trying to find info on the bookmark format, period).