Share Extension is a very good extension for Chrome browser. With this extension we can share the extensions in Chrome Browser. It allow you to share BBcode , Html code , Wiki, Text for any of the extension you have installed on the Chrome. 🙂
Websites usually try following best web design practices, for better speed when it comes to loading up of pages. I know a few friends who do struggle at times because of slower connections. Quite often web-pages have ads and other design elements which does add to the bandwidth being used. In such cases it would be a good idea to use Text Only extension on your Chrome browser.
The text only extension can be used with any web-page. In text only mode, the page shows up without any ads and other clutter which is often used to make websites look impressive.
The extension uses viewtext.org for turning the page into text-only.
So next time you think you have to keep an eye on the bandwidth you are using but still need to surf the internet, try using text only extension.
Also if you liked extension you might also like looking up Plain Clothes extension, which also does achieve similar results.
Even though Google Chrome is not the most used browser (Firefox snatches the 1st place), it will defeat Firefox in the near future.
To be frank, Firefox 4 almost copied the interface of Google chrome! The only feature Chrome lacks (when compared to Firefox 4) is Panorama and toolbar support.
First to get most out of Chrome you need to switch to Developer channel or at least to the beta channel (I’m using Developer channel, so some of the tips I mention here may not available in your channel).
There are many interesting things to do in Chrome.
ADVERTISEMENT
Here are 9 tips to get the most out of your Chrome browser.
#1. Make Your Own Custom Themes
You can find many good looking themes at Chrome Webstore but if you are thinking of something crazy like creating own Google chrome themes, then head on to Chrometheme.net or Chrome Theme Maker or Chromizer.
Chrome Instant fastens searching and browsing. For this, the Omnibox (Chrome Address bar) will be logged. With Instant enabled, most pages begin loading as soon as you type a URL in the Omnibox, before you press Enter.
Just look up the wrench icon at top left and then click on Options. Under Options you will can select “Enable Instant for faster searching and browsing” as you can see in the image below.
#3. AutoFill
With AutoFill you can enter your credentials like name, address, age etc in web forms with a single click. You can also save Credit card details so the next time you shop online, you don’t need to re-enter them.
ADVERTISEMENT
For security purpose you can only see the last four digits of the credit card number. You can enter your AutoFill information on the Options page. 🙂
#4. Google Cloud Print
Google cloud print allows you access and share printers online. Using Google Cloud print you can make your printers available to your from any Google Cloud Print enabled web or mobile app.
To enable Google Cloud Print, sign in to your Google account on the options page and you’re done! Now you can send print jobs from your mobile to your windows computer.
Xmarks has made exporting and importing bookmarks easy but you can also do it manually. Just head on to Bookmarks Manager (in your chrome browser), Open “Organize” menu and hit “Import bookmarks”. If you want to export bookmarks, then hit “Export bookmarks” in the same menu.
Remember that Chrome supports only HTML files (which contains bookmarks) to import bookmarks.
#6. Purge Memory
ADVERTISEMENT
Chrome consumes lots of memory (than other browsers) which eventually slows down a PC, but if you’re on the developer channel then you can make use of purge memory button to decrease the memory usage of Chrome. By default “Purge memory” doesn’t appear in chrome but you can make it appear by adding the ”–purge-memory-button”
(Check this YouTube tutorial on how to add command line switches to Chrome) command line switch, and you’ll be able to free up unused memory via button on the chrome task manager. Check out the image below, I freed up about 22,000K memory in less than a second!
Proof
#7. Create Application shortcuts
You can create application shortcuts to websites that you regularly visit, as well as apps that you have installed from the Chrome Web Store.
These shortcuts can be placed on your computer desktop, quick launch toolbar and start menu for quick and easy access. Application shortcuts don’t have any other attachments like new tab page, address bar, wrench icon etc.
To create an application shortcut for a webpage, go to the webpage and click wrench icon > Tools > Create application shortcut.
#8. Useful Shortcuts
Another great way to use Chrome efficiently is to use all the useful shortcuts.
Ctrl + Esc ® Task Manager
Ctrl + Shift + B ® Hides Bookmarks bar
Ctrl + Shift + N ® Incognito window (Private browsing)
Ctrl + N ® New Window
Ctrl + T ® New Tab
Ctrl + U ® View source of current webpage
Ctrl + F ® Opens the find bar
Ctrl + J ® Downloads
Ctrl + Shift + D ® Saves all open pages as bookmarks
Those are some of my favorites; you can check Mac and Linux shortcuts here
#9. Chrome Channel changer
Chrome Channel changer makes it easy to switch between Google chrome channels (Stable, Beta and Dev). These channels only differ in frequency of updates. Personally, I prefer to go with Beta channel. You can download the app here.
So are these tips useful for you? Do share your tips and experiences with Chrome!
Chrome browser has updated its beta channel with a new version. This browser version appears with a new shiny and two-dimensional logo ( see image below) for Chrome. It has also introduced support for speech recognition HTML5 feature.
New Logo!
The new Chrome logo, seems to be flatter and two-dimensional compared to the earlier 3-dimensional logo. The new logo seems to resemble a fast spinning wheel. This possibly shows its obsession with speed. 🙂
Support for HTML5 Speech input API
Google has also updated support for HTML5 Speech input API. Website when using this feature allow people to speak into a microphone on your computer. This could be a way for promoting speech recognition or having spoken commands on websites. If that is the future of web then Chrome is certainly starting early.
What are you views on the new logo and its fancy support for HTML5 speech input? Do you think Chrome has spoilt Firefox 4’s release party? Do drop in your comments.
I prefer the Chrome user-interface because it is so sparse and simple. IE9 and Firefox 4 try hard but I am not really happy with its user-interface. But then interface is a personal thing and hence I decided to go with performance.
I carried out two tests, one was the ACID 3 and the other was HTML 5 test.
I first tested Chrome, Firefox 4 and IE9 for the Acid 3 test. The Acid 3 test basically tests web standards regarding CSS, website rendering. The test was made famous by Chrome when it got a 100/100. This led Chrome to design a method to insert Chrome frame into IE8 for making it faster.
Chrome as expected for a 100/100 on the test.
Internet Explorer 9 scored a 95/100 with the Acid3 test. This is a big improvement because I remember in a post last year, I had performed quite badly.
Firefox 4 final version scored a 97/100 which. That seems to be a big improvement but still short of the perfect score set by Chrome.
This is a test to decide how well does the browser we are using support HTML5 standards. This has been a big talking point, with HTML 5 supposedly being branded as a web-standard. Internet Explorer version have traditionally fared poorly.
ADVERTISEMENT
A look at the stats from their website, show that Chrome scores 288 while Internet Explorer scores 130. The score for Firefox 4 final version is 240. This is strange as I remember Firefox 4 RC version scored 255!
ADVERTISEMENT
So is Chrome better than IE9 and Firefox 4?
The answer to that is yes. If it was purely about performance, then Chrome does far better than Internet Explorer 9 and Firefox 4. I did find the final version of Firefox 4 a lot faster than its predecessors but it still has taken way too much time to come out with version 4. While Firefox and IE released beta version slowly, Chrome kept updating its version automatically and so often that it stopped announcing the updated versions altogether.
What are your views on Chrome, Firefox 4 and IE9 as far as performance goes? Do drop in your comments.
Google might have several online properties but the single most important one it has is obviously its search engine. Almost everyone types in keywords to search for stuff they need online. So how does Google make money? They simply show relevant text ads, which might interest you while searching. Once you click on their text ad, Google makes money. This sort of simple revenue model has created a multi-billion dollar industry.
How does Google knows which advertisement to show you?
That is quite simple, all it does is track your search patterns thanks to your browser. This allows Google to show newer and more relevant ads to you. This of course increases the chances of people clicking on the ads which subsequently makes Google billions.
ADVERTISEMENT
If you do not want personalization of ads on your browser, use Keep My Opt Outs Chrome extension, which does not allow collecting data from your browser.
Features of Keep my Opt Outs Extension
Many times we get prompted for Chrome permission warnings. The extension still does not allow tracking any of our records.
This is done by now allowing cookies to be stored from websites. This conforms to web privacy standards.
We can do this all by tweaking Chrome preferences for cookies or even checking http://www.google.com/ads/preferences for making sure we do not get personalized ads.
Are you someone who does not mind Google tracking your information for showing preferences? Do drop in your comments.
As a blogger I end up visiting several websites. Many of these are blogs. Websites are often designed with many inputs about a lot of different things. For example a blog design might put more emphasis on links, social media widgets so that readers find it more interactive. Some blogs which are niche blogs, often end up having a very attractive design. Sometimes these designs are not good or even distract the reader’s attention from the content.
As I use Chrome as my primary browser, I found Plain Clothes extension very handy to convert all websites I am browsing into a plain white simple design.
While viewing a website, you will see the plain clothes icon at the right hand edge of the address bar. It will show up next to the bookmarking star symbol. Click on the icon and it will toggle between normal and plain clothes view.
If you are reading a lot online then having this extension is a good idea. I personally use it while reading through a blog. This way I can only concentrate on content and not get distracted with the design. Also it might help designers to look at their designs in such a threadbare way, to get more in-depth ideas on design.
Do try out Plain Clothes on Chrome and drop in your comments.
My favourite browser Chrome, has a lot of good themes that I can use. Themes are not really of any great value but might be useful in a way to customize the look and feel of your browser. I often change my theme from time to time. While using Chrome browser just visit this link for Chrome themes and select the one you want.
Chrome Theme Maker is a website which allows us to create and customize Chrome themes.
Customize colour and background images for Chrome Themes
Chrome Theme Maker allows customization of every element of the browser to have a different colour. It has a rich choice of what all can be customized.
Another good option is we can even upload our images as background images which truly makes this theme personal. This background image usually shows up with default page that opens when you start the browser.
Once the theme is created, we can simply click on “Apply Theme” or even “Compile and Download” if you are looking to share this with your friends.
If you are a Chrome fan, then try out Chrome Theme Maker and do drop in your views and comments.
Recently, I bought a new netbook and wanted my old Bookmarks transfered to my new netbook’s browsers. I generally use Google Chrome for normal browsing, Internet Explorer for Social Networking and Opera when something goes wrong with the other browsers.
So, here’s a free application which will help you backup all your bookmarks and then restore it to another computer’s browser easily with a click of a button.
Backup Bookmarks is a free application which allows you to backup bookmarks from Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Apple Safari, Opera and Firefox. Just download Bookmarks_backup.zip and extract it into a new folder. Now open the application inside the extracted folder and a new window will show up (see screenshot):
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Now, You have to choose the Browsers from where you want to backup bookmarks and also select a folder to where the bookmark backup(s) will be saved for later use. Now click on the Backup Button. You can also restore previous bookmarks by following the same steps under the Restore Options and click on Restore Button to restore the bookmarks.
To know more about how this works and how to Backup/restore bookmarks, you can watch this video:
Everyone who has done a little bit of tweaking with CSS or is a into web-designing, would surely be well versed with Firebug Add-on with Firefox. This add-on is mainly used by most developers, as it allows making changes and seeing them on a live website.
At rtCamp, many colleagues stick to Firefox even though I keep recommending Chrome. Their first argument seems to be Firefox has so many add-ons and Firebug seems to be highly recommended.
Firebug Lite is available with Chrome. It is lightweight and has quite a few functionalities of Firebug add-on on Firefox.
Firebug Lite Features
Firebug Lite can be activated for a particular domain. So every time you visit a particular domain with Chrome, Firebug Lite starts.
We can inspect and change HTML in real-time. A lot of the features are pretty similar to Firebug on Firefox.
The extension seems to be a lot faster and quicker with Chrome, especially if you are using Firebug Bookmarklet.
Unfortunately Firebug Lite does not support pages with frames and JavaScript debugger is also not available.
Even though I am not a web-designer and chances are I would only use Firebug Lite for some fun learning, I think having the power of Firebug on Chrome is another reason for me to stop using Firefox. 😛
What do you think about it? Do drop in your comments.
