Although there are a whole bunch of Firefox spin-offs, Chrome is still pretty much solitary – at least, it used to be.

ChromePlus

Created by Maple Studio, ChromePlus is a Google Chrome alternative that uses the Chromium source code. They’ve released a Chrome spin-off, with some additional features that should make the browser even more fun to use.

ChromePlus looks pretty much the same as its Google brother, and also has the same basic features and strengths – but as a Google Chrome alternative it has a few extra presents under the hood. Read on for a sneak preview of those additions, and see why you’re going to uninstall your current browser in a few minutes time.

Super Drag

Super Drag is an incredible feature that’ll speed up your browsing and research work infinitely. It gives you two nifty extra functions.

Most straightforward is link-dragging. By dragging a link, and releasing it anywhere on the page, the link will automatically be opened in a background tab. This is especially useful on laptops, where you don’t have a scroll button and would have to work with Control-click.

If you start dragging around pieces of highlighted text, a whole other thing happens. Release your mouse anywhere on the screen and a Google search query will be opened in a new tab. Next time you’re reading a text and encounter something you don’t wholly understand, grab a hold and flick your mouse. This makes ChromePlus into an amazing research tool.

You can specify if the new tab needs to open in the background (default) or foreground of your browser in the options, or disable the function altogether.

IE Tab

IE Tab isn’t new. That is, to Firefox users. It’s one of the most famous Firefox add-ons. The biggest difference is that it’s now implemented in Chrome.

Innovating or not, IE Tab can be a life-saver. Although the practice is dying, some web-developers still feel the need to limit their web experience to Internet Explorer browsers. If you ever encounter a webpage that you can’t access with your Chrome browser, don’t close the app. By pressing the browser logo at the right of your address bar, you can make your browser seem like Internet Explorer.

New tabs should open up in Chrome mode by default. If they don’t, reversing the process is as easy as you’d think. This time, hit the Internet Explorer button to switch worlds.

Arrow Trace

We already told you how Super Drag was going to make your browsing a lot faster. Here’s another feature that’ll give your productivity a boost.

By holding your right mouse button, and drawing on the screen, you can execute a variety of commands; scrolling up and down, switching tabs, opening a new page, and so on. We call these “mouse gestures”.

To give you a general idea, here are a few examples:

• straight down makes you scroll down a page
• straight up makes you scroll up a page
• straight left lets you go back in browser history
• straight right lets you advance in browser history
• up, sharp left makes you go to the previous tab
• up, sharp right makes you go to the next tab (screenshot example)

They’ll take some getting used to, but can make your life a lot easier! If you don’t feel like it, you can once again disable it in the options.

Double-Hit-Close

Not that much of an innovation, but you can close a tab by double-clicking it. No more marksmanship required with that little ‘close’ button.

Download Manager Integration

Those using Chrome have probably noticed that it doesn’t support a hell of a lot of download managers. Most of the time, you’ll still be obliged to copy-paste your links.

ChromePlus has integrated download functionality for a whole bunch of popular download applications. Next time, just right-click your links to have them sent over to your download manager.

You can download ChromePlus here

Do you use Chrome yet? Why, or why not? Tell us about it in the comments section below!

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The easiest way of course is through add-ons as Firefox calls them or extensions as Google Chrome calls them. Chrome has a lot going for it despite the vacuum of extensions.

But Google had promised support for Google Chrome extensions and it is beginning to keep it. The official support for extensions has been announced and though it’s still not fully on in the standard version, one gets it with the developer version of Google Chrome.

A few posts back we saw how to download and install Google Chrome extensions in the developer version. Do go through that post again and come back here. In this post we will check out some of the coolest extensions to download and use with Google Chrome.

The population may be small but the seeds of popularity are being sown with these baby steps.

1. Google Chrome Backup

   If the first thing you savor is peace of mind then the Google Chrome Backup is a must install. This is a small tool to create, backup, restore and manage Google Chrome profiles that holds all your bookmarks, history, saved passwords etc. This is not an extension in the strictest sense as it does not run within the browser but as a separate install. Nevertheless, it’s an important tool to have.

   

   The 1.1MB download works with Google Chrome version 0.2.149.27 onwards and requires .NET framework.

2. AdSweep

   A simple ad blocker extension that modifies the CSS rules on a webpage to hide the advertisements. The small javascript code recognizes ads (especially banner ads) based on specific patterns and blocks them. The extension may not work on all webpages because some ads may escape the recognition patterns used by AdSweep.

   

   The 32KB AdSweep userscript works with Google Chrome developer version 4+.

 

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3. Session Saver

   Something I really like because it harks back to the Save sessions and Manage sessions feature of Opera. It’s useful if you have to switch off and need to come back to the same tabs at some point later. This extension can save  multiple sessions each with its own name. You can also save all saved sessions as bookmarks.

   

   The 107KB Session Saver extension is compatible with Google Chrome developer version 4+.

4. TPGoogleReader

   This is a Google Reader extension for Chrome. The extension makes reading and managing feeds a one click job. It installs as two little icons on the toolstrip and shows the number of unread feeds. In the normal mode, clicking on the items counter opens the first unread item and marks it as read. In the auto-mode, one click on the checkbox opens the unread items in background tabs and marks them as read.

   

   The 9.7KB TPGoogleReader extension is compatible with Google Chrome developer version 4+.

5. Web of Trust

   WOT is a free browser add-on that protects the user from online scams and risky websites. A pop-up opens from the bottom of the screen and indicates not only the trustworthiness of a website but also how things stand with a site’s vendor reliability, child safety and privacy. You can also contribute your own ratings and select the ratings you want to get alerts on.

   

   The WOT extension is a 523KB download compatible with Google Chrome developer version 4+.

6. Smoothscroll

   This extension simply adds the smooth scrolling behavior to Google Chrome. Smooth scrolling auto-scrolls the browser at a constant speed. Click the middle mouse button/scroll wheel and drag the mouse down to set the scroll speed.

   The Smoothscroll extension is a 3KB download compatible with Google Chrome developer version 4+.

7. Bubble Translate

This Google Chrome extension enables you to do inline translations of a webpage into any language supported by Google Translate with a single click. You can set all language choices from its settings.



The Bubble Translate extension is a 34KB download compatible with Google Chrome developer version 4+.

8. Cleeki

   This extension is basically a feature rich search accelerator for Google Chrome. Highlight any keyword on a webpage and a little adjoining icon gives you access to a lot of internet choices from Wikipedia to YouTube to get more information. The information opens up in a little inline window, so you don’t need to browse away. Search can also be done on multiple sites at the same time.

   

   The Cleeki extension is a 56KB download compatible with Google Chrome developer version 4+.

9. LastPass
   

LastPass is an online form filler and password manager which got some high marks from us in a previous post. For error free performance, switch off Chrome’s inbuilt password manager (Wrench Icon – Options – Personal Stuff) and Form Autofill under the same tab.



The LastPass extension is a 315KB download compatible with Google Chrome developer version 4+.

10. Greasemetal

Familiar with Greasemonkey userscripts for Firefox? Those little pieces of code that help you customize your Firefox browser. Greasemetal is the Chrome incarnation of those handy javascripts which let you modify its behavior. It’s a good extension to have because a lot of userscripts continue o be developed and are made available from sites like Userscripts.org.

Greasemetal comes as a 1.2MB installer download for Google Chrome.

These ten extensions represent just a few of the many that are out there and slowly burgeoning with each iteration of the Chrome browser. Hopefully, it won’t be long before Chrome would give the Firefox add-ons gallery a run for its download. For us users, this is a war where we will get all the spoils.

True, ten is a very small number. Which is your extension you would have liked to have seen on the list?

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The need for extension support was almost a clarion call as soon as the browser hit the market. The ability to extend the browser’s prowess using little third party apps is what separates Firefox from the herd. And Google has been playing catch-up.

Has it caught up? No, but it is definitely a few yards closer.

The good news is that Google Chrome now officially supports browser extensions. That’s the little bit of good news along with the fact that there developers are jumping on the Google bandwagon and packaging new code to broaden the scope of the browser.

The little bit of bad news is that Google Chrome extension support is still not a feature of the stable version of Chrome but you get it in the latest build of the dev channel release. But as the Chromium team’s blog says, extension support is on the runway and taxiing towards a takeoff for all versions.

Not to get confused between Chrome and Chromium – Chromium is the open-source project behind Google Chrome which Chrome relies on for its final build.

So let’s get up and running with installing extensions in Google Chrome.

1. Download and run the 2MB Dev Channel installer from the Chromium Developer page.
2. The updated version (4.0.221.6) features an extension manager. The extension manager can be accessed in two ways –
   • Type in chrome://extensions/ in the location bar of a new window or tab.
   • Access it by clicking the wrench icon and then Extensions.

   

3. To those of us more attuned to the Add-ons box of Firefox, the extension manager will seem very basic. It features just three tools. The developer version gives you tools to load, pack and update extensions. Remember, Chrome still does not have anything similar to an add-ons gallery, so a direct route to search and select Google Chrome extensions is lacking.



4. To try out your first ‘official’ extensions, head over to these this Chromium page for installing any of the provided three sample extensions. The extensions download as CRX (Chrome Extension Installer) files. Chrome supports two formats for extensions-Compressed CRX files and its uncompressed (unpacked) counterpart which generally consists of files written in HTML, JavaScript, and CSS.



5. Click the install link below the snapshots and download the package and install in Chrome. If you have downloaded it to your hard drive, just drag and drop it into the browser window.



6. For valid extensions, the Installed extensions section in the Extensions manager, displays the confirming information.



7. Uninstalling or disabling the extensions is also just a matter of a single click from the extensions page.

But all this brouhaha for just three sample extensions! It could be a big letdown, if not for third party developers working behind the scenes on extensions of their own. I can straightaway suggest to you two sites that could empower your browser by a bit…

- Chromeextensions
- Chromeplugins

These sites are not associated to Google but are merely a place for independent developers. But they are the groundbreakers in every sense of the word as Chrome tries to become the internet’s Swiss army knife like Firefox. The salvo has been fired by Google. With time it could be a toss-up between browsers. We just have to pick the browser we want.

Do you think Chrome could soon match up?  Do you know of any other sites offering Google Chrome extensions?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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AdBlock blocks the advertisements on websites and lets you browse distraction free. Quite a few people don’t make the switch to alternative browsers because none of them can support AdBlock. That said, you can still block display ads using most of the popular browsers so let us see how you can block ads in other browsers that are not Firefox.

There are different hacks around there like special proxies and selective content blocking that you can use depending upon which browser you use. Here we will be using mainly using Adsweep. Although the project is not being maintained anymore, it provides a simple and easy ad blocking solution that just works.

Adsweep is essentially a user javascript (think Greasemonkey) that hides the page elements that contain advertisements. Setting it up is a little different for different browsers, lets have a look.

Chrome

• Download AdSweep.user.js
• Open Chrome user data directory. Use the following information if you are unsure about its location:
  • Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default
  • Vista: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default
  • Mac OS X: ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default
  • Linux: ~/.config/google-chrome/Default
• Once you are in there, create a folder named User Scripts

• Copy the file you downloaded above into this folder.
• Now we need to close Chrome and restart it with the ‘–enable-user-scripts‘ switch. You can do so from the command line or simply right-click on the chrome icon on your desktop and click properties. Add ‘ –enable-user-scripts‘ at the end. Click OK and double the icon to start Chrome with User Scripts enabled.

• Visit the AdSweep website.  If you see a red notification in the top right corner, everything went fine. If you don’t, recheck that you performed the above mentioned steps correctly.

If you use the development build of Chrome and have extensions enabled, then you can click and download the Adsweep extension for Chrome and spare yourself some work!

Opera

• Download AdSweep.js
• Within Opera, go to Tools > Preferences and then to the Advanced tab.
• Choose Content on the left side and then click on Javascript Options.

• Click Choose and browse to the location where you downloaded the file in Step 1

• Hit Refresh and notice the difference

Here is a quick before and after:

How to Block Display Ads In Internet Explorer

This is where you would have to leave AdSweep (it won’t work on IE) and take things into your hands. First and foremost, upgrade to the latest version of IE – Internet Explorer 8. IE8 has a feature called InPrivate filtering which can be tweaked to block ads. Here is how:

• Enable InPrivate Filtering from the Safety Menu (or press Ctrl + Shift +F)
• Now you need a filtering list of some sorts, that can identify ads on a page. Just Google around and you can find plenty, even AdBlock lists. Download the XML file onto your computer.
• Click on Safety > InPrivate Filtering Settings. In the dialog that opens, lower the Show content by providers used by this number of websites to the minimum. click on Advanced settings.

• In the Manage Add-ons dialog that opens, choose InPrivate Filtering on the left and click on import, browse to the XML file you just downloaded and the rules will be imported.

Keep in mind that you won’t block each and every ad with these methods, because the rules have to updated frequently to take care of new advertisers and other changes. On the flip side there would be times when genuine third party content will be blocked as well (specially in the InPrivate Filtering Technique). In any case, this should rid you of a considerable amount of ads and improve the overall browsing experience.

Do you know of any other ways to block display ads in Internet Explorer, Chrome or any other browser? Sound off in the comments, we would love to hear about them.

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To be able to revise quickly and often, it helps if the information is terse and to the point highlighting only the important aspects. Something like an application cheat sheet or a poster that you can print and pin to a board or keep on your desk.

Here are some application cheat sheets for commonly used software that will hopefully make you more productive.

Microsoft Office

Need to get that report typed and formatted quickly? Can’t find your way around the ribbon interface? Check these out:

Explains the ribbon interface, smart shapes, which format to choose and how to do things like adding a digital signature, protecting the document and other little tips. (Download)

Excel 2007 (Download)	Word 2007 (Download)
PowerPoint 2007 (Download)	Outlook 2007 (Download)

If you are interested in other Office applications or different version of Microsoft Office, Customguide is a great resource.

Browsers

Browsers are among most commonly used software these days. You may be using Firefox or Chrome or Opera or even Internet Explorer, the bottomline is you need to get online and browsers help you in doing so. It is always nice to know your browser inside out and have some tricks up your sleeves, here are some cheat sheets that should get you started:

Google Chrome

Contains keyboard shortcuts, command line switches and the about:urls (Go there) (PDF)

Firefox

Contains keyboard shortcuts, highlights important directories related to Firefox, and presents a trick or two. It has not been updated for a long time but the information still stands good for Firefox 3.5 (Go there) ( PDF )

Linux

This is a huge 18 x 18 in poster that presents you – “The Anatomy of a Linux System”. It has a plethora of information about Linux, top Linux magazines, top Linux sites. In addition, it lists the popular software on Linux systems along with the sites and useful books (it’s from O’Reilly after all) on each of them. (More) (Download)

Lists commonly used commands, switches and what they do. Good for beginners. (Download)

Looking for something a little more advanced? Linux Administrator’s Quick Reference card has you covered with the important files and commands you need to know for system administration. (Download) Credit: Jialong He

Vi/Vim

One of my personal favorites, I actually learned Vim way back using this. It is a complete tutorial and apart from the all inclusive version, there are ones for individual chapters. You can download the SVG versions and scale them to make a wallpaper if you like! (Download)

Photoshop

Concisely lists all the common Photoshop shortcuts you should know to make your work easier and faster. (Download for CS4) (Other Photoshop Versions)

Twitter

Twitter finds its way into everything these days, how could we not have a reference sheet for Twitter?

Packed with all kinds of information about Twitter including important pages, desktop clients, widgets and apps, a definition of various Twitter buzzwords and ethics! (Download)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

It has tons of information on what to include in tags, redirects, sitemap syntax, robots.txt syntax and much more. Presents lots of useful information in a tiny little booklet. A must for anyone working with SEO. (Download)

Looking for more?

I bet you are. Didn’t find the one you were looking for? Well there were too many of them to fit in one post. If you are looking for a specific application cheat sheet fire up the request in the comments section, someone might drop you a link. There are two great resources for posters and cheat sheets here and here. If you ever created one for yourself we would love to see them too!

Plus, don’t forget that MakeUseOf have our very own cheat sheets. Click here to check them out and if you like them, download them for free!

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Apart from using your favorite website (wink, wink), we’ve seen a bunch of services here on MakeUseOf in the past, allowing you to make a personal, dynamic homepage, greeting you with image slideshows, recent RSS updates, and so on.

Although it seems obvious for most computer users, finding out how to set your browser home page is not evident for everyone. Today, we’ll show you how to change your home page in 5 different browsers.

Firefox and Firefox-based Browsers

Firefox is not just the acclaimed geek-browser anymore. These days, it’s the most used browser in the internet market. As such, that is where we’ll start. Note that any menu-names might have to be translated to your own language, but any changes should be obvious.

How to Set Browser Home Page

In the top left of your browser, open the Edit menu and select Preferences.

In the Main tab, you can change your default homepage. You can also configure Firefox to load with a blank page, or to restore your last session.

When you start typing in the text-field, Firefox will make suggestions based on your history. Alternatively, you can also use the address of the webpage currently active in your browser, one of your bookmarks, or restore the default Firefox Start page.

You can add multiple home pages — which will launch in tabs upon opening firefox — by putting vertical slashes between the links. (e.g. “http://www.makeuseof.com | http://www.google.com”)

This will work with Firefox, but also with Firefox-based browsers, like Flock, Wyzo, and many others.

Internet Explorer (IE7 and IE8)

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer might be loathed by many, but one can’t ignore the fact that it takes a worthy second as most used browser. And thus we go on. The differences between Internet Explorer 7 and 8 are superfluous for this tutorial.

Option 1

In the top right of your screen, open the Tools dropdown menu and select Internet Options.

In the General tab, you’ll be able to set the browser home page to one of your liking. Similar to Firefox, you can use the address of the currently active page, the default start page, or a blank page.

If you want Internet Explorer to open multiple pages upon launch, you  need to type the different addresses in the text-box, below each other.

Option 2

There’s a second way to configure your home page. First, surf to the webpage you want to use.

Next, open the dropdown menu next to the Home button, and select Add or Change Home Page…

A new window will pop up. You can choose to replace your current home page by the current address, or to add the webpage to your current bookmarks.

In Internet Explorer 8, you can also use the current tab set (all your open pages) as homepages.

Google Chrome

Chrome’s one of the new guys on the block, but a relatively popular browser, taking in account its short time with us. If you like Google’s browser of simplicity, this part is for you.

In the top-right corner of the browser, open the wrench dropdown menu and select Options. Go to the Basics tab, here you can configure your homepage.

Option 1

Make sure that ‘Open the following pages’ is selected in the startup section near the top of the page.

In the box below, you can add multiple web addresses to be opened upon browser launch. If you want to open a blank page, you’ll have to enter ‘about:blank’, manually.

Option 2

Make sure that the ‘Open the home page’ is selected in the startup section near the top of the page.

In the Home Page section, you’ve got two options. Either use the New Tab Page — which is selected by default — or enter a custom address in the text-field.

Safari

Safari is the default browser on Mac OS X. A while ago it was also ported to Windows. I must say it’s one of the finest browsers around, but sadly underused. If you belong to the Safari-minority, this section is for you.

If you’ve got Windows, open the Edit dropdown menu and select Preferences… at the top-left of the browser.

If you’ve got a Mac, open the Safari dropdown menu and select Preferences… at the top-left of the browser.

Both in Windows and Mac, you can change your homepage in the General tab. You can choose how to open new pages — blank, or with a homepage — and type in the address of your favorite site. Additionally, you can also choose to use the address of the page you’re currently visiting.

While you’re at it, you can also tell Safari what to do upon opening new tabs. Top Sites, one of the best features in Safari, is default, but perhaps you still prefer to use your homepage.

Opera

Opera is – sadly – one of the lesser used browsers, even though it’s got remarkable charms and has introduced numerous innovations in the browser market. If you’re amongst the fine men and women using this slick competitor, this section is for you.

At the top of the browser, open the Tools dropdown menu and select Preferences.

In the General tab, you can configure your homepage. Either type in the address you want to use, or choose to use the currently active page as homepage.

Alternatively, you can configure Opera to launch with a blank page, the startup dialog, or with the tabs of last time’s session.

This is where we conclude this multi-tutorial. I hope you’ve learned something useful today. If there’s anything you want to say, or ask, please refer to the comments section below.

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Today, you can see that Microsoft has decided to give a lot more attention to the design of its products. Windows 7 is a testament to that endeavor. It does sadden me that the majority of the UI improvements are derivations or adaptations instead of innovations.

Safari 4 hasn’t suffered radical changes since the beta version – except maybe for the tabs issue which generated a considerable amount of uproar – but it did a fantastic job of polishing rough edges. Safari 4 is fast, usable and has taste.

Let’s dig in a little deeper, shall we?

Unlike earlier versions of Safari for Windows, this iteration integrates beautifully with the default themes in Windows XP, Vista and even Windows 7. Whether we believe that “the new Nitro JavaScript engine that executes JavaScript nearly eight times faster than IE 8 and more than four times faster than Firefox 3” or that it “loads HTML web pages more than three times faster than IE 8 and three times faster than Firefox 3” is up to each one of us and the guys who benchmark milliseconds. It does however feel faster than Firefox and IE8 and about the same as Chrome 2.04.

For many of you running Windows 7 (if you aren’t, what are you waiting for? Here’s how to upgrade), Safari 4 has another surprise – it works with the Aero Peek feature the same way IE8 does. The latest stable version of Firefox 3 does not support this capability.

As for the Top Sites view, I can’t really decide what to think about it. It’s not particularly useful – like the integration with Aero Peek – but it does look good and does not impede my usual browsing habits. Use it for a couple of hours, maybe a day, and the most visited websites will be nicely presented when you open a new tab. And, believe it or not, this Minority Report style interface doesn’t take any longer to load than a new blank tab in Firefox. What is useful is the Cover Flow view for History – it makes finding websites a snap for people with good visual memory.

Another aspect that persuaded me to switch to Safari was the layout of the interface elements – compact, streamlined, bare bones – modifications that I did myself in Firefox. Even the menu bar is hidden to save space. However, I didn’t manage to convince the bookmark list to stay on the side in Safari, a perk for wide screen displays.

Thanks to an AdBlock list and a CSS file designed for Opera by Fanboy you can now disable most of ads. All you have to do is download Element Hider CSS file and go to Preferences -> Advanced -> Style Sheet –> Other. Select the CSS file you just downloaded. Remember though that you’re undermining the revenue model for MakeUseOf and the writers behind it as well as other web publications.

The only thing that’s missing from Safari right now is an add-on similar to NoScript. At that point, Safari is just an upgraded version of Firefox (without getting into a technical discussion about the different rendering engines, Gecko versus WebKit).

All the graphical candy takes a toll on the system memory. While I can’t say it’s a memory leak or something else, Safari with 4 tabs open consumed about 200MB of memory repeatedly. Firefox isn’t far behind with a jump from 90Mb to 160MB – one hour staying in idle mode.

You can also read my review of the Safari 4 beta as well as other posts related to Safari. Tell us in the comments what browser you use, why you like it and of course, your impressions on Safari 4.

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Though Twitter is all pervasive, I have found that twittering becomes easier if it’s always in my face and married into the tools I use almost as a habit for my daily web hops. Mark’s comprehensive post on Tools, Apps and Bots to Improve your Twitter Experience became my first roadmap as I surrendered myself to the Twitter universe.

Mark put in mentions about how to Twitter from some of the popular instant messengers and even from the command line. To further my own user experience, I started looking for ways to say my 140 bytes worth in an uncomplicatedly fast way sans frills from the browsers I use often and almost live in. With the popularity of Twitter, it wasn’t like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Twitter Addons for Firefox

CloudBerry TweetFox for Firefox brings micro-blogging to the browser. This Firefox addon for Twitter lets you tweet excerpts you like from websites with a click of the button and attach a short URL to the source page.

Download and install the Firefox experimental add-on. Restart your browser and add your Twitter username and password through the options dialogue of the add-on: Tools – Add-ons – CloudBerry TweetFox 1.0 – Options.

Select an excerpt from any interesting website and click on the Twitter icon on the toolbar. Tweet the selected text (or any message) from the TweetFox box. Optionally, you can also include the source URL courtesy of the URL shortening service from Chilp.It. Of course, make sure that the entire message is within the 140 character limit of Twitter.

The latter versions expectedly will see support for multiple Twitter accounts and also a feature to send replies.

TwitterBar is a similar add-on which uses the address bar to do the job. David has covered it in a previous post on 9 Ways To Use Twitter – No Website Necessary.

Twitter Addons for Internet Explorer

As above, CloudBerry’s Twitter addon for Internet Explorer does the same job. TweetIE installs as a toolbar in IE. If it is not visible, select View – Toolbars – CloudBerry Twitter plugin.  On first use, the plugin asks for your username and password.

Write your own text or select text from any website and click on the Twitter toolbar icon. Your 140 character limited message can now be dispatched with a click.

Twitter Addon for Opera

If it’s add-ons and plug-ins with the last two browsers, then it’s widgets with Opera. More exactly, the Twitter Opera Widget. The widget is light and installs in a jiffy. It can be accessed from the Widgets menu on the toolbar.

After logging in, this is how Twitter addons for Opera looks like –

The little menu on the top gives you access to all your tweets. Posts and updates are almost concurrent. On the minus side, unlike the Twitter tools for IE and Firefox, the Opera widget lacks a URL shortener. But as a simple lightweight Twitter tool, it scores.

Twitter Addons for Chrome

Chrome so far lacks Firefox’s add-on richness or Opera’s widget gallery. Though, Chrome extensions are on fast track development… till then, it’s a little bookmarklet that I must fall back on.

Twitlet (beta) is a Twitter javascript bookmarklet service that lets you post from the convenience of your browser.

Twitlet is fast and simple. All you have to do is insert your Twitter log-in details to get the bookmarklet. Drag it to your browser’s toolbar and start using it with messages or selected texts. #link or #this can be used to insert the current page’s shortened URL.

Big Tweet is a similar service but it gives better text control over Twitlet. Using the bookmarklet, you can post to Twitter or Friendfeed. With Big Tweet, you can post highlighted text from any webpage with a shortened URL. A significant plus is that it lets you easily insert special characters in your messages for that emotional appeal.

Big Tweet as a bookmarklet also runs with Firefox, IE and Safari.

If I knew that we would be so keen to follow each other’s lives in 140 characters or less, I would have jumped in sooner. Are you are already in the deep end or are you a new believer like me? Either way, you can take a walkthrough of our huge list of posts on things that are Twitter. And of course, don’t forget to comment or tweet on days spent with Twitter.

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The good, the bad, and the unscientific test

I’m just an ordinary Mac user and not a certified software tester, so don’t expect to find scientific result here. All I did was take this incomplete Mac version of Chrome for a ride, doing the things that I usually do everyday with a browser.

But first, I downloaded from here and installed it.

Opening, closing and re-opening the browser

As silly as they sound, there are reason why I do this: first is to know how fast the browser starts, and closes; second is to glance at the look; and third is to know whether Chrome saves the previously opened tabs upon restarting.

The results:

Chrome opens pretty fast. Actually, pretty darn fast. That is a good sign.

Google search functionality is embedded directly in the address bar. So, you may just enter your search queries into the field, hit Enter and boom, you’re redirected to Google’s search results page.

Chrome actually saves passwords using Keychain Manager and allows you to add bookmarks. There isn’t a bookmark manager as yet, unfortunately. So don’t go adding bookmarks unnecessarily, there’s no way to delete them!

Unlike what Damien said regarding the Linux version, Mac’s Chrome alpha does have support for complex tab management i.e. you can pull individual tabs out of their current window and shift them around.

Flaws:

There is no Flash support yet. This means that everything that depends on Flash like YouTube or flash games won’t work.

Generally, I think the appearance is OK for a Mac app, but that is personal preference. But just like with Safari 4 beta, I disliked the way Chrome arranges the tabs above the address bar because the page title would be partially missing when many tabs are open.

I found a few minor bugs, though — such as the absence of favicons and the also the absence of green button to maximize the window. Another bug is the missing titles from some opened tabs as shown below.

After restarting, Chrome did not re-open the previous tabs automatically. Although, this setting is easily enabled in the Preferences. They do inform you which tabs were recently closed, that’s a nice touch.

Read Emails in GMail

I’ve been a GMail fan since its first appearance. And because Chrome also comes from Google, I think it would be logical to try to open GMail from Chrome.

I don’t have high hopes because several early reviews of Mac Chrome stated that GMail was not rendered perfectly. Yet, I didn’t encounter any problems. Another good sign.

Open a whole bunch of tabs

I think the concept of tabs is one of the best things that have ever happened in the browser world. The Windows version of Chrome takes it further by separating each tab into an individual entity. The idea is, if one tab crashes, the others will not be affected.

To see whether the same concept was also applied to the Mac alpha version, I tried to open as many tabs as possible at once (more than 20 before I lost count), and hoped that one of them would crash.

I was unlucky. Everything went fine. But I found that opening lots of tabs consumes a lot of processing power, and there was a lag for a few milliseconds for a page to appear when switching between tabs.

Just for your information, Chrome uses the same key combination as Firefox to switch between tabs: Command + Option + Left/Right Arrow.

Downloading

Beside emailing, chatting and browsing, downloading is another main activity of the netizen.

By default, Chrome handles the download by itself. But to monitor the process, you have to open the download tab by going to the Window –> Downloads menu. No complains here either.

Editor’s note: By default, Chrome stores downloads to the Downloads folder but the settings to change the download location is bricked.

Blogging

Last but not the least, I tried to blog using Chrome.

Maybe it was my connection or maybe it was Chrome, but I felt that logging in to one of my Wordpress blogs took quite a while. Uploading pictures and saving post were not as snappy compared to Safari 4, and there were also several unsuccessful login attempts to other Wordpress blogs.

In Conclusion

This is just a short test drive of the Mac alpha version of Chrome, but I already like it – a lot. And after experiencing it first hand, I have to say that I can not wait for the final release. I must admit that it may be a tad more refined than its Linux counterpart. Read Damien’s article to see how it performed on Ubuntu

Have you tried it yet? What do you think? Does it give you hope for the final release? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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For those Linux users who have been waiting hard and long for the release of Google Chrome Linux Alpha, there are both a good and bad news for you. The bad news is, Google Chrome for Linux is still not available yet. The good news however, the alpha build is now available for testing, which could be a joy for some Linux geeks.

Last week, Google released the first alpha build (build 3.0.183.1) of Google Chrome for Linux (and Mac). I have tested the Linux version on my Ubuntu machine and compared how it fares against Firefox. It is apparent that there are plenty of features missing, but it also comes with some juice that proved to be a surprise for many.

Warning

On the Chromium developer’s blog, they have stressed that the alpha build is not meant for mainstream public use and should be used only by developers. Being a public user, you are still free to download/install the software, but do bear in mind that many of the features are still missing.

Next step, installation.

Installation

Installing Google Chrome on Ubuntu is very easy. Download the deb file from the Chromium Early Release Channel to your desktop. Double click on the downloaded file to initiate the installation.

When the installation is complete, a warning window regarding the instability of this software will pop up. In the window, you can also opt to help the development of Google Chrome for Linux by sending in the crash reports to Google.

First impression

The very first impression of running Google Chrome Linux on my Ubuntu is that it is very fast.

Whenever I click on the Firefox launcher, I always have to wait for several seconds (at least 10 seconds) for it to load in the background before I get to see the home page. The more extensions I installed, the slower it got.

For Google Chrome, the moment I click on the launcher, the browser loads instantly, almost without any delay. One could argue that Google Chrome doesn’t support any extensions now and most of its features are not available, so it is logical that it loads faster. That could be true, but still, the difference in the speed is enormous.

Other than the boot speed, the speed that it loads a web page, performs a search, accesses URL history, suggests the URL as you type is also much faster than Firefox. And also more intelligent, in my opinion.

We have already covered plenty of Google Chrome features, including the tips and tricks, so I shall not delve into that. Overall, what is working in this alpha build is basic browsing, new tabs, simple tab dragging, search from URL bar, incognito mode and full page zoom.

What is lacking for now?

In short, it is still lacking a whole great list of things. There is no flash support, means you won’t be able to watch any videos on Youtube, no printing, no complex text support, no complex tab dragging (pulling the tab out of the browser window), you can’t change the homepage, little or almost no configuration options in the Options page and many other features that are only partially implemented.

One thing that I also noticed is that the font rendering in Google Chrome is still not up to par with Firefox. In addition, the UI still needs some polishing to make full of the GTK+ theme.

Should you install?

Google has make it clear that this is still an alpha release and should be installed by developers only. I am not a developer, but I am already enjoying the benefits of its speed. For basic browsing (checking mail, reading articles, performing searches in search engines), Google Chrome can do its job well, but for anything that is more complex, you will have to fall back to your native browser. There is no harm in installing it and trying it out for yourselves, I am already using it as my default browser. For complex stuff, I guess I’ll have to stick with Firefox.

Don’t forget that this is only the Linux version. My colleague, Jeffry, will be reviewing its Mac counterpart. Watch out for his article. Will it be better or worse? Find out soon.

What do you think about this alpha release? Did Google do the right thing by releasing such a raw version of their browser? Are you satisfied with it? Let it all out in the comments!

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As user opinions sally back and forth about browser preferences, one thing is not open to question. Firefox is definitely more expandable and customizable than all others out there (Don’t they call it the Swiss Army knife for the web).

But if you like the Chrome’s agility then there are ways to make it more versatile. We at MakeUseOf.com have gone over quite a lot of ground with the Chrome. You can read about some tips and tricks here and here.

Here are some more ways to reach under the hood and exploit some handy Chrome features.

1. Make Chrome’s consume less memory

By default, Chrome is a multi-process browser. Yawn! What’s that? Simply, it means that each tab runs as a separate process asking for separate resources from the computer. The current working tab gets the most priority over the others. This was intentionally designed to make web apps run faster in Chrome. This feature makes the browser zippier and more stable even with multiple open tabs.

But if you aren’t a heavy user and use the browser to surf only a single site at a time then disabling multiple processes can free up some CPU resources. To handle each web process Chrome has three settings –

–process-per-tab
The default mode; each tab gets an independent process of its own. This increases the rendering of webpages and makes the browser stable as each tab is a separate process from the rest. But it also consumes memory.

–process-per-site
One process for each unique website; for instance a user with two tabs open for Gmail and another for MakeUseOf will have the two Google tabs running under the same process.

–single-process
The simplest mode; all tabs run in a single process, much like the other browsers we have now. This setting frees up memory for other applications. This is what we are looking for.

Create a shortcut for Chrome. Open the Properties tab. Edit the Target field as shown in the picture by appending –single-process to the path.



Similarly you can create two more shortcuts for the other two processes to handle your web sessions in three ways.

2. Manage tabs with the Task Manager

This is an offshoot of Google Chrome’s multi-process nature which allows each tab to run separate from the other. This allows us to manage, reload or shut down each tab without affecting the rest of our browsing. All this can be done through the Task Manager. Press Shift and Escape to start the task manager or right click on the blue top bar. An unresponsive tab can be shut down without bringing down the browser by a simple press of the End process button.



3. Some stats for nerds

There is a simple way to tell which browser is using the most resources on your computer. Chrome’s task manager lets you examine the memory use of the opened browsers on your computer irrespective of make. Open task manager and click on the ‘Stats for nerds’ link at the bottom. A new tab opens with detailed memory info for all running browsers. The second part of the page also describes Chrome’s process usage stats.



4. Some more stats on the Resources page

More for site administrators than for you and me but the resources page has a ton of info to offer. To track the resources used by a web page – right click inside the page. Select Inspect element – go to the Resources tab and reload the web page. You can view a list of images, scripts and objects from the web page and you can sort them by size or by loading time.



5. Drag to resize any text box

Do you feel that the size of a text box on any website is not worthy of your thoughts…then just place your mouse on the bottom right edge and drag to increase the size. Give MakeUseOf.com’s comment box the first drag.



6. Split Chrome into double-pane view

This bookmarklet from Chromeplugins.org is incredibly useful. The dual view feature is useful when you want to compare two websites or search results side by side. Drag the Chrome Split Browser bookmarklet into your bookmarks toolbar. When you click the bookmarklet, it asks you to choose the two websites you want and displays them in a double pane.



7. Startup with multiple pages

On launch, Chrome opens up with the ‘Most visited’ area. But it also lets us set options for starting the day by opening our most favored sites in several tabs at once. Click on the wrench icon (Customize and control Chrome) on the top right corner. Under Options – Basic tab we can add the pages we want to open on startup.



8. Drag and drop downloads from Chrome

After finishing a download, you can copy it to the desktop or to any other folder by a simple drag and drop directly from Google Chrome.

Did I miss any of your favorite tips or tricks? Let us know in the comments and lets help each other create a more sleek Chrome experience.

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Chrome is only getting better – rolling out more features, making existing features work even better, and generally getting faster and awesome-er.

Here are the six reasons that ultimately lead me to checking that “make Chrome my default browser” button:

(1) One Tab, One Process

My biggest issue with Firefox was always that it’s a memory hog. Leave it open overnight, and suddenly it’s taking up 400MB of RAM. That’s a lot of RAM. The only solution would be to close Firefox, and restart it – either losing all my tabs, or waiting approximately 19.5 hours for them all to open again.

Chrome’s better – each individual tab runs as its own process in Windows Explorer. There’s a task manager within Chrome that lets you see which, if any, tabs are using tons of memory, and close just that one. Similarly, if a tab crashes, you’ll be able to just close that one tab, rather than having to close Firefox entirely. With Chrome, browsers don’t crash: pages do. That’s a huge plus.

(2) One Box, Many Searches

With the address bar in Chrome, you can do a ridiculous number of things: search your history, do site-specific search (by typing a domain and then Tab), search Google, or get suggestions based on your browsing history. To search just about anything within Chrome, type Control+L and then whatever you’re looking for. Chrome’ll find it.

(3) Better Downloader

Firefox’s native download manager is awful – it’s a new window, doesn’t make finding documents easy, and does a bad job of showing you what’s downloading without lots of hunting. In Chrome, when you start a download, it just starts. There’s a status bar at the bottom of the page, and you can easily click to open the file, or right-click to do a number of other things with it. Though there are Firefox extensions to mirror the functionality Chrome has, I’d rather have it native – plus, Chrome’s is better anyway.

(4) The New Tab Page

Every time you open a new Tab in Chrome, you’re presented with a page full of possibilities. There’s a list of recently-closed tabs, in case you closed one by accident. There’s a box to search your history, in case you forgot the site you want to get back to. There’s a list of recent bookmarks, for some reason that I never really figured out. And, best of all, there’s a list of sites you visit most – easy access to your top 9 sites is pretty great – not to mention sad that addictinggames.com makes my list.

But that’s beside the point. There’s a ton you can do quickly and easily, right from the second you open a new tab in Chrome. Again, there are Firefox extensions that do some of these things, and the new build of Firefox promises a similar new tab page, but I’ll stick with Chrome.

(5) Application Shortcuts

Ultimately, this was the feature that sold me on Chrome: the ability to turn single sites into standalone applications. Now Gmail, Google Calendar, and Remember the Milk each have their own application that can be launched from the desktop, lives in its own window without a nav-bar, and looks and feels just like a desktop app. Click on a link, and you’re taken to a new tab in Chrome, so your page always stays open. That, plus Chrome’s great use of Google Gears, means your calendar, email, tasks and more can be available online and off as desktop apps.

(6) Tab Around

This one’s not as big a deal as the others, but I think it’s pretty fantastic: Tabs are incredibly easy to manipulate in Chrome. You can pull a tab out to make it its own window, or pull one back in to consolidate your browsing. You can even – I just discovered this – drag a Firefox tab into Chrome and it’ll load right there! If you’re reading this in Firefox, try it. I’ll wait.

Awesome, right? All over Chrome, tabs are easy to move around, open and close, and they live at the top of the page which makes them even easier to find and use.

To put it simply, Chrome is faster and smarter than Firefox. I liked Firefox a lot, but Chrome seems to get how I intuitively want to use a browser. I can’t switch permanently until Chrome has extensions, or at least functional Greasemonkey support; for my regular browsing, though, Chrome’s the clear winner.

What’s your browser of choice? Why?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Too Dramatic, was it ?

Well, the reason that I’m being so dramatic is that the feature that Google has released this time is one that I’ve been personally waiting for ages and definitely deserves this attention.

The big deal is that you can now access and use Gmail offline, that is without Internet connection. Obviously, you will not be able to send any emails while you’re offline, but atleast you can read them, and any emails that you send during this time will be queued up and delivered the moment you get back online. Anyway you look at it, this is an incredible feature to have.

To be able to access Gmail account offline, you’ll need to first download and install Google Gears. If you’re using Google’s Chrome browser, though, you can relax since Chrome comes with Gears installed by default.

After you have Gears installed, just go to Settings->Labs and enable the Offline feature.

Gmail should now reload and you will see a new link titled “Offline” right next to the “Settings” link in the top right corner of the Gmail window.

Click on Offline and Google Gears will throw a warning at you that some website named http://mail.google.com is trying to access Gears. Since I was quite sure that it’d harmless, I let the website access Gears and you should probably do the same.

At this point, Gmail will begin downloading what it thinks are the most important emails to you. I’m saying “what it thinks” because the Gmail team has a pretty nifty algorithm to determine the emails that it downloads. For me that figure came to “about 3 years” worth of my emails and you might get a different figure, depending on the amount of email that you get.

At any rate, Gears will download about 10000 of your latest emails, not counting the Trash and Spam folder so this should be enough for most of us.

Depending on the speed of your link, this actual process of downloading and syncing emails might take a while and this is probably a good time to have a cup of coffee (or a mug of beer, if that’s what you prefer).

Gears will also offer to create a shortcut for Gmail on the desktop. With this shortcut, you can login Gmail in offline mode right from your desktop.

The Offline Gmail feature also includes a very cool Flaky Connection Mode. In this mode, you can continue using Gmail as you normally would and Gmail will automatically determine if you are online or offline, without the user ever knowing about it.

If you send any emails in this mode and you’re offline, Gmail will keep them in the outbox and send them as soon as you come back online, and you’ll never even come to know about your connection status. In my opinion, you should always keep this option checked. To enable the flaky connection mode, click on the Offline Gmail icon next to the Settings link.

This is without any doubt, one of the best things to happen to webmail. With our ever increasing dependence on services based “in the cloud”, the Gmail team has taken the lead in letting the users have access to their data, whether they’re connected to the cloud or not. This, in my opinion, can only be a good thing.

Do you think you ever going to use Gmail in offline mode? Let us know what you guys think of this new feature in the comments.

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The line came to my mind when I came across the nifty ‘Incognito mode’ in Google Chrome. The incognito mode gives us a way to stealthily and sneakily wade through the web. For those who have come in late, this is what Google says about the incognito mode…

Webpage’s that you open and files downloaded while you are incognito won’t be logged in your browsing and download histories; all new cookies are deleted after you close the incognito window. You can browse normally and in incognito mode at the same time by using separate windows.

In spite of its cool quotient, what is missing for a lot of us is a way to launch the browser in incognito mode by default. The solution is not too far to seek as Google provides a command line switch which we can use.

So, how to start Google Chrome in Incognito Mode

1. Place a Google Chrome shortcut on the desktop (or any other desired location).

   

2. Rename the shortcut to any convenient name like – Private Chrome.
3. Right click on the shortcut and select ‘Properties’.
   
4. On the ‘Target’ field add an –incognito to the end of program path. (Note: Make sure there is a space between the last apostrophe and the dash)

   

5. Your incognito browser is now ready for launch. If you select ‘New Window’ from settings, you will get a normal non-incognito chrome window.

The incognito mode has its uses in public browsing where we don’t want to leave behind a trace of our activities. Among its other off hand uses is that it allows us to open different account sessions for the same website. For instance I can open two different talk sessions of Gmail Chat, one through the normal browser window and the other through the incognito one. This possibility extends to other web services too where one has two different accounts.

Did you find this simple tip useful? Any special reason you would want to launch Google Chrome in Incognito Mode by defualt? Let us know in the comments.

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A little while ago, Google announced the removal of the “Beta” tag from their brand new browser. Now, I have heard speculation that this is due to the fact that computer manufacturers won’t bundle software with “Beta” hanging around its neck. Normally Google applications stay in Beta for a very long time (see: Gmail), but after only a few months, Chrome is out in the wild with no reservations.  

While this may be more of a marketing stunt than anything else, a “Gold” version of Chrome (that’s ironic!) must now assume the same responsibilities of the other browsers that have taken off their training wheels. Note that in this list I’m excluding most (but not all) of the things Google has explicitly promised to fix. These are in NO particular order.

1.  More Extensive Options

To be honest, Chrome has fewer options than most of the freeware I review regularly. Essentially, Google has eliminated all but those options that are absolutely necessary, probably in order to see if any of the common options are actually unnecessary. Here are the areas I’d like to see enhanced or simply restored:

• Allow users to set preferred media associations. In other words, restore the functionality of the “Applications” tab in Firefox options which allows the user to choose which plug-ins or programs handle certain types of media.
• Add in options for better tab management (discussed later in this article).
• Basic history controls (like how long to keep user history) would be nice. All the history controls have been made separate in the form of a “History Tab,” but it’s been oversimplified.

I will note that Chrome made it very easy for me to compare Firefox’s options to its own, because the Chrome options box does not disable use of the main browser window. Definitely a nice touch.

2. Compatability Mode

For a very long time, Firefox was plagued by websites that would only allow Internet Explorer (IE) usage. While this is still an issue, many secure or proprietary websites have begun to develop their sites so that they work with Firefox too.  

Chrome is, in this sense, the new Firefox.  There are already a large number of users who are running Chrome as their primary browser (and more will follow if Google begins making deals to bundle it into new PCs), but there is no easy way to work around browser incompatability.

Firefox users fixed incompatability by emulating IE with an extension called IE Tab.  Essentually, IE Tab ran Internet Explorer inside of Firefox though a function called “Chrome” (no relation to the subject of today’s article, as far as I’m aware).  While this worked for almost every instance, it seems that a superior solution could be built into Chrome (the browser) itself.  

Why not give users the option to render the page using either their installed copies of IE or Firefox, in addition to Chrome?  For the less experienced users who choose Chrome for its simplicity, this will remove one more headache whenever they try to access arcanely designed websites.  This is the kind of thing my mom needs, even though she might not understand why.

3.  Please Fix Flash!

Seriously!  Flash is one of the most pervasive web components out there.  While several browsers seem to be having problems with Flash at the moment, my experience with Chrome has been the worst.  Separating the plug-in from the browser’s primary process is quite a blessing sometimes, but it also crashes all the time.  When Flash crashes on Chrome it kills all the Flash elements on every page.  It can be very aggravating to lose idle Flash games or buffering videos.

There are some proposed fixes out there, but most of them are of the “uninstall, reinstall” kind and none have worked for me so far.

4.  Better Tab Management

If you’re at all like me, you have no less than 15 tabs open at any one time.  This is because there are just so many gosh-darn cool things on the internet and tabs are a great way to store all the things you want to read later.  Unfortunately, keeping tabs open requires memory (especially if they have a lot of Flash or Java elements), so it’s terrible for your performance.  Chrome has done an excellent job of minimizing RAM leaks and separating each tab into its own process.  If one tab freezes, the others will survive.

My grievance with Chrome’s tabs is the layout.  While I love how the tabs ARE the the browser’s upper boundary, the interface breaks when too many tabs are open at once.  The above image was taken with only 17 tabs open.  If as many as 30 are opened simultaneously, the icons dissappear altogether and each tab is identical to the others.  A simple solution to this would be to allow some of the tabs to fall off the edge of the screen and be accessable through an arrow button or mouse scrolling (as is done with Firefox).  This might break Google’s aesthetic, but I’d be happier as a user.

5.  Extension Support

Google has promised in the already mentioned blog post that an extension platform is on its way.  Awesome.  I have just three requests for Google:

• Call them “Extensions” – not Add-ons, Plug-ins, Widgets, or Tools.
• Cater to the people who are already making high quality extensions for Firefox – make it easy for them to port their projects over to Chrome.
• Take extensions to the next level.  Whether it’s a great developer pack or better integration with Google Docs, I feel like there is still new ground to plow in this field.

6.  Built-in RSS Support

Almost all browsers now offer some kind of auto-detection for a site’s RSS feeds.  Flock did the best job in my opinion.  For some reason, Chrome has NO features related to RSS.  

Image from Vox Daily

What needs to happen is for Chrome to “notice” whenever a site has a general RSS feed and notify the user, either with a distinct icon or a simple option to open that feed.  If they wanted to include Google Reader integration, I wouldn’t complain.

7.  Little Things and Beta Bugginess

Aside from these major topics, there are quite a few “little things” that have been bothering me in the last month or so.  Some of these are things I really liked about Flock/Firefox and wish they were also in Chrome.  Some are bothersome things that can be chalked up to the fact that this is still basically Beta software, no matter what Google calls it.

• Switching from tab to tab has been slow for me.  Often the tab I switch to is blank for quite some time before the page loads (this is after the page has already loaded previously).
• There is no “View image properties” option in the right-click contextual menu.  There is an “Inspect element” option, but it doesn’t really serve the same purpose as well.
• An extension called CoLT allows you to choose between copying the text of a link, the location (or URL) of a link, or both in a specific format.  This is perfect for transporting inserting links into blogs, microblogs, and emails.  I’d love to see this added natively to Chrome.
• I’d love to see spullsheck spellcheck built-in.

Got Chrome gripes of your own? Post your own issues in the comments.

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No, not really! But during this stressful pre-holiday season I thought it would be a good idea to spread some laughter.

Since Google is a source for quite a bit of entertainment, I compiled a list of the coolest Google treasures. Here are April Fool’s Day jokes, Easter Eggs, bombs and more in no particular order:

1. Search Google with MentalPlex

Of course this was an April Fool’s Day joke.

2. Search better with Google Gulp

This beta beverage will quench your thirst for knowledge!

It comes in four different flavors: Glutamate Grape, Sugar-Free Radical, Beta Carroty and Sero-Tonic Water.

Since the Google search algorithm cannot be improved, Google released this series of fruity and refreshing smart drinks with auto-drink technology. They are designed to maximize its users surfing experience by making them more intelligent and less thirsty.

Yes, this was an April Fool’s Day joke as well.

3. Search Google for Once in a Blue Moon

Google’s got humor. This is a classic calculator Easter Egg.

4. Search Google for the Answer to Life the Universe and Everything

Even funnier, Google calculates MUCH faster than Deep Thought.

5. Search Google for the Number of Horns on a Unicorn

Now what I would like to know is how many unicorns are there on Earth? Unfortunately, Google doesn’t calculate THAT.

6. Look at Googleplex Charleston Road in street view mode.

Google employees organized their 15 minutes of fame. Browse around the area for more sights.

7. Look at Sampsonia Way in Pittsburgh in street view mode.

This street view was created in cooperation with Google for the Street With A View project.

8. Type about:internets into Google Chrome’s address bar

This will only work with Windows XP as Google Chrome launches the pipes screensaver inside the tab.

The following commands will also work for other operating systems:
about:stats
about:memory
about:network
about:histograms
about:dns
about:cache
about:plugins
about:version

9. Click [CTRL] + [ALT] + [A] in Google Earth to launch a Flight Simulator

Google has released the full keyboard controls for the Flight Simulator here.

10. Type “french military victories” into the search field and click “I’m feeling lucky“

This is a Google bomb where the creator of the above seen results page takes advantage of Google’s ranking system.

Sadly, the well-known Google bombs Failure and Chuck Norris don’t seem to work anymore. And Google also fixed its translator. But there are still lots of hilarious Google-related out there, see what we got for Google on MakeUseOf Geeky Fun.

Do you know of any other Google hidden treasures and easter eggs?

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It is revolutionary because they simplified it.

They stripped the User Interface down to its bare essentials; made it snappier, more efficient and sophisticated on the inside; then delivered it to the public. And we love it. When I say “we”, I actually mean “they”. That’s because I use a Mac and Google hasn’t quite got the OS X version of Chrome up to speed yet. However, all Mac users can rest assured that they are working on it.

So as usual, Mac users will have to wait it out while everyone else on Windows enjoy their new toy. Luckily, a small group of developers came up with an imitation of Chrome, a Chrome-sque browser if you will, for OS X.

Although it is merely a technological demo, there are 3 words I can utter about Stainless. It has potential – and I’m not the only one who shares this opinion. Most of us who have taken Stainless for a ride will agree that it is quite usable, considering that it is still in its very early stages of development. I’m guessing that it is because it is inspired by Chrome, it is a fair bit more stable, quicker and simpler to use – and that appeals to most people who are stuck with the productivity-driven mindset of “Do more with less time”.

So how does Stainless compare to Chrome? I have no idea. I refuse to run Chrome on Windows or try Crossover Chromium. I want to maintain that purity of excitement and amazement when I run Chrome of OS X for the first time after Google is ready to dish it to us. For the time being, Stainless is the furthest I will ever get to Chrome.

From the screenshots, I assume that Stainless looks a bit like Chrome. It has a very simple user interface: separate address bars for each tab, forward/back/refresh buttons and a New Tab plus (+) sign. Like Chrome, it also comes with its own Process Manager and because it is a multi-process browser, that means each separate browser tab is actually an individual process (not a collective one like Safari, for instance). If a particular tab is irresponsive, you can close that tab without affecting others. This also means that performance is increased since each browser tab is processed separately.

Surfing is noticeably more responsive and quicker. The whole browser ‘feels’ lighter than Safari, definitely. There is also an option to open a Private Browsing Window where no history, cache or other information are stored. Personally, I don’t see the point of the private browsing mode for the time being – I don’t think Stainless stores browsing history just yet! It doesn’t even have a bookmark manager and it isn’t integrated with Keychain so usernames and passwords aren’t stored.

Overall, Stainless has managed to impress me, even if it is only a demo. I can’t even begin to fathom what Google Chrome on OS X is capable of.

If you want to take Stainless for a spin, you can download it here. Take note, it is for Leopard only. For those of you who have actually used Chrome, let me know how Stainless compares. I can only read your experiences since I want to keep myself a Chrome-virgin.

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1. Create and Backup Multiple profiles

When you type in the omnibox, Google Chrome is capable of digging up your history and show a list of suggestions that is closest to your search. Now, if you are those who like to frequent ‘naughty’ sites, what would happen if someone (hopefully not your wife) types in a search term and all your ‘mischief’ acts are instantly displayed in a well-organized list? I am sure that is the last thing that you want to happen.

Rather than switching to incognito mode all the time, an easy way out is to create multiple profiles for everyone that uses the browser. In such cases, you can keep all your stuff (and maybe privacy) personal and avoid those embarrassing moments.

Google Chrome Backup is a small application that allows you to easily create multiple profiles with a few mouse clicks.

Creating a new profile is as easy as clicking on the ‘New Profile’ button, enter the profile name and specify the location to save the new profile.

To backup your profile, simply right-click on the profile and select “Backup Profile”. In the event that your system crashes, you can also restore it back to your original setting.

2. Install Greasemonkey

Firefox users will know how useful Greasemonkey is. The good thing is, with a simple tweak, you can also get Greasemonkey to work in Google Chrome.

In your Google Chrome, press Ctrl + B to show your bookmark bar (if it’s hidden). Drag this Monkey bookmarklet to the bookmark bar.

Now, go to Userscripts.org and select the scripts that you want to install. On the installation page (the page with the button “Install the script”), click on the Monkey bookmarklet. This will convert the script to Chrome compatible script. Now drag the “Install the script” button to your Chrome bookmark bar. That’s it! (This trick will only on certain scripts. Scripts that contain specific functions like pre-fill comments, reload page etc will not work.)

Another way to get Greasemonkey to work in Chrome is to install Greasemetal, a userscript runtime for Chrome. To get the Greasemonkey scripts to work, you will need to download and save the scripts to the “userjs” folder in “My Documents” and run Chrome with Greasemetal.

Somehow, I find that the Monkey bookmarklet method is more user-friendly than the Greasemetal way. You can try out both and let me know which one you prefer.

3. Increase the Number of Omnibox Suggestions

By default, Chrome shows 5 URL suggestions when you type in the omnibox. If you want it to show more/less suggestions, you can change it via the “omnibox-popup-count=” command line switch.

In Windows, right click on the Chrome shortcut icon and select Properties. In the Target field, add the command line switch “-omnibox-popup-count=10″ (without the quote) to the end of the command. Change the number to your preferred number of suggestions that you want Chrome to show.

4. Change the Theme

So you wanted to dress up your Chrome but can’t find the button to change the theme? Google Chrome does not allow you to change the theme by default, but a simple tweak should get this done easily.

Download a Chrome theme of your liking.

Extract the “default.dll” file.

Navigate to your Chrome installation directory (for Vista: C:\Users\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data, for XP: C:\Documents and Settings\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data and go to /Application/Chrome version/Themes folder. The “Chrome version” folder will be in the form of 0.2.149.29 (The number will vary according to the version of Chrome that you installed). Replace the “default.dll” file in the folder with the “default.dll” file that you have just downloaded.

Restart your Chrome. You should see it dressed up in the new theme now.

(If you find the above steps too complicated, or you need an application to manage your themes, you can download the application XChrome and change the theme from a nicely designed GUI.)

5. Stumbleupon without the Toolbar

In Firefox, I used Stumbleupon to get new article ideas and to keep myself informed of interesting stuff. With this simple tweak, you can get Stumbleupon to work in Chrome as well.

Right click on the bookmark bar and select “Add page”.

Name the new bookmark Stumble! and place the following code in the URL field: javascript:window.location.href = 'http://www.stumbleupon.com/demo/#url';

Now, everytime you want to stumble a site, just click the Stumble! bookmarklet and the Stumbleupon toolbar will appear.

To submit a review to Stumbleupon, create another bookmark and name it “Review for Stumble“. In the URL field, copy and paste the following code: javascript:window.location.href = 'http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url=' + document.location;

Whenever you come across a page and wanted to submit a review to Stumbleupon, simply click on the “Review for Stumble” bookmark and it will bring you to the SU review page.

6. Preview RSS feed in Google Chrome

One feature sorely missed by many in Google Chrome is the ability to preview and subscribe to a RSS feed. To tackle this issue, RAMisp.org has written a script that allows you to preview and subscribe to a site’s RSS feed in Google Chrome.

• In your Chrome, go to http://feeds.ramisp.org
• Drag the “Auto-Detect RSS” link to your bookmark bar.

Now, whenever you want to preview a site RSS feed, simply click on the “Auto detect RSS” bookmark and you will see the preview of the feed on the RAMisp site. You can also subscribe to the feed via Google, Yahoo, or Netibes.

7. Customize your Own Shortcut Keys

Google Chrome comes with a set of useful shortcut keys, but if you want more of it, you can make use of Autohotkey to create your own shortcut keys.

Download Autohotkey from http://www.autohotkey.com/download/

Install it in your Windows.

Check out HowTo Tuts for some ready-made shortcut key scripts for Chrome.

Save the “.ahk” scripts to your system. Double click the “.ahk” scripts to activate the shortcut keys.

Open your Chrome, you should now be able to use your custom shortcut keys in the Chrome.

Some of the ready-made shortcut key scripts found in “HowTo Tuts” include:

• Win+a or F1 Switch to previous tab
• Win+s or F2 Switch to next tab
• Win+z Go back
• Win+x Go forward
• Win+c or F4 Close current tab
• Win+v Paste and go
• Win+Alt+v Paste and go in a new tab
• ctrl+z or F12 Undo last tab
• CAPS Switch to Chrome and create a new tab (If Chrome isn’t already running, it opens Chrome first)
• Scroll mouse wheel on the tab bar switches to previous and next tabs
• Ctrl+Shift+T to post to Twitter (automatically tinyurls the current page)
• Ctrl+Shift+D or Ctrl+Shift+B to bookmark to Delicious

Which one is your favorite hack? Do you know of any other Google Chrome hacks? Let us know in the comments.

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I’m running a Mac, so I’ll be talking only about the Mac version here, but I would guess the Linux version can’t be too different.

When you start it up for the first time it takes 2-3 minutes to initialize itself and then you’re presented with the main Chrome window. It appears to function exactly like the Windows version, if not a touch clunkier. Now keep in mind it is just the Windows version, running on your Mac or Linux machine thanks to Wine and so it looks very much like a Windows app. Just take a look at some of the menus.

It seems to load pages just about as fast as it does on Windows, although I haven’t done any scientific testing.

You can also do some of the funky things that Chrome does on Windows, like pull tabs out of the browser to create new windows…

… and create application shortcuts, although after creating the shortcut, I couldn’t find where Cross Over Chromium put it.

Code Weavers says you are not meant to use this as your main browser and I would agree, but if you’re a Mac or Linux user and are just dying to try out Chrome, then this might be for you.

Are you desperate enough to get Chrome on your Mac/Linux machine that you’d use this? Or is Chrome all just a bunch of hype?

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As I have mentioned in my previous article about Chrome, every installation of Chrome receives a unique ID number, which is submitted to Google, for example when the browser is updated or when the program crashes. In order to present personalized suggestions while the user is typing into the Omnibox, Google relies on an outside database. To feed the database and make these personalized suggestions possible, all entries are logged in combination with the user’s IP address.

Although Google claims that the ID and logs from the Omnibox are stored anonymously and are not being used to create user profiles that may reveal browsing habits and personal interests, doubts remain. As a matter of fact, users do not have any control over what the gathered information is really being used for. Trust is good, control is better.

Here are three things you can do, to gain more privacy when working with Chrome.

I. Change your default search engine

Go to >Customize and control Google Chrome >Options >Basics tab and select another search engine under >Default search.

II. Disable the suggestion service

Next to the >Default search engine click the >Manage button. In the Search Engines window uncheck the box at the bottom of the list that says “Use a suggestion service to help complete searches and URLs typed in the address bar”.

As you may see in the screenshot above, Chrome has imported all my search engines from Firefox.

III. Remove the unique browser ID

There are two ways. Either you do it manually or you use a tool. Tech Yard has a thorough walk through on changing the ID manually, and preventing Chrome from re-assigning an ID later on. Tech Yard also recommends the tool Google Chrome Anonymizer, which provides a new exe file to be used to launch Chrome to create an anonymous session.

Alternatively, you can use UnChrome from Abelssoft. However, the tool is only available in German at this point. Since the file path in both XP and Vista is definitely different compared to the English version of the operating system, it may not work.

Latest news has it that Google now wants to save the user IP for only 24 hours.

On a different note you should know Google has released a new version of Chrome to fix at least two security holes. If you see version 0.2.149.29 in the About section, the update was installed successfully – automatically and without you knowing. Very comfortable. Again this is taking responsibility and control away from the user, which can be both a good and a bad thing. I remain sceptical. How about you?

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Last week Tina wrote an excellent article highlighting key features of this new web browser. If you haven’t read it yet, make sure to check it out.

When compared to the browser of choice, Chrome does offer a few new features like in-built browser task manager, tab processes, incognito browsing, different tab positioning, faster JavaScript engine and so on. On the other hand there is no community behind it and absolutely NO EXTENSIONS.

Now that you have tried it, what do YOU think about it?

Please vote!

Share your thoughts in comments. Are you planning to switch? Why? Why not? Let us know about it.

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I’m sure you have heard a lot about Google Chrome already. If you haven’t tried it yet, keep reading because I have tried it for you, and I will summarize everything you should be aware of.

Alright, did we really need another browser?
Maybe. Google’s approach was to analyze existing technology and then make it better. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

The comic strip that introduces the ideas and technology behind the browser states that developers started from scratch. The point was to create a browser compatible with the internet of today, rather than that of decades ago, when browsers were invented.

Again, Google did not re-invent the wheel, but it may be pushing it forward a great deal.

Cool, so how is it better?
Chrome comes with a lot of promises: stability, speed, security, efficiency, and open source. Frankly, those aren’t new. Neither is most of the technology Google applies. But the combination they chose is very powerful. Let’s have a quick look at the (superficial) technical details:

1. Multiple Processes
Each tab is treated as a single process within Chrome, much like programs within an operating system. Hence you can continue working at full capacity while a busy website in one tab recovers. Should the tab freeze or crash, it’s an isolated event that doesn’t affect any of the other tabs, or the browser as a whole.

2. Task Manager
Chrome has its own Task manager accessible via >Control >Developer or [Shift] + [Esc]. The Task manager reveals which tabs or plugins are running and what they’re doing. If a process is taking up too much memory, you can close it via that Task manager.

3. Webkit
Google applied the rendering engine Webkit (Safari) rather than Gecko (Mozilla).

4. V8 Javascript Virtual Machine
For Chrome, Google developed their own virtual machine.

5. Tab Design
The tabs sit at the top of the browser window, thus all the controls below, including the “URL box” (Omnibox), are individual for each tab.

6. Omnibox
When you start typing into the box, it will suggest links based on what sites you have visited before or what’s popular on Google. You can enter both URLs and search terms, the latter will launch a Google search per default. You can select another search engine under >Customize and control >Options >Basics.

7. New Tab Page
When you open a new tab, it won’t be blank. New tabs show the most visited sites and the pages you search on most.

8. Incognito Surfing
When opening an incognito window, Chrome switches to privacy or read-only mode. No history or cookies will be saved.

9. Sandboxing
Chrome rigorously restricts the rights of processes running in each tab. Each tab acts as a jail within which applications can compute, but they can not write or read files outside the tab.

10. Phishing Protection
With its computing power Google collects lists of harmful websites, so it can warn its users as soon as possible in case they’re about to access such a page.

11. Open Source
All of these “inventions” are free to copy.

Benchmarks show that Chrome is considerably faster than any other popular browser on the market right now, including Firefox 3.0.1 and IE 8.0 Beta 2.

Sounds great. Now spill the beans! What about issues?
They sure exist. After the first majorly excited hype, criticism emerges from all ends.

1. Bugs
As Apple’s Safari browser, Chrome is based on Webkit. While Safari was shipped with the latest release of Webkit in June, Chrome is still using the previous version. And believe it or not, Chrome was released with a security hole that was well known and fixed in Safari months ago. Embarrassing. Did Google feel pressured to release Chrome quickly or why did that happen?

2. Security
Even though everything inside Chrome is sandboxed, scripts can be annoying. However, in Chrome there is no way to turn Java and Javascript off or allow only specific websites to use it.

3. Stability
It’s not as stable as they claim. Already, websites are poking out that prove how easily the whole browser can be crashed, like this one (don’t worry, this link can be visited safely). It’s enough to move the cursor over the demo link and the browser will crash. Scary. How is this possible? The site explains it.

But try to click the link inside Firefox, all you will see is a harmless popup explaining that Firefox doesn’t know how to open this address.

4. Extensions
They don’t exist. Yet. And personally, I find many of my Firefox extensions indispensable. Ok, I don’t expect Chrome to import them, but there needs to be compensation. At least it’s possible to restore a previous session and it doesn’t matter whether Chrome crashed or was shut down normally. There is some customization possible under >Customize and control >Options >Basics.

5. Privacy
And here we have arrived at the one issue Google is not going to fix because it’s not in their interest. The question is, how much do you care? Does it bother you that the user agreement gives them ownership to anything you create or upload through their browser? OK, apparently that part simply slipped through and will be removed.

But there is more. Each browser installation receives a unique identification number, hence single users can easily be identified. Of course Google saves all your browsing habits in order to give good recommendations. Based on that information, Google will certainly tune its ads to perfectly match your interests. Are you still not bothered or are you that ignorant?

Whoa! Ok fine, call me ignorant, but what’s your conclusion to all of this?
It’s the very first release of Chrome, it’s in beta. They will probably find many more bugs, it’s normal. And Google will try to play nice on the privacy issue. Maybe they mean it, maybe not. Nevertheless, Google did a very thorough and probably a pretty good job. The marketing and time point they chose certainly is ingenious.

But honestly, their claim that they have built a browser to make the internet a whole lot better, I don’t buy it. They have built a browser to improve the user experience within the part of the internet they are owning, at least in the long run. However, as long as Chrome remains Open Source, I’m not seriously scared that Google will become evil and limit access to their applications depending on what browser you are using, i.e. turning to the sort of tactics Microsoft is often accused of.

I found an interesting post exploring the idea that Google’s Chrome is aimed at Windows, not IE (or Mozilla). With all that is happening inside the internet at the moment, I dare to mention it again: cloud computing, may well be true.

Taken together I recommend that you try Chrome. It’s cool, it’s different, it’s fast, and you should know what others are talking about. But switching? Not yet. Maybe not ever. What do you think?

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