Popular Web Browser: Ten Cool Google Chrome Tips and Tweaks

My guess is most people don't use Google's new Chrome Web browser as their primary browser yet. Google still has a long way to go with the browser adding features and fixing problems. Nevertheless, I've collected what I think are some of the most useful tips and the most interesting tweaks for the Chrome browser.


ONE: Surprisingly Handy Keyboard Shortcuts

Google Chrome offers some unique shortcuts that go beyond the typical CTRL + T for opening new browser tabs. Here is a link to all of Google Chrome keyboard shortcuts. And here three that I find unique, when compared to those offered by Firefox and IE.

CTRL + SHIFT + N automatically opens up a Chrome 'incognito' window which allows you to surf on a PC without leaving behind any digital footprints.

SHIFT + Escape allows for fast access to Chrome?s Task Manager utility that allows you to nix browser processes that have gone awry.

CTRL + SHIFT + T will open recently closed browser tabs.


TWO: Custom Searches

When you want to run a search directly from Google's address bar (a.k.a. Omnibox) just type a question mark (?) followed by a keyword. The default search engine is Google. To change the default search engine to anything you want go right-click inside the address bar and select "Edit search engines." You can choose from a predefined list, or create your own.

Here is how to create your own shortcut to search the site of your choice directly from Google Chrome's Omnibox.


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10 Amazing Google Earth Add-Ons, Do You Know?

Going about our daily lives, we give little thought to the thousands of satellites that zoom around above our heads, carrying our communications, transmitting television signals, and sometimes even taking our pictures. The openAPRS database tracks the current location of hundreds of satellites in Google Earth, grouping them into categories such as amateur radio, global positioning, weather, and even military satellites. You'll want to switch on only a few categories at once, however, as the skies above are astonishingly crowded.

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Google Chrome Web Browser - Despite some beta issues, Google's streamlined and speedy browser offers strong integrated search...............

Google takes aim squarely at Microsoft with the release of its new Web browser, Chrome. And Microsoft should be very afraid: Chrome lives up to its hype by rethinking the Web browser in clever and convenient ways that make using the Web a more organic experience than you'd get with either Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 or Mozilla's Firefox 3.



Initially available for download for Windows Vista and XP, Google plans to expand its Chrome offerings to the Mac and Linux platforms as well. The company doesn't offer any timeline for these versions, though. (For additional PCWorld.com coverage of Google's new browser, see "Chrome vs. the World" and "Google's Chrome: 7 Reasons for It and 7 Reasons Against It.")

Chrome automatically detects the Web browser you're using and prompts you through the process of installation (right down to telling you how to access downloaded files within Firefox, for example). When you first run the application, Chrome imports your bookmarks, passwords, and settings from Firefox or Internet Explorer. It even can grab username and password data, and it automatically populates those fields for you when you use Chrome for the first time to visit a particular site.

After running through a quick import checklist, Chrome opens on your desktop--and right away you begin to experience the Web in a new way. Chrome's layout is very simple: You'll see a row of tabs running along the top, a Web address bar, and a bookmarks bar that runs beneath the address bar. A separate recent bookmarks box appears at the right of the screen, as does a history search field.

Like its Google stablemates, Chrome has a remarkably minimalist interface. There is no full-scale menu bar and no title bar--and few distractions. All controls are buried beneath two icons to the right of the Omnibar (as Google refers to its address bar): a page icon for managing tabs and using Google Gears to create application-like shortcuts from your desktop to a Web site; and a wrench for history, downloads, and other browser options.

You can set your own home page, or you can use the 'most visited' sites page as your starting point. This page provides thumbnail images of your most frequently visited sites, shows recent bookmarks, and supplies a search field for searching your page history. You can change your default search engine, too: This option is located beneath the wrench icon, under Options .

Chrome's design bridges the gap between desktop and so-called "cloud computing." At the touch of a button, Chrome lets you make a desktop, Start menu, or QuickLaunch shortcut to any Web page or Web application, blurring the line between what's online and what's inside your PC. For example, I created a desktop shortcut for Google Maps. When you create a shortcut for a Web application, Chrome strips away all of the toolbars and tabs from the window, leaving you with something that feels much more like a desktop application than like a Web application or page. The lack of forward and back buttons means that if you browse between pages in a saved Web application you may find yourself a little confused if you want to go back a page. Chrome does let you right-click to navigate backward, however.

This being Google, search is an integral part of Chrome; and Google has added some clever features to make searching easier. Chrome goes beyond its Microsoft and Mozilla competition by searching your browser history's page titles as well page content. The history results show the title of the page, as well as a thumbnail representation of the page (for some sites but not all; it was unclear why some sites were visually represented while others were not), but it doesn't show the actual Web page address. The lack of URL information can make it difficult to identify the specific Web page you're going to, especially if the site's title bar description is not specific (because, say, different sections of the same site have identical title bar descriptors).

For example, earlier today I read an article on Macworld about an upcoming Apple launch event. To find the article in my browser history, I simply typed 'apple event' in the Omnibar. The resulting list showed every page I had visited that contained the phrase 'apple event'. Conveniently, the Omnibar lets you search not just your history, but Google and other sites as well.

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15 Must-Have Firefox Add-Ons - Improve your experience with Firefox using these terrific add-ons..........

Firefox 3 was released just this June, and many Firefox fans believe the new version is clearly the best browser you can get. You can make it even better with free add-ons, which integrate directly into the browser and offer loads of useful new features.

Want to increase your security and privacy, synchronize bookmarks among multiple PCs, dress up Firefox tabs, juice up Google, and more? Then I've got the add-ons you need. These 15 great downloads make the world's best browser even better--and, like Firefox itself, they're free.

Note: All the files in this story can be found in this Editor's Downloads Collection.

Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer

If you use Firefox on more than one PC, you most likely spend a lot of time trying to keep their bookmarks in synch, or else you've simply given up the attempt. Otherwise, every time you add, delete, or edit bookmarks on one PC, you have to remember to make the same changes on the others. Not a pretty picture.

The Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer solves the problem. Install this tool on each of your PCs, and then, with a click or two, you can synchronize any changes. In fact, you don't even need to click because you can set the program to synchronize automatically.

The utility offers other benefits as well. Your bookmarks are automatically backed up to a server, so if for some reason you lose them on your PCs, you can always restore them. You can also log into the Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer Web site and edit your bookmarks directly there. In addition, if you're using someone else's PC, you can use your bookmarks straight from the Foxmarks server.

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The battle of the browsers - The history and future of the Internet browser

With Internet Explorer 8 is available now, Microsoft can hope to retain dominance over violent open-source rivals such as Mozilla Firefox or the function packed Opera Web browser. Can history give us any idea what the future of Web browsers understandable hold? How did Netscape Navigator assume a dominant market share of 89.36% of all web browsers in 1996 and only 3.76% by mid-1999?

Let us a way to begin long before even the intellectual development of Internet Explorer, then look at his long defeated rival, the current browsers and ends with a prediction of what the future of the browser offers us - and the browser ( s) are still around to offer.

Most people think that Internet Explorer has been the dominant Web browser, because the golden age of the Internet began. Good for a very long time, it is indeed the most popular browsers, and occasionally almost unrivalled. This was mainly a consequence of this is packaged free with Microsoft Windows, in what some would later call a brutal attempt monopolized by Microsoft. The past few years, however, have announced the arrival of the new, potentially superior browsers. Mozilla Firefox has been particularly successful in chipping away at Explorer dominance. So where did it all begins, and why were always permitted by Microsoft, a wholly dominance?

Origins

The truth is, they never have total dominance, but sometimes they have come very close. Microsoft actually in the browser battle rather late. Infact a man named Neil Larson is credited as one of the originators of the Internet browser, when in 1977 he created a program - The TRS-80 - allows surfing between "sites" on hypertext jumps. This was a DOS program and the foundation of much to come. Slowly other browsers powered by DOS and inspired by the TRS 80 have been developed. Unfortunately, they were often constricted by the limitations of the still young Internet is based.

In 1988, Peter Scott and Earle Fogel created a simple, fast browser called Hytelnet, which in 1990 offered users instant notification and access to the online catalogue of more than five thousand libraries around the world - an exciting taste of what the Internet and Web browsers, would soon be able to offer.

In 1989 the original World Wide Web was born. With the help of a computer NeXT Cube, Tim Berners-Lee developed a web-browser would change how people used the Internet for ever. He called his browser's World (http://www. Commons, is still probably familiar to Internet users today. It was a browser capable of displaying simple stylesheet, capable of processing and Web sites can download , And open any file type supported by the NeXT Cube.

In 1993 the first popular graphical browser was released. His name was Mosaic and it was by Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina. Mosaic could on both Unix, and very importantly, the very popular Microsoft Windows operating system (Incidentally, it could also be used on the Amiga and Apple computers). It was the first browser on Windows could display the graphics / photos on a page, where there were textual content. It is often cited as responsible for triggering the Internet boom because the Internet makes it bearable for the masses. (It should be noted that the Web browser cello was the first browser for use on Windows - but it was not graphic and very little impact compared to Mosaic).

The browser war - against Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer

Mosaic decline began almost as soon as Netscape Navigator was released (1994). Netscape Navigator browser was created by Marc Andreessen, one of the men behind Mosaic and co-founder of Netscape Communications Corporation. Netscape was unrivalled in terms of features and usability at the time. For example, a substantial change from previous browsers was that it allows surfers to see parts of a website before the entire website. This meant that people do not have to wait to minutes just to see if the site they were loading it was an actual were after, while also allowing them to read information on the site as the rest of it downloaded will. With Netscape, 1996 nearly 90% market dominance, as shown below.

Comparisons market share of Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer from 1996 to 1998

.................... Netscape ....... IE
October 1998 .......... 64 %......... 32.2%
April 1998 ............ 70 %......... 22.7%
October 1997 .......... 59.67 %...... 15.13%
April 1997 ............ 81.13 %...... 12.13%
October 1996 .......... 80.45 %...... 12.18%
April 1996 ............ 89.36 %....... 3.76%

In these two years clearly Netscape dominated the Internet browser market, but a new browser called Internet Explorer has been quickly gaining ground.

Microsoft released its own browser (ironically on the basis of the earlier Mosaic browser was created by one of the men now Netscape), clearly concerned about the dominance of Netscape. It was not so much the fear that it would have a market share of 100% of Internet browser to its Windows operating system, but rather a concern that browser would soon be able to all types of programmes. That would mean foregoing the need for a specific operating system or at the most only a very basic one is required. This in turn would mean, Netscape would soon be in a position to dictate terms to Microsoft, and Microsoft were not going to let that happen easily. So in August 1995, Internet Explorer has been published.

By 1999 Internet Explorer had captured a 89.03% market share while Netscape was at 10.47%. How could make Internet Explorer so much ground in just two years? Now this was really on two things. The first and by far the most important was that Microsoft Internet Explorer bundled with every copy of Windows and Windows was used by about 90% of computers with the population, there was clearly a huge advantage. Internet Explorer had a different ACE he kept on Netscape - it was much better. Netscape Navigator was stagnant and has been for some time. The only new features it always seemed the introduction were often by the public as beneficial for Netscape's parent company instead of Netscape users. (This means that functions would help it monopoly on the market). Explorer, on the other hand, received much attention from Microsoft. Regular updates and high usability and a hundred million U.S. dollars investment would be too much for Netscape Explorer.

2000 - 2005

Those years were pretty quiet in the Battle of the browser. It seemed as if Internet Explorer had won the war, and that no one could even hope to compete with him. In 2002/2003, he had reached about 95% of market share - about the time of IE 5 / 6 With more than 1000 people working on it, and millions of dollars poured in, only a few people had the resources to compete. Then again, wanted to compete? It was clearly a volatile market, and also that all content with Internet Explorer. Or is it? Some people saw error with IE - security issues, incompatibility issues or just bad law. Not only that, it was shoved down peoples throats. There were almost no competition to keep it in line or on their own, as an alternative. Something had to change. The only people with the ability and the power to compete with Microsoft took matters into their own hands.

Netscape has now been supported by AOL. A few years before, just after they had lost the browser war to Microsoft, they had released the coding for Netscape in the public domain. This meant it could develop its own browser with the Netscape skeleton. And the people. Epiphany, Galeon and Camino, among others, were born, Netscape's ashes. But the two most popular newcomer called Mozilla and Firefox.

Mozilla was originally an open sourced project aimed at improving the Netscape browser. Eventually it was released as Netscape Navigator 7 and then 8th He was later released, such as Mozilla 1.0.

Mozilla was almost an early version of another open-source browser Firefox. It is an open source of the public were able to contribute to - and an additional what features they need, it is required, programming and the support it deserves. The problems that people saw in Internet Explorer have been rectified by members of the open-sourced Firefox browser community. For example, the many questions of security IE 6 had been almost completely resolved in the first version of Firefox. Microsoft had another battle in their hands.

2005 - present

Firefox, the browser grew and grew in those years. Every year, recording an even larger market share percentage than before. More user-friendly than most of its competitors with high safety standards and probably more intelligent programming helped his popularity. With such a large community programming behind it, updates have always been regular and add-on programs / functions are often released. He is proud of the peoples browser. It currently has a 28.38% market share.

Apple computers have their own browser since mid-1990's - Safari - complete with its own problems, such as (until recently) the inability to run Java scripts. But most Apple users seemed happy with him and a version of which is running on Windows has been released. It has no major competitors on Apple Macs, and as such has been largely from the browser war. It currently holds a 2.54% market share and is slowly increasing.

Internet Explorer's market share fell from 90% to around 75% and falling. It will be interesting to see what Microsoft will try to return such a high market share.

Opera currently holds 1.07%.

Mozilla itself has only a 0.6% market share in these days.

The future of Web browsing

Web browsers come and go. It is in the nature of the art (if such a term can be used) to replace inferior software in a very short time periods. It is almost impossible for a single company to stay ahead of the competition too long. Microsoft has the advantage that the release of the situation IE with any Windows PC. That covers over 90% of the market. They also have the advantage of unprecedented resources. You can compete as they like as long as they wish. So there is no counting IE from the future of Web browsing.

Safari is in a similar position, because they are easily the most popular Mac Web browser. His long-term survival is dependent on Apple and the sale of their computers.

These are the only two browsers, which are almost guaranteed another five years of life, at least. Firefox may be another candidate, but the public is fickle, and a poor product or, if it is seriously behind the new Internet Explorer 8 for long, could easily see his popularity fast descent into virtual oblivion.

But it seems likely, community driven browsers such as Mozilla and Firefox, the only type of browser, which compete with the rich Internet arm of Microsoft in the near future.

As for web browsing itself, it will change any time soon? Now it has already for some online communities. For instance, if you want to buy clothes, you might try an online entry of "world" to create a virtual online go to the shop to shop "with regard to products and try / buy what you see. Some "worlds" allow you to itself just as weight and height and try on clothing such as jeans, to give you an idea of how you would look at this particular point.

If "worlds" like these destroy normal web browser like IE? -- It seems unlikely. Traditional Web browsers have this freedom and ease of access that is difficult to see any other alternative. But they are part of the new, 'thinking out of the box' wave of alternatives that some people will find attractive, and really knows what the future will bring.





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Firefox 3 Web Browser, new

New features and improved performance make Firefox 3 the Web browser to beat.

Firefox 3 (download available here) probably won't wow you--at least not right away. Upgrade from version 2 of the browser, and you may at first forget you even made the change. But keep using it, and you'll realize how much more this update has to offer.

The latest version of the popular open-source browser looks much the same as its predecessor. The only visual clues that something's different with version 3.0: The back and forward buttons are now pushed together, and a little star has been added to the the location bar. Click that star, and you'll add the page you're viewing as an unfiled bookmark. Click it again, and you can choose a particular folder, add a description, or select tags--all of which are stored in a new, behind-the-scenes database.

You can search the database, along with all of your browsing history, by simply typing a keyword (instead of a URL) into the location bar. The search checks page titles, tags, and addresses. This improvement may sound like a small addition, but in practice it's a big feature. Instead of hunting through your ever-growing list of bookmarks, or trying to remember how to get to that great site you looked at last week, you can type a word into the location bar and find what you're looking for.

As much as I liked it, the new bookmarks search still has room for improvement. You can't see unfiled bookmarks in the normal bookmarks drop-down list (you have to go to Organize Bookmarks to find them)--a huge detriment if you don't take the time to categorize your bookmark at the time when you create it. And you can add tags to only one bookmark at a time.

Firefox 3's interface has a handful of other, more subtle changes as well. The download manager can now resume halted downloads after you've restarted the browser or your network connection. A nifty zoom menu option lets you resize the entire page or just the text on the page. And a new password saver lets you wait until after you've successfully logged in to decide whether to save your credentials.

On the security front, Firefox 3 will now block sites known to spread malware, based on a Google blacklist, along with blocking phishing sites. It also supports Extended Validation certificates, so if you view a site that uses one to verify the site owner's identity, you'll know it: A large green button with the company's name will appear on the left side of the location bar.

Mozilla says that even with these new features, the new Firefox should use less memory because of memory leak cleanups and other programming improvements. And it uses less memory than its primary competitor, Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7. In my informal test with four open pages--CNN.com, PCWorld.com, Icanhascheezburger.com, and Yahoo mail--Firefox 3 used about 85MB of memory, compared with 106MB for IE 7.

Those tests didn't include add-ons, but if you use Firefox, you know that the browser's ability to support a multitude of add-ons is what distinguishes it from the competition. Most, though not all, of the must-have extensions--such as Adblock Plus, Foxmarks, and SiteAdvisor--already work with version 3. Add-on fans will appreciate the refreshed add-on manager, which makes it easier to keep track of them.

If you already use Firefox, then no doubt about it, you'll want this upgrade. If you've held back so far, I'd give the new browser a try. This version might just persuade you to make the switch.

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