Google Chrome to Get Bookmark Manager

Google Chrome, the open source browser from Google gets a

Another change according to the release notes is the popup blocker. Previously the pop-up blocker just minimized pop-up windows to the lower right corner of the browser window, create one ‘constrained’ window for each pop-up. Now, Google Chrome displays one small notification in the corner that shows the number of blocked pop-ups. A menu on the notification lets you open a specific pop-up, if needed.

Flash Player for Google Chrome – YouTube (and flash videos) in Google Chrome

Sometimes while using Google Chrome it may happen that you don’t manage to watch flash content (videos) from famous websites such as Google Video or YouTube. What you get instead is the following error message: “Sorry the video is no longer available”. Of course the video is still available but what maybe you don’t know is that you are just experiencing a Macromedia flash player incompatibility with your Google Chrome. To check this theory out  it is just sufficent to open you Internet Explorer or Firefox browser and try to watch the video. If you can do it, it means that… your flash player needs to be updated.  Here is the trick to fix it:

1. Uninstall Macromedia flash player installed on your computer. To do that, use one of these uninstaller: Download the Windows Uninstaller; Download the Mac OS X Uninstaller; Download the Mac OS 8.x, 9.x Uninstaller.
2. Download and install the latest flash plugin player. Flash player for Windows and Mac
3. Shut Chrome down and open it again.
4. Now you should be able to watch flash content on your Chrome

TEN REASONS WHY GOOGLE CHROME SHOULD BE A PART OF YOUR BROWSING ARSENAL!

1. Find It All In The Box

Chrome offers an all-in-wonder search box that lets you search for the URL, a bookmark, smart results, and popular searches based on the term or terms you entered. For our example, I chose to use “California”. When entering that term, I was able to get an option to search Google for California, go to the State of California website, and even search for the California Lottery and the California DMV, popular searches on Google that have the term “California” in them.

2. Never Forget Where You Were and Where You May or May Not Want to Be

When opening a new tab in Chrome, as long as the tab is blank when you open it [by pressing CTRL + T / CMD + T], you can bask in the awe of your most visited  Web Sites. So if you visit CNN.com every day, it’ll likely be number one on this list. With the Most Visited feature, you can track up to 9 with thumbnails. You can even jump to your history with a click of the link.

What’s also very handy about this is when you’ve closed your tabs and decide you want to go back to them again, you don’t have to hit up your history, just open a new tab and look right under “Recently Closed Tabs”. The last three are listed there and are no longer beyond your reach.

3. Application Shortcuts to your Favorite Web Sites

With the power of Chrome, you can visit any Web Site you wish, click on the and choose CREATE APPLICATION SHORTCUTS. From here you can create links on your desktop, quick launch bar, and more to said favorite Web Sites. I was not able to get it to work under my environment but that doesn’t mean I can’t share the YouTube video with you that Google made about it.

If I could get it to work, this would be something I would promote heavily. Just a click on the desktop and you’re on your way to your email, your news, your online RSS reader, or even MySpace or Facebook.

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Tags: Chrome Features, Google Browser, Google Chrome, Reasons to use Chrome, Why Google Chrome

Google Chrome Updates To Version .3

Chrome launched as v0.2 and made a huge impact almost months ago. Interest in the browser has somewhat faded since then. According to Net Applications, Chrome currently has a market share of about 0.7%, down from more than 1% in early September. While it has made an overall positive impression on the media, the browser is far from complete. One major update was rolled out today.

The new version a pop-up spoofing vulnerability, enables touchpad scrolling, promises more performance and reliability for Flash, Silverlight, Quicktime and Windows Media plug-in, fixes a “Chrome has crashed” message when closing a tab with an Acrobat 9 PDF and works much better with web proxies now. Also, Chrome no longer stores data from secure web sites.

Pros of Chrome – Good points of Google Chrome

PROS OF CHROME – Here are some of the good things (I am listing only things which  are not available in FireFox one way or another):

Process Isolated Tabs and Add-Ons – this adds stability to the browser in case a particular plugin or a page goes rogue. Also, since each tab is its own process, overall security should be better.

Faster JavaScript Engine – Chrome uses a custom built JavaScript environment which Google claims to be faster than anything currently in the market (though next version of FireFox is supposedly going to have something much faster).

DNS Prefetching – I am not sure if FireFox does this (I think not) or whether there is a plugin which turns this one, but Google Chrome performs prefetching at a number of places making for a faster browsing experience (as people have been pointing out). Here’s a detailed explanation of this feature on the Chromium Blog.

Page Search – The neat thing about Chrome is that it has a little itsy-bitsy things that set it apart from other browsers. One such thing is how it does page search. You can access page search by hitting Ctrl+F, and when type what you are looking for it highlights the word in the page – but that’s not all, other browsers do that as well. Chrome also marks all occurrences on the vertical scroll bar. This allows you to quickly scroll to the occurrence (useful if you are on a long page). Take a look at the screen shot below to see what I am talking about (all those yellow lines on the vertical scroll bar mark the occurrence of the word that I searched for):

THINGS WILL GET BETTER

Of course, Chrome will not always stay this way. It is an Open Source browser and enterprising folks will make it every bit as powerful as FireFox in time. There is already a non-Google version of Chrome (Chromium).

Here are some interesting links on what the early adventurers are doing with Chrome:

• AdBlock for Chrome – this post on LifeHacker talks about how you can block ads on Chrome.
• Chrome for Linux – there is port for Linux using Wine, go here.
• Chrome for Mac – Chromium is the open source (non-Google) version of Chrome, and yes, there is a port for Mac as well, go here.
• Greasemonkey for Chrome – its actually called GreaseMetal, but check it out.
• Changing the User Agent of the Browser – if you can’t wait for an official way to do it, here’s a neat hack.
• Users are reconsidering their original negative opinions already – take a look at this tweet.
• The Chrome Song – yes, someone put together a song about the browser.
• Backup your Google Chrome Profile – someone wrote a tool for this already and you can download it from here.

There is so much more going on about Chrome, and I will keep updating this post as I find it.

Google Chrome – CONS of Chrome

CONS OF CHROME – Let’s look at the bigger list first:

Lack of Add-Ons – this is the single biggest problem with Chrome and why people just look at it, say “Nice!”, and never run it again after that. For example, it doesn’t have a StumbleUpon toolbar, or AdBlock, or S3Fox, or any number of add-ons and extensions that people have come to depend on.

Integration with Windows OS – there are little bitty things that don’t work:

• Speech Recognition on Vista doesn’t work.
• If you try are trying to Tile Multiple Windows (as talked about here), and one of these Windows is Chrome, then it won’t work (at least on XP).
• Some people are noticing continuous heavy hard disk activity when running Chrome on Windows XP 3.

Privacy Concerns – It’s from Google – most users are vary of the Terms of Service which Google has (and for Chrome these have been revised, but are not much better). There is very little trust, when it comes to Google tracking user data, and from Chrome, it has a license to track everywhere you go. The German Government has actually warned the citizens against using Chrome.

Other Annoyances – There are other small problems that keep the hate going:

• Some users reported that animated GIFs are jerky on Chrome.
• Most sites with Flash on them are in deep trouble.
• Zooming is clunky as compared to FireFox.
• Is not supported on all Operating Systems.
• Many popular sites don’t work on it despite the claims made in the Chrome Comics. (e.g. Facebook Dropdown Menus).
• The back browser button doesn’t have a drop down that lets you jump directly to 2-3 pages back. This is not true – as pointed by Christian, you can access this through a Right Click on the back button.
• I hate the fact that Chrome doesn’t remember entries that I have made in form fields (like FireFox does) and I have to enter complete usernames/email IDs, address info, etc. every time and every place.

Google Chrome – Downloads: Downloading a file

When you download a file from a website, the downloads bar appears at the bottom of the tab where you can monitor the progress of your downloading file. The file button indicates the size of the download and the amount of time remaining until the completion of the download. An arrow appears in the tab to signify a download in progress.

Pause or cancel a download in progress

Open a downloaded file

Move a download on your computer

Google Chrome – Importing Settings from Internet Explorer and Firefox

By default, Google Chrome copies your browsing history, saved websites, and passwords from your default browser when it installs.

Currently, you can only import settings from Firefox or Internet Explorer. To manually import information from these browsers, follow these steps:

1. Close any other browsers that you’re running.
2. Open Google Chrome.
3. Click the Tools menu .
4. Select Import bookmarks & settings.
5. Select the browser from which you’d like to import data from the drop-down menu at the top.
6. Deselect the items that you don’t want to import:
   • ‘Favorites/Bookmarks’: Webpages you’ve saved in the selected browser.
   • ‘Search engines’: Alternative search options that you’ve saved in the selected browser.
   • ‘Saved passwords’: Passwords stored in the browser you’ve chosen for websites you’ve visited.
   • ‘Browsing history’: A list of all the websites you’ve visited while using the selected browser.
7. Click the Import button.

Importing information into Google Chrome doesn’t remove the information from the other browsers.

Google Chrome – Instant Bookmarks

Chances are you visit some websites on a regular basis. If you’re on a website, you can tell that it’s bookmarked if the star icon on the address bar is highlighted. You can create bookmarks in several ways. Click a link below to learn more about each method:

Click the star

Manually add the web address

Drag a link to the bookmarks bar

Import bookmarks from other browsers

Explore Google Chrome Features: Incognito mod

For times when you want to browse in stealth mode, for example, to plan surprises like gifts or birthdays, Google Chrome offers the incognito browsing mode. Webpages 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.

Changes made to your Google Chrome bookmarks and general settings while in incognito mode are always saved.

To turn on the incognito mode, follow these steps:

1. Click the Tools menu .
2. Select New incognito window.

A new window now opens with the incognito icon in the top left corner. You can continue browsing as normal in the other window.