Browser Tips: Google Chrome

While Google Chrome is far from the most widely used browser, it is steadily gaining market share.  Many people who use it are Google enthusiasts or are simply after a smoother, faster browsing experience which Chrome purports to offer.  These are the same people who are happy to learn new tips and tricks, so I hope that you’ll find something useful here today.  If you’ve never used Chrome before, perhaps these will provide you with an incentive to download it and give it a play today.

1. Google have simplified the toolbar, so rather than using a dropdown arrow to view your recent history, you’ll need to hold down the forward or back buttons.  Once the menu opens, you are free to let go of the mouse button and select what page you’d like to go back or forward to.  This is essential for new users to know, because otherwise you will struggle to really use the browser to its full potential.
2. Accidentally close a tab?  It’s simple to get it back, just hit ctrl, shift, and t at the same time.  Your most recently closed tab will open up again in a new tab.  Keep hitting it to bring up as many tabs as you’ve opened in this session, although be warned that there could be quite a few of them.  This is a really useful tool and can save you a lot of time digging through your history looking for where you just were.  Your previous history for that tab is all saved, so you’ll be able to go back and forward from where you were when you closed it.
3. The address bar at the top, where you type in web addresses and search queries, can also be used for calculations.  I didn’t know this until just recently, but it does make sense as Google itself does calculations for you too.  For example, if you put in “2 ounces in grams”, Chrome will tell you that the answer is 56.699043.  You can also use Google and create shortcuts to search your favourite sites automatically, like “wiki” for Wikipedia or “dict” for dictionary.com.  But you knew that already I’m sure!
4. Drag and drop support is amazing on Google Chrome.  You can pull out a tab to start a new window or drag it back in once you’ve finished with it.  You can drag downloads out of the window onto the desktop or into other folders, so it’s ridiculously simple to get things to go where they belong with hardly any extra work.  In the newest beta incarnation of Google Chrome, you can even drag and drop the extension buttons around the top of the page or hide them, without digging through any menus or anything like that.
5. Though this may be obvious to anyone using Chrome, for newbies, it’s worth knowing that Instant Search is available from the normal address bar.  In fact, for me, Google Instant started working on Chrome before it did on IE and Firefox, so clearly its support is more native.  If you type something into the main address bar, your search results will instantly appear and change just like they do in the normal window.  This is again only available through the beta version, but will shortly be released to all Chrome users.
6. If you’re using multiple computers on a daily basis, you might consider syncing your Google Chrome data so that you have the same settings, bookmarks, and history between computers.  You might want to sync your home and work browsers, for example, if you do a lot of work at home.

Let us know in the comments if any of these tips help you use Google Chrome!  Stop by next week for browser tips on Internet Explorer.

One Response to “Browser Tips: Google Chrome”

1. London IT Support gives you up to date IT news | My place to Speak! says:

   November 8, 2010 at 2:48 pm

   [...] out their website and I hope you will find this resource helpful and informative. Like this post (Browser Tips: Google Chrome…) they make a post about browser tips for Google Chrome. Comments [...]