20 Instant Upgrades to Make Chrome Better than Firefox
20 Instant Upgrades to Make Chrome Better than Firefox
Posted 02/16/2010 at 6:00pm
| by Paul Lilly
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Show of hands - how many of you are still clinging to Firefox not because it's the perfect browser, but because it's the best alternative out there to Internet Explorer? Probably a good many of you, and the reason why Firefox has been so hard to supplant as the No. 2 gateway to the Web is because Mozilla had the foresight to make it extensible. Thousands of add-ons exist allowing users to custom tailor the open- source browser however they see fit, and it only takes a few mouse clicks to do so.
Well move over Mozilla, and make room for Google Chrome. Why is that? To start with, Google recently added extension support to Chrome, which was previously only available in beta builds. Now that Google has given users the green light to install third-party add-ons, it's a brand new ballgame in the browser world. And in case you haven't heard, Chrome also supports Greasemonkey scripts, of which there are over 40,000 to choose from.
But those aren't the only reasons to give Chrome a second look. Google continues to tweak the underlying code and add features to what's already a fast, lean, and intelligent browser. Chrome is also highly tweakable, though you wouldn't know it by glancing at the sparse interface.
On the following pages, we'll show you how to soup up Chrome so you can leave Firefox in the rear view mirror and never look back!
Master Chrome's Essential Shortcuts
Don't fret if you've spent years learning Firefox's shortcut keys, most of the basic ones are retained in Chrome, such as opening a new window or tab. This makes transitioning to Chrome a piece of cake, though there are more than a handful that are specific to Chrome only. Whether Chrome- specific or cross-browser, here's a list of some of our favorites:
- CTRL+N: Open a new window
- CTRL+T: Open a new tab
- CTRL+Shift+N: Open a new window in incognito (private) mode
- CTRL+O, then select file: Open a file from our PC in Chrome
- Hold CTRL and click a link (or use middle mouse button) :Opens link in new tab
- Hold CTRL+Shift and click a link: Opens a link in a new tab and switches to it
- CTRL+Shift +T: Reopens the last tab you've closed, up to 10 tabs
- CTRL +1 through CTRL+8: Switches to the tab at the specified position
- CTRL+B: Toggles the bookmarks bar on and off
- CTRL+Shift+B: Opens the Bookmark manager
- CTRL+H: Opens the History page
- CTRL +Shift+J: Opens Developer tools
- F1: Opens the Help Center in a new tab
Address Bar Shorcuts
- CTRL+Enter: Adds www. and .com to your input and then opens the resulting URL
- CTRL+K or CTRL+E: Places a '?' in the address bar
- CTRL and left or right arrow: Moves the cursor to the preceding or next key term in the address bar
Webpage Shortcuts
- CTRL+F5 or Shift +F5: Reloads current page and ignores cached content
- CTRL +D: Bookmarks current page
- CTRL+U: Opens the source of your current page
- CTRL+0: Returns page to its normal size
Other Shortcut Tips
To quickly delete a specific entry from your browsing history that shows up in the drop-down menu of your address bar, highlight the entry and press Shift+Delete. And to select the first or last entry in the drop-down menu, press the Page Up or Page Down key.
These are just some of the shortcuts you can use in Chrome (and Windows). For a full list, see Google's support page here, which also lists shortcuts applicable to Mac and Linux users.
Make Use of Your Mouse
Once you've mastered a few handy keyboard shortcuts, it's time to shift focus to your other input peripheral, the computer mouse. Learn these as well and you'll be surfing the Web at record speed.
One of our favorite tricks involves navigating back or forth through our page history. We often find ourselves venturing several links deep on a webpage. If you're like most users, you probably think that going back to the beginning means mashing the back button repeatedly and hoping you don't overshoot your target, but there's a much easier way. Simply click and hold on the Back or Forward button to see a list of links you've navigated. You can also right-click to bring up this drop-down menu of links.
Another handy feature in Chrome, and that one that isn't duplicated in Firefox (not out of the box, anyway) is the ability to paste a link and go directly to it without ever hitting the Enter key. Just right-click the address bar and select 'Paste and go'.
Particularly handy for bloggers but also useful for forum posts, Webmail, and other online forms, you can resize any text area in Chrome. All you need to do is click and drag the lower right corner.
If you need to quickly resize an entire webpage, hold down the CTRL key and scroll up (enlarge) or down (decrease) with your mouse's scroll wheel. To reset the page back to normal, either scroll back to the appropriate size, or press CTRL+0.
Manipulate Chrome with Startup Switches
Maybe you always want to hide your tracks when surfing the Web and are only interested in Chrome's Incognito mode. Or perhaps you're trying to speed things up by disabling Java, Flash, plugins, and other features. By utilizing startup switches, you can manipulate how Chrome loads up. Here's how.
Right-click the Chrome shortcut on your desktop or Taskbar and select Properties. Navigate to the Shortcut tab and pay attention to the Target field. This is where you'll be entering in command line switches. Depending on which OS you're using and where you installed Chrome, you should see something like this:
C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe
When you find a switch you want to use, append it to the end, making sure to leave a space in between chrome.exe and the switch.
There are a lot of things you can accomplish with switches, and we're going to share some of them here. To add a Bookmarks button Chrome's toolbar, you would use the command line switch -bookmark- menu. The full path in the Target field would then read:
C:\Users \[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Applications\chrome.exe -bookmark-menu
We don't necessarily recommend using all of these, but if you want to try speeding up Chrome, you can disable a handful of functions with these switches (separate each one with a space when entering them in):
-disable-dev-tools
-disable-hang- monitor
-disable-images
-disable-java
-disable-javascript
-disable- metrics
-disable-metrics- reporting
-disable-plugins
-disable-popup- blocking
-disable-prompt-on- repost
See here for a list of more switches you can experiment with. And remember, if you don't like the effect, all you have to do is remove them!
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madhuri
January 30, 2012 at 2:51am
I really enjoyed this post. You describe this topic very well. I really enjoy reading your blog and I will definitely bookmark it! Keep up the interesting posts!
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nimd4
December 29, 2011 at 8:12pm
"Another handy feature in Chrome, and that one that isn't duplicated in Firefox (not out of the box, anyway) [..]"
Just btw., this has been made a feature of Firefox: Paste & Go
=)
PS. Another comment below mentioned reliability, to be able to select Firefox crash recovery set the option browser.sessionstore.max_resumed_crashes to "0" from the about:config page (this, however, messes with the Firefox App Tabs feature :))
niksharma
December 05, 2011 at 5:22am
Well Very good list of shortcuts is here, but most of the shortcuts of Chrome are similar to that of Mozilla. mhada, Web Design Manchester | Web Design Bedfordshire Telford
Boki
November 02, 2011 at 11:52am
I like Chrome a lot! It's faster and more reliable. Also, Chrome has some great addons.
izmirescort
October 02, 2011 at 7:39am
Is there a Firefox add-on that enables multiple homepages? I like the idea. I would just up and try Chrome but with my tech not so savy girlfriend sharing my PC NoScript is a amk link eklemedik D:
Ultrasound Tech...
August 29, 2011 at 2:54am
Before, I always use firefox. But since I noticed that it really takes time to load the data and some website information, I downloaded the Chrome and really found new features. And besides, I agree it was really faster than firefox.
Nickgrnt
June 18, 2011 at 11:12pm
In market, there is no other browser that can compete with Firefox. Though few upgrades has been released to make Google Chrome more efficient and effective, but I believe that 80% people on Internet must be using the Firefox browser. As it has thousands of add-ons to add to the browser which is the plus point of Firefox, whereas Google chrome doesn't have much effective add-ons as Firefox have it.
deanameske
March 24, 2011 at 11:49pm
Im satisfied with the performance of chrome. It works fine with all emails.
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March 07, 2010 at 4:24pm
Nunc est bibendum!
I know I'm a bit late to this party, but I just thought I'd toss a comment in about Adblock. There are two very legitimate uses for Adblock, booth of which I have experienced:
Dialup connections. I live in the boonies where high speed internet is not available. I suffered the internet at about 44kbps for about four years, and when you're surfing at that speed every byte hurts. Adblock helps by eliminating unneccesary data (I actually used it to block website header images in addition to advertising). Flashblock and Noscript also made the suffering a bit more endurable.
Pay-per-use data. I could not stand dialup another second, and since I live in a 3G covberage area I got an internet stick (which is why I am late to this party: The "features" section was too painful via dialup). It works great (my speeds average 5MBPS) but it is pay per use. My basic plan is $35/month for up to 500MB, and it goes up in steps by 500MB blocks of data to a peak of $90 for 5GB (plus a nickel for each additional MB after 5GB). Obviously bittorrent is out of my reach right now, but so is wasting valuable bandwidth on advertsing. I need every available kilobyte to be reserved for actual content.
To0nces
February 22, 2010 at 1:38pm
Will not switch to Chrome until 2 things happen.
1). NoScript. I will not use it without a NoScript extension. AdBlock is great, but not a replacement for NoScript. Yes, I read about the developer build disabling all javascript, but typing in every website manually to whitelist? That is pretty cumbersome. Not to mention NoScript actually blocks a lot more than just javascript.
2). They NEED a Master Password desparately. I'm not saving a single password in Chrome if anybody can just open up Chrome and view them as plain text in the options. I would think this would be extremely easy to implement, but has been a failing of Chrome since its inception.
Chrome works a lot faster than FF for me, but these are 2 must have additions for me, and are deal breakers.
JpJ808
February 21, 2010 at 3:45pm
Here is a much easier way to create a new profile for Chrome in XP (and with minimal tweaking, the other OS's as well):
1. Copy, paste, and rename the Chrome Shortcut on your Desktop or Start Menu.
2. In the Target, copy and paste the following:
"C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" -user-data-dir="C:\Documents and Settings\[USER NAME]\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\[PROFILE NAME]"
3. Change the information in the brackets and possibly the drive letter if Chrome is elsewhere. (The "Start in" location won't need to be changed, and should match the directories leading to chrome.exe above if you're lost.)
4. Chrome will create a new clean directory with the essential files using the name you provided in [PROFILE NAME], and you will have a fresh start: you may drag any bookmarks you need from the Chrome opened with the former shortcut to the Chrome opened with the new shortcut.
beeky 1000
February 19, 2010 at 6:44pm
I figured it out!!! I think chrome is just as good as firefox if not better
JT
beeky 1000
February 19, 2010 at 2:31pm
For some reason when I try to do the diffrent user profile thing when I get to entering the target it keeps saying an error mesage
help please!!!
jt
gcstang
February 19, 2010 at 4:39am
I love the speed of the browser and some of the features but they pushed 4.x out way to fast and there are a lot of issues with showing sites. Chrome even has issues showing their own GWT based web applications in a consistant manner when run through an Apache server, it's not like Apache isn't a known Web Server. Looks like I'll stick with 3.x for a while or FF (which is dependable, even if it's slow)
Stry8993
February 18, 2010 at 7:06pm
I just don't like the look of Chrome. Its too, stuck up looking. Like a Mac almost. That, and it loads just as fast as Firefox does for me. I'm happy. Been using FF since 0.8, and I've had no issues. And as for the RAM leak issues, man... thats harsh. Over a gig! :O
Paul_Lilly
February 19, 2010 at 7:34am
You betcha. I'm finding that heavy Web browsing really takes a toll on Firefox if you leave it open for a length of time.
-Paul Lilly
ElectricJazz
February 18, 2010 at 11:57am
I am not leaving Firefox until Chrome wakes the hell up and supports Google Toolbar.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Maybe you gots ta do something for me, I gots needs too you know. - The Spirit of Jazz.
JpJ808
February 21, 2010 at 3:41pm
That's the beauty of Chrome: there aren't a bunch of toolbars cluttering up the top half of your screen, and everything you need is still there. I suggest customizing your bookmarks instead of downloading extra toolbars. (Ctrl+B will toggle the Bookmarks Bar for you.)
eetrinko
February 18, 2010 at 7:02am
No way dude, nothing can tough FIreFox! Not even close.
Jess
www.privacy-tools.de.tc
JohnP
February 17, 2010 at 9:43pm
So far, Roboform only works using their online Sync method. Pain every time I go to log on somewhere. Until that is fixed, FF...
Mr_Histamine
February 17, 2010 at 4:08pm
This is the best feature by far; although, if they made it auto pin once you've reached a certain number of tabs, that'd make it even better!
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Walnut
February 17, 2010 at 1:33pm
I've been using Chrome since shortly after launch, and recently upgraded Firefox to do some work related stuff. I just can't stand it. It's bizarre because I used FF for years and years, but I just can't deal with its quirks anymore. Tabs load in slow motion and grind the whole browser to a halt. It generally uses about the same amount of memory as Chrome, but Chrome just flies. And I caught Firefox chugging down over a gig of memory not once but TWICE in the past week. I really thought they would have fixed those memory leaks.
mkarias1
February 17, 2010 at 10:35am
I am sticking with Firefox. Funny that I get a "This Webpage is not available" when I try to get the Add-Ons in this article. Yet it works fine in Firefox.
Also, my Yahoo Mail login page does not work in Chrome. Why? Guess Google doesn't want people to use any other email service except Gmail.
Also, I really do not find a big difference in memory usage between Chrome & Firefox.
Right now Firefox is using 115 MB of RAM while Chrome is using 140 MB.
Not impressed by Chrome at all.
JMember
March 03, 2010 at 2:41pm
That's cuz you always have in your mind : "Firefox is the best", without knowing reality.
murixbob
February 16, 2010 at 9:04pm
Chrome still lacks one important feature added in Firefox 3: tags for bookmarks
When you have a bunch of bookmarks or can't remeber the url / title you had for the bookmark, tags are a Godsend.
Having multiple tabs on firefox is just as easy as chromes. You just have to seperate use tab with a | (not an i) .
Firefox also is much easier at adding a keyword search. You just have to right click a search box on the website you want to make a keword for and select add a keyword for this search. Then it has a normal bookmark information along with a keyword you want to set for it.
mzupan
February 16, 2010 at 7:17pm
I want to switch to Chrome, but the one thing that keeps me from doing so is the one thing that I thought would be a no-brainer for the development team when I first heard of Google Chrome.... Google Bookmarks.
Sure, you can sync Chrome bookmarks with another Chrome browser, but I want my Google Bookmarks built into Chrome so that I can easily access my bookmarks from any brower, not just Chrome. I've been doing this for years with Google Toolbar on IE and Firefox, and on both PC and Mac platforms.
I would jump ship to Chrome and also recommend it to my family and friends once they implement that. But if I can't access my bookmarks from any computer that may or may not have Chrome installed then it's just not going to happen anytime soon.
DOOMHAMMA
February 16, 2010 at 5:56pm
Maximum PC actually mentioned AdBlock for once! +10 points for MaxPC! It's been the main reason I have not switched to Chrome yet (and my system can easily stomach the memory issues).
The way Chrome handles bookmarks also annoys me, but after reading through this article, you may have a convert here!
CTskifreak
February 16, 2010 at 5:51pm
One addon I wish they mentioned more was the Xmarks addon for bookmark syncing. That way you can sync between browsers and computers. So handy. Also running AdBlock, Forecastfox Weather, IE Tab, One Number and Speed Dial.
jscarpe
February 16, 2010 at 5:44pm
Chrome is a fine browser, but i still can't stand the way that it and Safari handle bookmarks. I don't really want to have to use the address bar to search for my bookmark; I want a bookmark bar on the side so i can scroll through them. I bookmark too many pages inside sites to make the search feature work for me. Of course, I'm so used to Opera and its quirks I can't imagine dumping it; but Chrome has no chance with the way it handles bookmarks.
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