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You probably have a handful of sites you visit every morning, right after you finish checking your email and before getting down to business. Maybe you surf to ESPN for your sports news, Maximum PC for all things tech, and The New York Times for world events. So which one takes precedence as your browser's home page?
In Chrome, it can be all of them! It doesn't matter how many pages you surf to when you first fire up your browser, Chrome will happily open each one, whether you regularly visit just a couple of sites, or a dozen or more.
To take advantage of this feature, click on the Tools button (wrench icon) and select Options. Under the Basics tab, click the 'Open the following pages' radio button where it says 'On startup.' Mash the Add button to select from a list of recently visited Websites, or manually enter the URL.
Quick, how many search engines can you rattle off? Most of you probably came up with 5 or 6, and a few of you may be able to recite 10 more. But the number of search engines you can configure with Chrome is pretty close to endless. More on that in a minute, let's first look at how to change the default option.
It should come as no big surprise that Chrome ships with Google as its default search engine, but maybe you'd rather use Bing. No problem, just navigate to Tools>Options and click on the Basics tab. Towards the bottom third of the window is where you can select from a list of search engines. Just choose the one you want from the pull-down menu and click Close.
Pretty basic, right? Now here's where things start to get a little more fun. With Chrome, search is made super easy for any site Chrome recognizes has a search engine. Want to search for Die Antwoord videos on YouTube? Start typing YouTube's address in the Omnibar and a message will appear on the right- hand side saying 'Press tab to search youtube.com.' Do as it says (hit the tab key) and type in your search term.
To speed things up even more, you can customize your search engines with keywords. To create a keyword for MaximumPC.com, for example, you would click on Tools>Options. Bring up the Basics tab and press the Manage button located next to Default Search. This brings up a window showing all the search engines Chrome currently recognizes. Scroll down and see if MaximumPC.com is already there. If so, highlight it and click on Edit. If not, mash the Add button instead.
We want to create a keyword that tells Chrome to search MaximumPC.com with Google. There are three fields we need to fill in, the first being the name. We can name this Maximum PC, or if we want to be more specific, we can name it Maximum PC Google. For the keyword, we'll use the letters 'mpc.' And for the search URL, here's what it should read:
http://google.com/search?q=%s+site:maximumpc.com
Now whenever you want to perform a Google search for content only on MaximumPC.com, you would type mpc into the Omnibar and press tab, followed by your search term.
But wait, there's more! We can use a similar trick to setup a custom search engine that's already integrated onto a Website. We'll again use MaximumPC.com for our example, but this will work with any site that has a search function. What we're after is the URL that pops up when performing a search, so in this example, perform a search on Maximum PC for 'Intel' or any other term. Hit return and notice the URL. It should read:
http://www.maximumpc.com/search/node/Intel
Copy the above URL to your clipboard. Next, right-click the Omnibar and select Edit Search Engines. Press the Add button and fill out the fields like you did above (Name, Keyword, URL), only this time, replace the search term ('Intel') with %s. Your fields should look similar to this:
Name: Maximum PC Search
Keywords: max
URL: http://www.maximumpc.com/search/node/%s
If you often search through Google Images, this little trick can be a huge time saver. Just use the following URL when creating a custom search engine:
http://images.google.com/images?gbv=2&hl=en&q=%s&btnG=Search+Images
Nobody can accuse Google of standing still, and one of the coolest things about Chrome -- and all Google products, really -- is that it's constantly being developed. We're not talking about lame additions either (though some forgettable features inevitably pass Q&A), but useful, and sometimes unique additions. You can especially see this with Gmail, where a ton of experimental add-ons exist under the Labs tab, but Chrome keeps moving forward as well.
Unfortunately, Google has also built a reputation for being content to let coveted features sit in beta for far too long. We supposed this is a better alternative than playing with a half-baked product, but never was the frustration higher than when we sat waiting patiently for Chrome to add support for extensions.
But here's something you may not have known. While extensions and other features are relatively new additions to Chrome, beta users have been enjoying them for months. Ready for some good news? There's no requirement to meet or registration form to fill out in order to be a beta tester, you just have to be willing to put up with potentially buggy code. And if that doesn't scare you off in the slightest, you may want to consider joining the Dev channel, which is sort of like paying with alpha code. Let's break these down.
Chrome Dev Channel
Dev, as you probably guessed, is short for developer, and that's who this channel is really targeted towards. However, there's nothing stopping you or anyone else from joining Chrome's Dev channel and playing with freshly baked features. Just be warned that these are often not yet fully cooked, so they may be broken, unstable, or ultimately destined for the dust bin.
Chrome Beta Channel
As any frequent beta can attest, beta software can range from horribly unstable to surprisingly refined. Google's beta products tend to lean towards the latter, and Chrome is no exception. That doesn't mean you won't ever experience crashes or other quirky behavior with a Chrome beta build, but we've found these incidents to be pretty few and far between. Plus, Google only promotes complete and stable features from the Dev channel to the Beta channel, so it's a great way to get a jump on upcoming functionality before they go public.
Where to Join
Joining one of these channels entails installing the appropriate version of Chrome (developer or beta build), and once you do, you'll automatically be updated to later versions as they become available. Use these links:
More Info: http://dev.chromium.org/getting-involved/dev-channel
Dev Channel: http://www.google.com/chrome/eula.html?extra=devchannel
Beta Channel: http://www.google.com/chrome/eula.html? extra=betachannel
Comments are closed on this article
madhuri
January 30, 2012 at 3:51am
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 9:12pm
"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 6:22am
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 12:52pm
I like Chrome a lot! It's faster and more reliable. Also, Chrome has some great addons.
izmirescort
October 02, 2011 at 8:39am
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 3:54am
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 19, 2011 at 12:12am
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 25, 2011 at 12:49am
Im satisfied with the performance of chrome. It works fine with all emails.
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Asterixx
March 07, 2010 at 5:24pm
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 2:38pm
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 4:45pm
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 7:44pm
I figured it out!!! I think chrome is just as good as firefox if not better
JT
beeky 1000
February 19, 2010 at 3:31pm
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 5:39am
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 8:06pm
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 8:34am
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 12:57pm
I am not leaving Firefox until Chrome wakes the hell up and supports Google Toolbar.
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Maybe you gots ta do something for me, I gots needs too you know. - The Spirit of Jazz.
JpJ808
February 21, 2010 at 4:41pm
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 8:02am
No way dude, nothing can tough FIreFox! Not even close.
Jess
www.privacy-tools.de.tc
JohnP
February 17, 2010 at 10:43pm
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 5:08pm
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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Please deposit your pride, life, and other garbage in the receptacles at the back of the theater before you leave. Thanks!
Walnut
February 17, 2010 at 2:33pm
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 11:35am
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 3:41pm
That's cuz you always have in your mind : "Firefox is the best", without knowing reality.
murixbob
February 16, 2010 at 10:04pm
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 8:17pm
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 6:56pm
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 6:51pm
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 6:44pm
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.
