Apparently, the Google Chrome team has been circulating a list of awesome Chrome extensions around Google, and everyone there liked it so much that they published it on the Official Google Blog. You can see the whole list there, but here are a few picks I wholeheartedly agreed with:

Readability: Great for removing ads and extra cruft from articles, paring them down to highly-readable text.

Turn Off The Lights: Darkens video pages to highlight the video you're watching. Works on YouTube and many other video sites.

After The Deadline: The ultimate spelling and grammar checker, brought to you by Automattic, the company behind WordPress.

There are more where those came from, to pump up your browsing experience. I'll say this for Google: they have great taste in extensions for their own browser. It's nice to see them encouraging their developer community, too.

Filed under: Browsers, Op-Ed

Firefox is doing a lot of usability-related work recently. And really, it now sports a fairly usable UI. It's kind of sluggish at times, but it is my browser of choice, mainly for political reasons.

But one thing never fails to piss me off ... why does the Find function have to be so bad?

Many people use large monitors these days (and often, more than one). This means that we often have a large mass of text all over the screen, but we want to find just a single word. This is a common function, and both Opera and Chrome have taken major strides in order to make it usable.

It's just one analytics firm's research, but it's a notable milestone: Google's Chrome browser surpassed Safari in U.S. browser market share, according to analysis of 3.6 billion page views by StatCounter. Chrome had already moved past Safari in global browser usage, but just eked ahead of Safari in the U.S. recently to third place, having 8.97 percent to Safari's 8.88. Internet Explorer owns about 52 percent, Firefox holds onto second with 28.5 percent, and other browsers make up the remainder. [Business Wire via Gizmodo] More »

Long have we searched for an easy way to sync browser extensions across multiple machines, and for Chrome users that day has finally come. If you're running the Dev channel, here's how you can easily enable extension syncing. More »

Filed under: Fun, Google, Browsers

Remember those Chrome speed tests? Well, apparently the guys at Opera saw them too, and wanted to one-up Google. The only issue was what approach to take. Google's tests are apparently very well funded and are done by a large crew of dedicated professionals.

PR budgets and relative size differences being what they are, Opera wasn't left with much of a choice but to play the underdog card, ... and they played it hard.

In a highly scientific speed test, you can see a couple of overdone Norwegians trying to pit the Opera browser against the time it takes to cook a potato. I don't want to ruin the end, but let's just say that Opera does come out on top.

Universal search and bookmarklet tool Quix is very handy and time-saving, as we've previously suggested, but it's even more help

Mac/Linux: If you've been waiting for a stable Google Chrome release befor

We've said for a while that HTML5 will change the way you use the web, but not all browsers are ready for the big change. This interactive chart highlights which features are still missing in your browser of choice. More »

Chrome's history menu lists your most visited sites and recently closed tabs, which is different from most other browsers. Extension Recent History gives you the history menu you're used to, listing your most recently viewed pages in a simple drop-down. More »

Google’s Chrome browser is shining brightly, and it’s not hard to see why. First, the stats: According to the latest NetApplications figures, Chrome now has 6.7 percent of the browser market–a stunning rise from zero prior to 2009. Competing browsers are either treading water or, as in the case of Microsoft Internet Explorer, in precipitous freefall.

We mentioned this yesterday, but now, after two days at this year's Pwn2Own browser-hacking competition, Chrome alone stands unhacked; hackers infiltrated every other browser on day one. Perhaps the best indicator of Chrome's security is the fact that competitors haven't even attempted to crack Chrome's "sandbox" despite a $10,000 prize. Chrome gives every process started within the browser very limited privileges to get the job done, keeping it essentially in the sandbox, so while it's possible to get in the sandbox, you can't do very much while you're there. It seems like this bodes extremely well for Chrome's security system, especially compared to its competition—and it'll likely give more people reason to choose Chrome over Firefox. [ITworld]

Chrome is a terrific browser on its own, but FastestChrome makes it even better. It adds extra search options to the Omnibar, creates "endless scrolling" for multi-page articles, fixes text-only URLs, and tunes up other Chrome features.

FastestChrome gives search a big boost, adding other search engines, displaying related articles from Wikipedia, and even showing related results from Amazon at the top of your Google results page. Highlight text on a page, and a customizable bubble pops up to let you search that string of text in Google, Delicious, and even Twitter. FastestChrome also turns text URLs into links, making navigation a lot quicker.

Options are easily turned on and off by clicking the extension's settings button in your toolbar. Once you've checked out FasterChrome, have a look at 18 other extensions we think are worth downloading (and, hey, maybe 13 more?).

Have a favorite Chrome extension of your own? Tell us about it in the comments.

Google Chrome is a superior browser to any i’ve used in the past 10 years or so, simply based on its performance. Firefox is great, but i’m not interested in all the add-ons and such that slow a browser down.

What I’m interested in is performance.  As i scower through the web with my many tabs open i want to be able to interact with them quickly as i cycle and rearrange tab by tab.

No other browser has yet given me the ability to browse the web the way Google Chrome has.   Firefox doesn’t even come close when it comes down to the tiniest little details. Lets talk about those details, see if you agree with me?

Chrome: If you want to restore browsing sessions anytime—and not just after a browser crash—Session Buddy for Chrome easily creates custom sessions and restores them whenever you wish.

After installing Session Buddy, clicking on the Session Buddy link in the Chrome toolbar brings up all your current Chrome windows and open tabs. From there you can save entire sessions or selectively edit out tabs from the list before saving. Saved sessions appear to the left of the current session list and remain until manually deleted.

You can use Session Buddy for something as simple as automatically saving your current session on browser close—available in the options menu—or for making custom session lists for various tasks like reading your favorite sites every morning or opening all the sites you use for bill paying.

Session Buddy is free and works wherever Chrome does. Have a favorite Chrome extension to share? Let's hear about it in the comments.

Whenever we talk passwords, we always preach the same thing: Use strong, difficult-to-remember passwords, and different passwords for every site. Easy to say, extremely difficult to do through sheer willpower. I've tried many password-remembering systems, and this is what I've stuck with.

To paraphrase photographer Chase Jarvis, the best password manager is the one you have with you. Of all the password management utilities out there, I consider LastPass the most elegant compromise between convenience and security, and if you're not using it already, I recommend you start. It's mostly free, plugs into nearly any browser or smartphone, is KeePass compatible, and just works.

URL stands for abbreviation of Uniform Resource Locator which is the global address of web pages, documents or other services. It consists of two main parts: one is protocol identifier and second is document address in from of domain name or IP. They are separated by a colon “:” and two forward slashes “//”. URL needs to be unique which may result in a longer URL as the World Wide Web is growing at an exponential scale. Also there is a tendency to pass descriptive attributes in the URL to forward different kinds of information. This may result in awful situation where URL looks ugly and can’t fit in Human Memory.

The solution produced to tackle the problem is URL Shortening which takes long URL addresses as input and outputs a unique and short URL. This short URL actually redirects you to the original web page. The URL shortening services became even more constructive with the popularity of micro blogging service known as Twitter which imposes a limit on maximum messages in a character. bit.ly is by far the most popular URL shortening service. The convenience of URL shortening services has pushed Google to launch goo.gl and youtube.be while Facebook to start fb.me.

It solely depends upon you which one you prefer for URL shortening. During web browsing on Google Chrome, you may need to shorten URLs quite often. Instead of moving to service’s webpage, you can use following extensions in Google Chrome for time saving.
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ChromeMUSE
This extension serves the both purposes.

• Shortening long URLs
• Expanding short URLs

It supports many popular URL shortening services. By default, goo.gl is enabled which can be configured from extension’s options. A favicon appears at the end of address bar. A click on the icon will short the URL according to preferences. This short URL is automatically placed in clipboard and can be pasted anywhere. The notable URL shortening services which can be chosen are bit.ly, is.gd, and TinyURL.

If you browse to a web page where shortened URLs are present, this extension will involuntarily expand the URLs. The titles and destination are shown when you move mouse cursor over the short URL.

You can configure ChromeMUSE to show a list of desired URL shortening services when you click the icon. Besides, the extension can be set to replace the short URL with actual URL after expansion.

Computer Mouse is really helpful for a normal computer user because it provides an easy way to navigate. It becomes even more convenient when browsing web. The user can easily select links, images, or text in a web page. Despite this functionality, there is some more juice which can be extracted from computer mouse. As a result, Mouse Gestures have been developed to provide more functionality. Mouse Gestures functionality is available as a utility for operating systems like Windows XP or they are available in modern web browsers like Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome.

I will review here best available Google Chrome’s Extension which let you use mouse gestures. If you are using Mouse Gestures for the first time then it should not be a problem but users who have migrated from Mozilla Firefox may feel some irritation in using the solutions as the solutions are not fit when compared to the mouse gesturing add-ons developed for Firefox.

Smooth Gestures
This extension works almost perfect. There are a plenty of already built gestures available. These gestures can be identified from extension’s options page and they are also customizable. Mouse Stroke supports and recognizes three types of gestures.

Simple Gesture: Draw a gesture by moving the mouse while pressing the right mouse button and then release
Scroll Gesture: Scroll the mouse wheel while pressing down right button
Rocker Gesture: Hold down either the right or left mouse button, and then press the other one.

The default mouse gestures provided by this extension are divided into three categories which are Page Navigation, Tab Management, and Miscellaneous. These mouse strokes almost will satisfy needs of any user. Any gesture can be disabled or modified. The modification is pretty straight forward.  When you will click on “+” sign, a canvas will be shown on which you can draw your own stroke for specified task. If the gesture already exists, it will show a warning. You can ignore it and over write the gesture or re draw.

Tabbed interface in web browsers boost the user experience in many ways. The user does not need to switch between separate windows. All of the browsing can occur in a single window which makes shifting between different web pages more convenient. You can even browse a website and the related links in a different window while other browsing activity may take place in a separate browser window.

Each web browser has its own policy of ordering tabs. It is difficult to get accustomed with tab ordering if the user switches from one web browser to another. This is the case when someone is migrating to Google Chrome from Mozilla Firefox. Some prominent differences between the tab ordering strategy of Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox are regarding

• Position of New Tab.
• Which Tab should be active upon closing a Tab.

Some solutions in form of extensions have been developed which replicate the tab ordering Policy of Firefox in Google Chrome. This makes the migration of users from Mozilla Firefox to Google Chrome trouble-free.

Also take a look at: How to Manage Tabs in Google Chrome with Extensions

Tabs Plus
This extension changes tab ordering of Google Chrome to work like Firefox. The behavior can be changed from options.  Position of New Tab can be fixed to Default, First, or Last. You can also opt whether to open new tab in background or foreground. If an active tab is closed, the tab which was used last time will get active. If a specific tab is required not to be considered as Last Used Tab, it can be excluded.

Tab Stack
It is a useful extension with nice feature which moves tabs in a way that they are always arranged in a Most Recently Used order from left to right. In this way, the most recent active tab is always at left of tab strip. When you will use Ctrl-Tab key combination to navigate through tabs, it will work like Alt-Tab combination in Windows. The most recently active tab will be visible.

These extensions will modify the tab ordering strategy of Google Chrome so that the migrating users from Mozilla Firefox can feel at Home.

Graphical User Interface is meant to facilitate the interaction of user with the device in a graphical way rather than typing in a command line. GUI has got matured with overall system development of computers. A window manager is an essential part that controls the placement and appearance of windows in a GUI. Tabs were a significant inclusion in a window. Tabs allow an application to contain multiple documents in a single window. This eases the way to switch between different instances of application.

Tabs became famous when they were introduced in web browsers. The user can effortlessly navigate between different web pages. The developers have introduced different particular functions for tabs in web browser. These functions may vary from browser to browser. Google Chrome is the new rival in the war of web browsers and outperformed many web browser. It is because of its speed and spectacular tabbed window interface. Its brilliant tabbed interface has pushed developers of Mozilla Firefox to employ almost similar concept in the next major upgrade of web browser. Google Chrome allows users to arrange and organize tabs easily and efficiently. Still the functionality of tabs can be enhanced in many ways to alleviate the web surfers. To serve this purpose, there have been many nice extensions developed which will be listed here.

Tab Menu
If you are used to open a large number of tabs, it leads to a cluttered tab strip. In this case the viewer is not able to identify the web page as the titles in tab squeezes and become invisible. In a less messy scenario, the user may identify a page by its favicon but there may be pages that don’t have any favicon. Tab menu extension for Google Chrome rescues you in such a situation. It displays a vertical menu which contains all open tabs. The user can easily navigate through the menu with keyboard and mouse. The tabs can be searched, opened, or closed easily.  There is a shortcut key (Ctrl+M) available which opens the tab menu in a new tab for better view and navigation. Tab Menu option will let you modify this shortcut key and configure display of tab counter. Also if there are multiple instances of Google Chrome windows, they can be merged from options.