Google Chrome's default new tab page is already good -- and honestly, I seldom find myself clicking anywhere other than my bookmark toolbar when I add a tab. So while I might not need to change the new tab page, the Incredible Start Page extension certainly has me hooked regardless.

Install it, and your new tab page displays a sleek, three-paneled view which includes recently closed tabs, your bookmark toolbar folders, and random slides pulled from Flickr -- with any non-folder items from your bookmarks overlayed on the images.

There's also a sticky note where you can enter text and fire it off to a new GMail compose window. Text you jot down is saved, so it's also a handy place to leave yourself a reminder...Now if they would just tap in to Chrome's bookmark sync to make it reappear when I got to work...

Options allow you to choose from four Flickr keywords (clouds, sunset, nature, and star) and five color schemes.

It's a nice way to add some visual pop to Chrome's new tab page.

Chrome: If you've got a good stash of bookmarks tucked away in Delicious, you can keep on saving and tagging them, and even synchronize them wit

 Just a short demonstration of a Google Chrome extension called chromeTouch. It enables touchscreen and inertia scrolling in Google Chrome, similar to that of the Grab and Drag extension from Firefox. You can find chromeTouch in the Google Chrome extension gallery
 

Since you last saw an edition of Chrome Corner, we've done some re-thinking about what it should be. Instead of trying to force together a weekly update when there's sometimes just not enough news to justify doing it, the Corner will now crop up whenever the crew at Download Squad has a nice haul of of Chrome-y goodness to post about.

Today's topic: syncing across multiple computers!

Google Chrome can sync your bookmarks, but what about all the other bits and pieces that you want available on all your machines? Passwords? Form data? Notes?

The Extension Gallery has plenty of awesome options that can help you keep all your Google Chrome installs marching in step -- read about eight useful ones after the break!

Passwords and form data: LastPass, RoboForm
Apart from not having the same set of bookmarks available on every machine I use, nothing irks me quite as much as having to recall and re-enter all my passwords manually. LastPass and RoboForm both handle the task admirably, and they have other benefits as well. LastPass, for example, includes a strong password generator which makes creating hard-to-crack passwords easy.

Both extensions can also auto-fill form data for you with your pre-entered information (name, address, phone number, etc.).

Tabs and Sessions: TabSync, FreshStart
FreshStart is a fantastic session manager and synchronizer (which I wrote about before), with the ability to restore sessions from machine to machine. It's also great at recovering from crashes. TabSync is more minimalistic in its approach. Set it up to auto-sync or press the button to do things manually, and your current window's tabs are locked in so you can restore them again later.

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.

Google Chrome is growing and so is it's arsenal of extensions. Google Chrome recently stole the limelight from Safari browser and became the third most popular web browser in the world. With its recent emphasis on teaching people about web browser in general through innovative Google Chrome advertisements, it is genuinely going places. Slideshow is a beautiful yet functional image viewing extension for Google Chrome.

• The slideshow currently appears for Picasa, Flickr, Facebook, Google Images.

• I have tested it on facebook, and I have to say, this is among the better looking image viewing extensions.

• Super light weight, you won't even know that you are actually running an extension.

Firefox/Chrome: If you love using your keyboard and shun your mouse, you'll definitely want to try gleeBox, an awesome add-on that lets you effortlessly browse the web without your mouse. Check out the video inside to see it in action.

Click on the picture above for a closer look.

Browsing the web without a mouse isn't easy. Without any add-ons at all you're stuck furiously punching the tab key to move through all the available links on the page. Other add-ons help you to navigate without your mouse but often not very intuitively.

Gleebox offers a highly customizable and intuitive way to navigate web pages via keyboard. At its most basic gleeBox allows you to hit the G key, and every link on the page is highlighted and you can navigate to it by typing part or all of the link name into gleeBox. Check out the videos below to see it in action.

Chrome: We love Gina's Better Gmail Firefox extension, a bundle of user scripts that improves the Gmail experience. Now that Google's beefed up support for Chrome extensions, reader Dimitar Gruev has taken a shot at bringing an unofficial Better Gmail to Chrome.

Almost a year ago our own How-To Geek put together a version of Better Gmail for Chrome, but that was way back when Chrome didn't even have extensions (his were all bundled into a single user script). This new Chrome extension is an unofficial Better Gmail for Chrome that was inspired by Gina's Firefox extension and our earlier Better Gmail for Chrome bag o'scripts.

Once installed, access Better Gmail's options by clicking the wrench -> Extensions -> Better Gmail Options. Tick the boxes of the features you want activated and you're good to go. You can choose to hide little used fields like "Invite Friends," remove ads, show the number of unread emails in the favicon, and more.

Gruev says future versions of Better Gmail will hide spam count, move to next message on delete or archive, and include support for POP3 email. A big round of applause goes to Gruev for putting this together. What kinds of features do you hope for in future versions of Better Gmail? Share your ideas in the comments.

Mac OS X only: Chrome for Mac Beta just updated with support for Chrome extensions. Windows and Linux users have been enjoying support for Chrome extensions for a while, and while Mac users who're subscribed to the dev channel of Chrome have had extension support since January, this is good news for Mac users who prefer the relative stability of the beta release. Ready to get started installing some saucy Chrome extensions but not sure where to start? Check out these 13 excellent extensions, or just head to our Chrome extensions page to browse other extensions we've covered.
The release also brings with it bookmark sync, the bookmark manager, cookie manager, and task manager—so there's a ton of good stuff to in this beta release. [Google Chrome Blog]

[via Google Chrome Blog]

Since we released Chrome for Mac in beta last December, we've been busy adding new features. Today, after some incubation in the developer channel, we're happy to make some of these features more widely available. The new beta release of Chrome for Mac offers extensions, bookmark sync, and more.

With this new version, you'll be able to install any of over 2,200 extensions (and counting!) currently available in Chrome's extensions gallery. Extensions can add useful, informative, fun, or quirky functionality to the browser. You can manage your extensions by clicking on the Window menu and choosing "Extensions."

For this release, we remained focused on providing a snappy, safe, and simple browsing experience on the Mac. If you haven't tried Chrome on the Mac yet and are curious about its features, this video will take you on a brief tour:

Who doesn't like eyecandy. Here is a nice 3D tab preview generating extension for Google Chrome. You can browse through your tabs using a simple mouse scroll and it definitely looks beautiful.
 

• Picture speaks more than words and the screenshots above makes it more than clear to you(I hope). 

Chromed Bird twitter extension for Google Chrome(Chromium) can do everything one ever expects to do with a Twitter extension and more. I wanted an extension with similar functionality for Facebook. And I got Facebook To-Go. I have to say, Chromed Bird and Facebook To-Go is an awesome must-have combination of social media extensions for Google Chrome.

Google Chrome: It's easy to fill up the tab bar in Chrome to the point where you can't read the tab titles or easily find what you're looking for. VerticalTab lets you view tabs in a list and search, sort, and more.

VerticalTabs places a small icon in the Chrome toolbar next to the address box. Clicking on the icon displays all your tabs in a vertical list where you can select tabs or drag and drop them via mouse input or using keyboard shortcuts. In the options menu you can change the width and size of the vertical tab display and toggle the tab-count display on and off.

VerticalTabs is free and works wherever Google Chrome does. Have a favorite extension for wrangling tabs? Let's hear about it in the comments.

There are plenty of apps for my iPod Touch that I'd like to be able to run on my desktop. You know what's tops on the list? A fart app!

No, not really. In fact, I can't imagine anyone bothering to create something like that -- but as we've seen with just about every other app store or extension repository, if an app is extensible, someone's going to code a fart add-on for it.

Google Chrome users can now get in on the fun(?) with Farty! Install the extension, wait five minutes, and your computer will let one rip. Oh, the hilarity!

Wait a minute...Actually, since it doesn't install a toolbar button this could be just thing to drive your Chrome-surfing co-workers insane. Sadly, it does cause a pop-up window to appear, but it's still a decent one-time gag.

Filed under: Google, Browsers

Using Extensions on Google Chrome (for PCs)
How to install an extension in Google Chrome, and a demo of some personal favorites of Google product manager, Nick Baum. You can check out the extensions gallery: chrome.google.com

From: googlechrome
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