Chrome tips
Use the Auto fill feature
Use the Chrome Autofill feature for automatically filling out any online form with common fields such as your name, e-mail, address, etc. To enter the Autofill values follow the steps below.
- Click on the “wrench” or “Menu” icon in the top right corner.
- Click Settings
- At the bottom of Settings, click Show advanced settings…
- Click Manage Autofill settings under Passwords and forms.
- In the Autofill settings window, click the Add new street address button.
- Fill out all address settings you want to be saved and click ok.
- Once complete try out your Autofill using the below form. To enter the values click on any of the below fields and select the name of your Autofill.
Bring up the Task Manager
Chrome has its own Task Manager —it shows you a list of all the open tabs and the background processes running in the browser at the moment, along with a number of system resources they’re using up. You’ll find the Task Manager most useful when you’re trying to troubleshoot problems with the browser, and you can quickly close down a tab or process by highlighting it and clicking End Process. To Open Task Manager, Press Shift + Esc or “Menu” icon in the top right corner, click More Tools, and then Task Manager. If you want to get real geeky click the stats for nerds click at the bottom of the Task Manager.
Learn more about the sites you visit
You may not have given much thought to the little icon to the left of the Omnibox address bar, which can look like a padlock or a blank sheet of paper depending on the site you’re currently visiting. If you click once on it, you can see a wealth of information about the page you’re on, including its security credentials, the origin of the site, the permissions you’ve previously granted it (like fullscreen mode) and the existing cookies stored by the site.
Pin Your Frequently Used Tabs
Pin your favorite tabs to save space on your tab bar without losing quick access to your favorite pages. In the above picture, you can see we have five pinned tabs, which would have normally consumed our tab bar. To Pin, a tab right-click on any open tab and click Pin Tab. To unpin it, right-click on pinned tab and click Unpin Tab.
Pinning Chrome Tabs
Another useful thing you can do with tabs is pin them. Pinning tabs means that whatever is shown on the tab when it is pinned will automatically be loaded when you next open a new Chrome browser window. To pin a tab, right-click on it and select Pin Tab from the menu. Pinned tabs appear smaller in the row than unpinned tabs. To unpin a tab, simply repeat the process and select Unpin Tab from the menu.
Favicon Bookmarks Bar
My super-minimal, very colorful favicon-only bookmarks bar often attracts a lot of questions, typically “what extension do you use to do that?” No extensions, but a really easy “hack” — one that even pre-dates Chrome! More than just look good. By reducing links to my favorite sites to their website icons I can have more of them on show and at hand. To make the Chrome Bookmarks Bar show only website icons:
- Right-click on a bookmark bar item
- Select ‘edit’
- Delete the text in the ‘name’ box
- Hit ‘save’ It’s that simple. No extensions or add-ons needed. Repeat the process until all of the sites/services you want to minify are.
Use Chrome App Launcher to Open Apps By Voice
Google’s Launcher also has built-in voice search capabilities (which can even be set to “always listening” in the latest developer builds). Aside from barking random search terms at your device you can also launch apps installed on your Chromebook by saying their name: So, for example, saying “Ok, Google – Wunderlist” will launch Wunderlist (assuming it is installed). For what it’s worth you don’t even need to say the entire word. For example “cal” would launch any shortcut, website or app result that matches. Ok Google — that’s neat!
Use Chrome App Launcher as a Unit Convertor
Are the sums you’re making of the measurable variety? If so, you can perform on-the-fly conversions in the launcher too. Just express your query as“{num} {original unit} in {needed unit}” and the result will appear . Supported/example conversations include grams to kilograms, millilitres to tablespoon, miles to km, meters, cm, mm, inches… and so on.
Zoom all the pages
Zooming in and out of websites is not always an option with mobile-optimized pages. This can be an issue if you are dealing with a badly designed website, want to look at something up close, or have vision problems. Chrome for Android makes it possible to force zooming on all pages which prevent this action. Follow these steps and zoom to your heart’s content.
- Open Chrome.
- Tap on the 3-dot menu button on the top-right corner.
- Select Settings.
- Select Accessibility.
- Check the Force enable zoom box.
Interact with emails, phone numbers, and addresses you see online
It’s annoying to copy and paste emails, phone numbers, and addresses to use them in other apps. Safari for iOS turns them into links for reaching out to people or navigating. While Chrome for Android still doesn’t have this nifty feature, there is something similar that beats copying and pasting. When you see a phone number, email, or address, simply long press it. A floating bar with options will appear. The first one will give you the option to use this information with Gmail, the Phone app, or Google Maps.
