Over 20 percent of our visitors use the Chrome browser so I thought some people might find this interesting. While digging around for a previous article I came across the site of Roman Nurik, Developer Programs Engineer at Google. He just released an unofficial Chrome extension called Robot Theme that was Android-inspired. Chrome themes can be easily installed (and removed) with a single click, so give it some love.

Know of any other Android inspired themes for Chrome? Post the links in the comments.

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Filed under: Things I found in the Interwebs by Jeremiah | No Comments »
Source: Android and Me

This one came out of nowhere. Chrome OS is now available for download. It’s not the final version, but a beta.

2009-10-21: New Chrome OS 0.4.223 beta is available now!

Chrome OS is a brand new free operating system built around the revolutionary Google Chrome browser.

The project aim is to provide a lightweight Linux distribution for the best web browsing experience.

Featured software in Chrome OS:
GNOME 2.24 desktop environment
Google Chrome 4.0.223 web browser
Google Picasa 2.7 photo manager New!
OpenOffice.org 3.0 office suite
GIMP 2.6 image editor
Flash Player 10.0 plugin
and much more!

System requirements of Chrome OS:
Processor: Intel Pentium, Xeon or newer; AMD Duron, Athlon, Sempron, Opteron or newer
RAM: min. 256 MB
Hard disk: min. 1 GB
Graphics card: supports most modern graphics cards

[Google]

Filed under: Things I found in the Interwebs by Jeremiah | No Comments »
Source: Gizmodo

Google Chrome has come a long way in the past year, steadily adding subtle but useful features for power users. Let's take a fresh look at Chrome's current offerings—especially for those willing to brave its early developer builds.

Not long after Chrome’s release, our 2008 Chrome Power User’s Guide covered its best features for savvy surfers, such as keyboard shortcuts and startup switches. We won’t rehash those here; instead we’re going to round up the new stuff that’s come out since in both the stable and developer build of Chrome. (For reference, as of writing, the stable build of Google Chrome is version number 3.0.195.27, and the developer release is version 4.0.222.12.)

Turn Chrome into a Site-Specific Browser with Application Shortcuts

If webapps like Gmail have replaced desktop apps like an old-school email client for you, you’ll like Chrome’s ability to act as a site-specific browser (SSB) with Application Shortcuts. Chrome’s minimal interface makes it a great candidate to get the heck out of your webapps’ way, and just act as a window to it. To put a Chrome Application Shortcut to Gmail, Google Reader, Twitter, Facebook, or any other webapp you like to keep open in a separate window, open the site in Chrome. From the Page menu, choose “Create application shortcuts.” From there decide to put your shortcut on the desktop, quick launch bar, and/or Start Menu. You can create as many Application Shortcuts as you like to all your favorite webapps or sites. When you open your webapp from the Application Shortcut icon, you won’t see Chrome’s address bar, or tabs, or your bookmarks bar. Any link that you click inside the application window will open in a different window in a full-on instance of Chrome.

Assign Keywords to Your Search Engines

One of Chrome’s most touted features is how you can search the web by just typing into its address bar (a.k.a, the “omnibox”). To search specific sites, you can even type certain domain names (like “youtube.com”) and then press Tab to search that site specifically. However, power users want to configure custom searches to happen in as few keystrokes as possible. Like Firefox’s keyword bookmark capabilities, you can assign a keyword to a search engine bookmark in Chrome, which uses the %s variable to pass parameters to the URL.

To do so, right-click in Chrome’s address bar and choose “Edit Search Engines.” There, you can add, edit, or remove searches and assign keywords in the Keyword field.

Using this technique you can, for instance, update Twitter with a keyword as well as search Lifehacker.com via Google. (Set the URL to http://google.com/search?q=site:lifehacker.com+%s and the keyword to lh. Then, to search Lifehacker’s archives in Chrome, type lh "your search here" into the address bar.)

Customize the “New Tab” Page

Chrome’s other slick headliner feature is its “New Tab” page, which displays a grid of frequently-visited web site thumbnails that help you get to where you’re most likely to go when you create a new tab. That list is more customizable than ever, with options to rearrange the thumbnails (just drag and drop) and pin thumbnails to specific locations on the grid (hover over a thumbnail and press the thumbtack button to do so). If you don’t need so much eye candy, you can switch to a list view by clicking on the view buttons on the upper right.

Get to Know New Chrome Startup Switches

Last year we covered several Chrome startup switches that let you do things like use multiple user profiles, always start Chrome in a maximized window, and disable certain features like Flash or JavaScript. Today there are three more startup switches worth mentioning. The --bookmark-menu switch adds a bookmark button to Chrome’s toolbar. The -incognito switch starts up Google Chrome in private, incognito mode. Finally, Greasemonkey fans will want to try the --enable-user-scripts switch to see if their favorite scripts work in Chrome. (A few other steps are required; here’s how to get Greasemonkey user scripts going.)

Choose Your Chrome Theme

As if ad-heavy web sites weren't enough, web browser themes can add even more visual distractions to your surfing experience. However, since Chrome's—well, chrome—is so minimal, its themes are less annoying than in other browsers. I prefer Google’s more muted in-house themes, but there are more vibrant artist themes as well. To activate a theme, from the Wrench menu, choose Personal Options, click “Get Themes.” Choose the theme you like from the Themes Gallery and click the “Apply Theme” button under it.

Master Mouse and Keyboard Shortcuts for Managing Tabs

Every power user has a few essential keyboard shortcuts in their arsenal, and Chrome offers some mouse-and-keyboard combinations for managing tabs, too. Like Firefox, you can middle-mouse-button click any link to open it in a background tab (or Ctrl+click for the same result). Shift+Click opens a link in a new window, Shift+middle+click (or Shift+Ctrl+click) opens a link in a new tab and switches to it, and Alt+click saves the contents of a link to your computer.

Switch to the Dev Channel Release for Extensions (and More)

Brave devotees to Google Chrome want to take advantage of its open development, and subscribe to the developer channel of early Chrome releases to get a preview of new features. Using Chrome’s Channel Changer tool you can switch from the stable release to the no-guarantees-on-stability beta or developer build. The risk you take in running into unexpected bugs is worth it for features the early builds offer. In the current Developer build version 4.0.222.12, you can sync your bookmarks, test extensions, and pin tabs. (Also, Mac and Linux users can finally try out Chrome via the developer channel, as a stable release is not yet available.)

(Dev Build Only) Synchronize Your Bookmarks

You use Chrome at home and at the office, and you want your bookmarks synced in both places, In the dev build of Chrome, from the Wrench menu, choose “Sync my bookmarks” to save your Chrome bookmarks in your Google account. (You’ll have to sign in to start syncing.) If you’re already using the Xmarks extension for Firefox or IE, you can use that in the dev build of Chrome, which includes the foundation of extension support with a few alpha add-ons ready for testing.

(Dev Build Only) Install Extensions

Chrome’s extension support is still young, but several alpha/beta extensions give you a glimpse of Firefox-like extension goodness in Chrome. Here are a few of our favorite Chrome extensions.

• Gmail Checker: While it doesn’t appear to work for Google Apps accounts (someone? prove me wrong?), the Gmail checker puts the number of unread messages in your inbox on Chrome’s bottom toolbar.
• Xmarks: Our favorite bookmark syncing extension for Firefox and IE is available for Chrome dev build testers as an alpha version. You must sign into Xmarks and sign up for the alpha test to get the Chrome extension.
• AdSweep and Adblock+: Scrub annoying flashing ads from your favorite web sites.
• Session Saver: As previously covered, this extension enables multi-tab saving and reloading.
• WOT: Integrates web site reputation ratings a la Web of Trust into Google Chrome.
• LastPass: Adds deeper auto-fill password management to Chrome.

To view and manage what extensions you’ve got installed in Google Chrome, from the Wrench menu, choose Extensions to open the Extensions manager, where you can reload, disable, and uninstall extensions.

(Dev Build Only) Shrink and Affix Tabs with “Pin Tab” Option

Finally, a tiny little tab feature that everyone seems to love is available in the dev build of Chrome: the ability to shrink a tab down to only its favicon, and pin it to your tab bar. Right-click on any tab and choose “Pin tab” from the context menu to try it out.

What other power tips for Chrome, stable or developer build, are out there? Share your best ones in the comments.

Gina Trapani, Lifehacker’s founding editor, strongly suspects 2010 will be a big year for Google Chrome. Her weekly feature, Smarterware, appears every Wednesday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Smarterware tag feed to get new installments in your newsreader.

Filed under: Things I found in the Interwebs by Jeremiah | No Comments »
Source: Lifehacker

For a lot of us Google Chrome is still not hot enough. The reason? It’s still not extendable enough like Firefox. Ever since it came out, users have cried out for ways to tweak the browser to make it the Jack of all trades.

The easiest way of course is through add-ons as Firefox calls them or extensions as Google Chrome calls them. Chrome has a lot going for it despite the vacuum of extensions.

But Google had promised support for Google Chrome extensions and it is beginning to keep it. The official support for extensions has been announced and though it’s still not fully on in the standard version, one gets it with the developer version of Google Chrome.

A few posts back we saw how to download and install Google Chrome extensions in the developer version. Do go through that post again and come back here. In this post we will check out some of the coolest extensions to download and use with Google Chrome.

The population may be small but the seeds of popularity are being sown with these baby steps.

1. Google Chrome Backup

   If the first thing you savor is peace of mind then the Google Chrome Backup is a must install. This is a small tool to create, backup, restore and manage Google Chrome profiles that holds all your bookmarks, history, saved passwords etc. This is not an extension in the strictest sense as it does not run within the browser but as a separate install. Nevertheless, it’s an important tool to have.

   

   The 1.1MB download works with Google Chrome version 0.2.149.27 onwards and requires .NET framework.

2. AdSweep

   A simple ad blocker extension that modifies the CSS rules on a webpage to hide the advertisements. The small javascript code recognizes ads (especially banner ads) based on specific patterns and blocks them. The extension may not work on all webpages because some ads may escape the recognition patterns used by AdSweep.

   

   The 32KB AdSweep userscript works with Google Chrome developer version 4+.

 

Latest Article: Twitter: Best Practices and Tips [PDF Guide]

3. Session Saver

   Something I really like because it harks back to the Save sessions and Manage sessions feature of Opera. It’s useful if you have to switch off and need to come back to the same tabs at some point later. This extension can save  multiple sessions each with its own name. You can also save all saved sessions as bookmarks.

   

   The 107KB Session Saver extension is compatible with Google Chrome developer version 4+.

4. TPGoogleReader

   This is a Google Reader extension for Chrome. The extension makes reading and managing feeds a one click job. It installs as two little icons on the toolstrip and shows the number of unread feeds. In the normal mode, clicking on the items counter opens the first unread item and marks it as read. In the auto-mode, one click on the checkbox opens the unread items in background tabs and marks them as read.

   

   The 9.7KB TPGoogleReader extension is compatible with Google Chrome developer version 4+.

5. Web of Trust

   WOT is a free browser add-on that protects the user from online scams and risky websites. A pop-up opens from the bottom of the screen and indicates not only the trustworthiness of a website but also how things stand with a site’s vendor reliability, child safety and privacy. You can also contribute your own ratings and select the ratings you want to get alerts on.

   

   The WOT extension is a 523KB download compatible with Google Chrome developer version 4+.

6. Smoothscroll

   This extension simply adds the smooth scrolling behavior to Google Chrome. Smooth scrolling auto-scrolls the browser at a constant speed. Click the middle mouse button/scroll wheel and drag the mouse down to set the scroll speed.

   The Smoothscroll extension is a 3KB download compatible with Google Chrome developer version 4+.

7. Bubble Translate

This Google Chrome extension enables you to do inline translations of a webpage into any language supported by Google Translate with a single click. You can set all language choices from its settings.



The Bubble Translate extension is a 34KB download compatible with Google Chrome developer version 4+.

8. Cleeki

   This extension is basically a feature rich search accelerator for Google Chrome. Highlight any keyword on a webpage and a little adjoining icon gives you access to a lot of internet choices from Wikipedia to YouTube to get more information. The information opens up in a little inline window, so you don’t need to browse away. Search can also be done on multiple sites at the same time.

   

   The Cleeki extension is a 56KB download compatible with Google Chrome developer version 4+.

9. LastPass
   

LastPass is an online form filler and password manager which got some high marks from us in a previous post. For error free performance, switch off Chrome’s inbuilt password manager (Wrench Icon – Options – Personal Stuff) and Form Autofill under the same tab.



The LastPass extension is a 315KB download compatible with Google Chrome developer version 4+.

10. Greasemetal

Familiar with Greasemonkey userscripts for Firefox? Those little pieces of code that help you customize your Firefox browser. Greasemetal is the Chrome incarnation of those handy javascripts which let you modify its behavior. It’s a good extension to have because a lot of userscripts continue o be developed and are made available from sites like Userscripts.org.

Greasemetal comes as a 1.2MB installer download for Google Chrome.

These ten extensions represent just a few of the many that are out there and slowly burgeoning with each iteration of the Chrome browser. Hopefully, it won’t be long before Chrome would give the Firefox add-ons gallery a run for its download. For us users, this is a war where we will get all the spoils.

True, ten is a very small number. Which is your extension you would have liked to have seen on the list?

 

Latest Article: Twitter: Best Practices and Tips [PDF Guide]

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Source: MakeUseOf.com