Like the swift Google Chrome? Here’s our mega list of tips on Google Chrome — to turn you into a Chrome power-user and make the most of it.

1. Create Desktop Shortcuts For Your Favorite Sites

   Google Chrome provides you the flexibility of accessing your favorite websites directly from the desktop. It enables you to pin your favorite websites to taskbar & start menu and also provides a desktop shortcut for the same. Just follow the steps below and provide a quick access to all your favorite sites.

   

   • Open the website which you want to access from desktop.
   • Click the wrench icon (next to the Omnibar).
   • Select “Tools > Create Application Shortcut”.
   • Select the places (desktop, start menu and taskbar) for the application shortcut from the resulting dialog and click “Create”.
   • You will notice a desktop shortcut for your favorite website (and notice it pinned to the taskbar and start menu as well; if selected at the time of creating application shortcut).

2. Synchronize Google Chrome With Google Account

   One of the most useful feature offered by Google Chrome is that it allows you to take your browser with you wherever you go. Google Chrome enables you to view and use your browser history, bookmarks, themes and extensions from any computer. All you need to do for accessing your browser’s settings anywhere is to synchronize Google Chrome with your Google Account. Follow the steps below to enable synchronization:

   • Click the wrench icon to the right of address bar.
   • Select “Options” and click “Set up Sync” under “Personal Stuff” (“Sync” section).
   • Provide your Google Account credentials to set up the sync (to synchronize Your Google account with your browser).
   • You need to “Set up Sync” for each computer. You are now all set to browse stuff on any computer (home PC & workstation) and yet view synchronized history, bookmarks, themes and so on.

3. Create Multiple Profiles

   Google Chrome provides you the flexibility of creating multiple profiles (as provided by Firefox). Google Chrome does not offer a profile manager as is the case with Firefox; but still its manual profile creation is not a tedious task. Simply follow the steps below to create new Chrome profile (for personalization, testing, synchronization or just for trying out some geeky stuff):

   1. Open Google Chrome installation folder. Follow the path given below:
      C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome (for Windows 7)
   2. Open “User Data” folder and locate “Default” sub-folder. Create a copy of this folder (in same directory) and rename it to “New_Profile” for example.
   3. The next thing to do is, to initialize the newly created profile — open the command prompt, switch to Chrome Application folder (C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application) and paste the following command:
      chrome.exe --user-data-dir="..\User Data\New_Profile" -first-run
   4. Now that you have created and initialized new Chrome profile; it’s time to create a desktop shortcut for the same (for New_Profile).
      • Right-click desktop and select “New > Shortcut”.
      • Type the following address in “Type the location of the item” text field.
        C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe --user-data-dir="..\User Data\New_Profile".
      • Click “Next” and provide a name to newly created profile shortcut.

4. Set Multiple Pages On Start Up

   Google Chrome provides you the ease of starting up with multiple pages. It enables you to open all your favorite sites on start up (smart way to save your time with your routine websites). Click the wrench icon (to the right of URL bar) and select “Options”. Under the “Basics” tab, select “Open the following pages” (under “On start up” section). Click “Add” to add all your favorite sites and thereafter click “Close” and restart your browser to notice multiple pages opening up on the start-up.

5. Explore About Handlers

   Similar to the Firefox’s “about:config”, Google Chrome also provides access to a bunch of configuration files. It provides the read-only version of these configuration files (no processing and no changes allowed). Some of the most commonly used about handlers for Google Chrome are:

   • about:memory, to inspect memory usage — specifying the number of tabs opened and memory occupied by each of the opened website.
   • about:plugins, to offer an insight into all the plugins and extensions installed for your browser.
   • about:version, to help you with the version of the browser installed on your system. It also specifies the WebKit, the user agent and command line access.
   • about:cache, to provide you a glimpse of your browser’s cache memory.
   • about:histograms, provides histograms for bookmarks, cache memory, queries, etc (for various features of the browser).
   • about:dns, enlists prefetch DNS records for 10 hostnames.

6. Track The Resources Used By A Website (Inspect Element)

   Google Chrome also provides a certain in-built developer tools; which allow you to access HTML code (that go in designing a webpage — HTML, javascript, CSS and so on). You can actually track the resources used by a particular website by inspecting it. Just right-click on the webpage (empty area), select “Inspect Element”. Select the first statement in the resulting document (which represents the entire website) and then click “Resources” (from the top bar of the document). You will notice a fragmented graph in few seconds — graphically representing the documents, stylesheets, scripts, images and other resources (that went into the making of a website).

7. Work Offline (For Sites Powered By Google Gears)

   Google Chrome provides support for Google Gears by default and thus enables you to work offline on the websites powered by Google gears. Some of the Google gears compatible sites are: Gmail, Google reader and WordPress. You can thus, check all your mails (on Gmail), check news and feeds (from Reader) or even create a post (on WordPress) even when you are offline.

8. Make The Most Of Google Chrome Omnibox

   Chrome’s address bar popularly known as the Omnibar, empowers you to perform Google Search directly from the address bar itself. You can type in your search queries, perform calculations, use it as a converter (for distance, weight, temperature) and more. You can apply Google Search power user tips and perform certain nifty tasks through the omnibox.

9. Place Your favorite sites in bookmarks bar

   The Bookmarks bar provide an easy and simplified access to all your bookmarked websites and web-pages. Make the most of the Bookmarks bar by placing all your bookmarks in the Bookmarks bar itself. All you need to do for placing your bookmarks in the Bookmarks bar is to click the star (in right corner of the address bar) to bookmark a website (webpage/home page) and select “Bookmarks Bar” from the “Folder” drop-down in the resulting dialog-box.

10. Only Favicons In The Bookmarks Bar

    After placing all the favorite websites/web-pages on the Bookmarks Bar now its time to make it look elegant and clutter-free. The best thing you can do to make your it look elegant and stylish is to allow only the favicons to appear in the Bookmarks bar.

    • Right-click the bookmark in the Bookmarks bar.
    • Select “Edit…” and delete the content in the “Name” text field.
    • Press “OK” and notice only the favicon (without text) appearing in the Bookmarks bar.

11. Bookmark Keyword Search

    Google Chrome provides bookmark keyword search feature; quite similar to the one provided by Firefox. It enables you to assign specific keywords to search engines (or custom search engines) and thereafter, allows you to search multiple search engines from the omnibox itself. For instance assign f to Flickr.com and later you can search for images on Flickr by simply typing f <space> keyword in the omnibox (where keyword stands for your specific image search keyword). To apply bookmark keyword search in Google Chrome check our previous article on Bring Bookmark Keyword Search In Google Chrome.

12. Use Autofill Feature

    Google Chrome relieves you from the tedious task of filling the forms by providing the auto-completion assistance. The feature is enabled by default and activates when you fill any web-form for the first time. It automatically stores your addresses and prompts for storing credit card numbers for future suggestions on form-filling activity. You can however add the addresses and credit card numbers manually as well. Click the wrench icon and select “Options”. Click “AutoFill options” under “Personal Stuff”, “Form autofill” section. Here you can add addresses, credit card numbers or edit and delete those not required. Watch the video below to gain more insight into the auto-fill feature.

13. Keyboard Shortcuts

    Keyboard shortcuts come in real handy for performing tasks efficiently and productively. These shortcuts provide all the basic browser features (on keystrokes); without any need to shuffle between the mouse and the keyboard.

    • Ctrl+Tab allows you to cycle through tabs.
    • Ctrl+Shift+Tab enables you to cycle through tabs in opposite direction.
    • Use Ctrl+1 – Ctrl+9 for focusing a specific tab in the range of 1-9.
    • Ctrl+N is used for opening a new browser window.
    • Ctrl+Shift+N lets you open new window in incognito mode (private mode).
    • Ctrl K or Ctrl E enables you to type a query in omnibox (places the cursor in address bar).
    • Ctrl+Shift+T provides you the flexibility of opening the recently closed tab.
    • Alt+Home is the simple way to access home page, through keystrokes itself.
    • Use Ctrl+H to view History.
    • Ctrl+J is used to provide a glimpse into your downloads.
    • Ctrl+D helps you bookmark a web-page.
    • Ctrl+Shift+B enables you to toggle the bookmarks bar.
    • Shift+Esc provides quick access to Chrome’s task manager.
    • Open new tab with Ctrl+T
    • Ctrl+W or Ctrl F4 enables you to close the current tab.
    • Press Ctrl+F to pop-up the find bar (at the top of the web-page); to enable you search for words and phrases on a web-page.
    • Toggle full-screen mode with F11.
    • Ctrl+Shift+V allows you to paste only the text (leaving behind source formatting).
    • Ctrl+S helps you save current web-page.
    • Ctrl+P enables you to print the current web-page.

14. Restore Tabs

    Firefox restores all your tabs by default; whereas in Google Chrome you need to tweak browser settings for tabs restoration. Click the wrench icon and select “Options”. Click the option “Reopen the pages that were open last” under “Basics” tab “On startup” section. Click “Close” and restart the browser to verify the settings.

15. Access Bookmarks, History, Downloads From Omnibox

    Google Chrome provides ease of access to bookmarks, history and downloads through keyboard shortcuts; and also provides ways to directly access them from the omnibox. Type “chrome://bookmarks”, “chrome://history” and “chrome://downloads” to view bookmarks, history and downloads respectively.

16. Set The Location For Downloads

    The default location for the downloads is Downloads folder (in the user’s folder); but you can always tweak your browser settings to prompt you for deciding on the placement of the downloading stuff (to keep the things organized). Follow the steps below to change the default location for downloads:

    • Click the wrench icon to the right of address bar.
    • Select “Options”.
    • Scroll down for “Downloads” section under “Under the Hood”.
    • Click “Browse” and select the specific location for all your downloads. Prefer selecting the option “Ask where to save each file before downloading”; if you like to specify the location for each download.
    • Click “Close” to allow the changes take effect.

17. Drag & Drop Downloads

    It’s simple and easy to manage the downloads in Google Chrome. Download the images, videos, applications; and thereafter, just drag & drop the downloaded files to desktop (or any specific folder).

18. Create bookmark folders

    Opening up multiple tabs and bookmarking each one of them is a tedious task. The simple thing to do then is to bookmark all the tabs in one go. Right-click the tab-bar and select “Bookmark all tabs…”. Select the existing folder (or create a new one) to easily organize and manage all the bookmarks. Consider creating the bookmark folder under the “Bookmarks Bar” for easy access to all the bookmarks (to enable accessibility of bookmarks right from the bookmarks bar).

19. Drag the links

    Opening the links is just a click away. You can open a link in new tab either through “Ctrl+Click” or simply by middle mouse click. And now you can also open a link by dragging and dropping it to the required tab (or in between tabs). When you drag the link to the tab-bar, you will notice a pointer (to help you place the link). Drop the link at the most convenient location to open it in a new tab.

20. Make Google Chrome Your Default Browser

    The last but not the least, its time to make Google Chrome your default browser (if you have not set it as your default browser as yet). This comes in handy for several reasons. Internet explorer slogs at start-up and Firefox beats Internet Explorer at it. The large number of tabs in your session completely defeat the purpose of firing-up your browser for a quick-look into your inbox. Click on the wrench icon (to the right of the address-bar). Select Options and click on “Make Google Chrome My Default Browser” (under “Basics” tab). Now its your turn to play around with the browser settings and make the most off your browsing experience with Google Chrome.

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