10 Tips on Making Your Google Chrome the Perfect Desktop Browser

Google Chrome is still the most popular web browser for Windows, with easy design, cross-platform syncing, and Google services embedded. Still, the way it is, it’s far from perfect. With these tips, you can make your instance of Chrome a much better tool, delivering a nearly perfect user experience. So, if you are not reading this in Chrome, launch it and try to follow the advice as you go.

Use Hotkeys

It’s always faster to open new tabs in a moment, instead of searching through the menu with the mouse. For example, Ctrl-N opens a new window, Ctrl-T opens a new tab, and Ctrl-Home opens your home page in a new tab. The full list of hotkeys can be found on the official Google support page, for both Windows and Mac.

Omnibox, Not Address Bar

The bar where you enter your address or search request is capable of much more. For example, you can use it as a calculator, convert currencies, and even ask it simple questions. You can even type C:\ (or any other drive) and use it as a file explorer. Great if you want to upload some of your files using Chrome: just find them and drag them to the other tab.

Make a Group of Home Pages

Instead of a single homepage, you can create an entire group of them. It’s useful when your morning routine includes two or three news sites, a weather report, a daily in Google Docs, two mailboxes, and some other pages you look through with a cup of coffee.

·         Go to Settings and then to “On Startup” section in the left column

·         Choose “Open specific page or set of pages”

·         Remove the pages you don’t need (if there are any by default)

·         Add pages you want to see as you open Chrome

With this, you’ll save precious seconds in the morning and won’t forget anything useful.

Restart Chrome from Within

Just type in the omnibox (remember what it is?) “chrome://restart”, and the browser will restart itself. If you have just added a group of home pages, you can restart your browser just to see these changes take effect.

Use Chrome’s Task Manager

Yes, Chrome has its own task manager, like that of Windows or OS X. Just press Shift-ESC while in Chrome, and it will show you all its tabs and processes. With it, you can detect and kill a problem tab without restarting the browser.

Add Commands as Bookmarks

Open your Bookmark Manager (Settings/Bookmarks/Bookmark Manager, or Ctrl-Shift-O) and go to the menu in its top-right corner. There you can create new bookmarks, and they don’t have to be URLs. You can add commands, like the previously seen chrome://restart, or any other chrome:// command. It’s easy to have these just one click away.

Choose Any Search Engine

Under Settings/Search Engine, you can manually add any search engine you want to see. Is it Bing, or DuckDuckGo, or local ones, like AliExpress, for Chinese online shopping, or Haber7, for Turkish news? Many exotic local search engines may be necessary, so you can just switch between them. After using Chrome for a month or two, you’ll be surprised how many search engines it has detected and saved for you, just in case.

Group Your Tabs

To create a group of tabs, choose one with a click, then shift-click the header of another tab, so these two tabs (and all between them) are selected together. Then right-click on them and choose “Add tabs to new group” and give the group a name. Now you have all your job-, news-, or fun-related tabs in one place. Then the group will appear among your tab headers. Click it to fold or unfold.

Block Third-Party Cookies

You don’t mind the cookies from the site you visit. And what other sites place their elements on this, and they collect your personal information too? These can be blocked once and forever.

1.       Click the menu and go to Settings

2.       Go to Security and Privacy

3.       Go to Cookies and Other Site Data

Google Drive Integration

If you want to save a file, you don’t have to download it to your computer, especially if the connection is poor or you have little drive space left. It takes the official extension by Google, but once it’s installed, you’ll be able to save moments and data by downloading content to your cloud drive. It will require access to your drive, but you have already provided it in your Chrome settings, so there’ll be no hassle at all.

Let Your Chrome Shine

There are more tricks you can do to your Chrome. We avoided mentioning experimental features also known as Chrome Flags because Google does not grant their correct functioning. Still, with the ones we have covered, your Chrome will work better. What tricks do you use with Chrome? We’d like you to share your experience in the comments!