Google Chrome as a web browser is new,neither in the market nor to us. But it is yet another significant milestone in Google’s path to world dominance. Chrome introduces some novel ideas to the otherwise drab concept of browsing. Its speed and lightweight nature imbibed in a simple and easy interface has caught up with net surfers very quickly. Though we might be well aware of some of its uses, it would help to revisit what special features this dynamic browser has to offer.

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Making Chrome your default Browser

Click on the ‘Customize and Control Google Chrome’ button to the right of the address bar, click on ‘Options’ and under ‘Default browser’ click on the ‘Make Google Chrome my default browser’ button

Bookmarks

To bookmark a page in Google Chrome, click on the Star icon next to the address bar. To access the list of bookmarked pages at a later point in time during browsing, press [ctrl]+[B]. To make it go away press the same shortcut tab again.

Inspect Memory Usage

Google has incorporated some advanced options in Chrome for checking the memory usage. Even if you are working on multiple browsers at the same time, Chrome enables you to see the memory being used by the other browsers too.

Click on the browser tab in the start bar and then select ‘Task Manager’. A window pops up which shows how much memory is being used in the browser by each tab which is open at that time. Clicking on ‘Stats for Nerds’ will open a new tab in the browser. This will contain an ID, name of the site and the memory usage

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Navigation Tips

Just Right-click on the back and next buttons to go through a recent history of visited Web sites.

Drag and drop any tab you wish to, from the browser into the desktop to start a browser with just that tab open. To open a tab you have just closed by mistake, use the keys [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [T] and Use [Ctrl] + [1] to [9] to cycle through tabs from the keyboard.

Anonymous Mode

For users to want to surf the web without letting other people know can do so by using the secret mode which Chrome offers. You will find the Page Control Button on the top right hand corner of the browser, to the right of the address bar. Click on the Page Control Button and select “New Incognito Window”. Or simply press [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [N]. The sites surfed in this anonymous mode will not appear in the history. Worried about the cookies? The cookies stored on the computer will automatically get deleted as soon as the tab is closed.

Expanding text Boxes.

Often websites require you to fill in text in a text area. Whenever you come across a text area required to be filled up in a public forum or a website, click on the bottom right corner of the text area. Then click and drag it to suit your requirements.

Mastering these basic tools offered by Chrome will help making browsing a lot more intuitive and fun.