Tag Archives: Google Chrome

Permanently Set ‘Google.com’ as Your Preferred Domain Version of Google Homepage

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When a non-US user visits the Google homepage, they are automatically redirected to the local version of the search engine for that country. This country version can be identified by looking at its tld (postfix after the dot sign in the domain name) which is Google.co.in for Indian users, Google.co.uk for British users, and so on. This redirection happens because Google believes that the local country data is more relevant and can give more information to what a user is looking for on the web.

Google automatic redirection to country specific site

Now, if you rather prefer the international Google.com version for its better results or for the latest features then we had an article to stop Google country search but this method may not always work.

Here is a quick solution to set Google.com as your preferred Google homepage which works perfectly in Chrome.

  1. First of all, close all Chrome windows
  2. Then open your chrome user profile directory. Locations vary by operating system, you find yours at:
    • Windows XP: %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\
    • Windows Vista and Windows 7: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data\
    • Mac OS X: ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default
    • Linux: ~/.config/google-chrome/Default
  3. In that directory, open the file named “Local State” in your favorite text editor. Note that it doesn’t have an extension.
  4. Now search for “last_known_google_url” and change the Google URL from from “http://www.google.tld/” (.tld=.co.in, .co.uk, etc.) to “http://www.google.com/.” Do the same for “last_prompted_google_url” as well.
    5. Chrome Local State

    Chrome Local State

    UPDATE: Gtricks reader wujae points out that this trick will now work with google.com/ncr instead of just google.com.Update the above step accordingly.
  5. Once you have made the changes to both lines, just save the file and restart your Chrome browser.

One of our reader Venu was having problem with this method as she pointed out in her commented. So I have made a video with the above steps:

That’s it! Try visiting Google and you should land on the global Google.com page. Following the same steps, you can also set any localized country specific Google version as the homepage.

Note: If you get a prompt to switch to your local domain, choose the second – ‘keep google.com’ – option.

via Google Operating System Blog

Best Proxy Managers for Internet Browsers

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Switching internet connections is always a big pain. Fortunately, we have proxy managers that take care of this complicated job. More thankfully, we have browser proxy add-ons and extensions, which makes this job easier than it sounds.

When do you need a proxy manager?

If you are the type of user that work on different networks simultaneously (e.g. one for company intranet, other for internet and other for home network) then each time you have to change your configuration to connect to different servers. If you need a quick way to way to switch between different proxy servers, without going to different screens then these managers will be of great help.

Let us see some of the best proxy managers, which work within browsers -

#. For Google Chrome – Proxy Switchy Extension

proxy switchy ruleschange proxy with single click
Click images to enlarge



Proxy Switchy is an Advance proxy manager for Chrome that gives you freedom to change between multiple profiles with a single click. You can also make URL based rules with this Chrome Extension. Since Chrome doesn’t have its own network configuration settings, this extension changes systems settings. As a result, it works for IE in the same manner. It also supports Socks v4 and v5, and LAN and VPN/Dial-up proxy settings. Another good feature of this extension is that you can backup and restore options or export switch rules as PAC/RuleList file.

#. For Firefox – FoxyProxy Standard Addon

foxy proxy change connection with single clickEdit proxy pattern based on URL
Click images to enlarge



FoxyProxy Standard Addon adds power to the limited inbuilt proxy capabilities of Firefox. It automatically switches to different connections based on URL patterns. So, you don’t have to fiddle with Firefox’s Connection Settings dialog each time.
This addon combines proxy.pac maintained by network administrators with an explicit proxy. It is also fully compatible with portable Firefox and it keeps logs of all the proxies that were used and when.

#. For Internet Explorer – Advance Proxy Manager

Change proxy in IEtray popup
Click images to enlarge



Currently you need to play with several screens to change proxy in Internet Explorer. There are lot of settings to reconfigure. Advance Proxy Manager allows you to make multiple proxy settings and you can easily switch them from tray icon menu.

The only disadvantage is that it is still in beta phase and was last updated on December 30, 2008.

Alternatively, you can try IE7Pro that also supports tabbed browsing capabilities.

3 Extensions for Improved Browsing History Management in Chrome for Search and Sort

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Google Chrome provides a very simple history feature to view past visited websites. It is very easy to use and solves most of the purpose. By default, your past visits are arranged in reverse chronological order with only few sorting options. Often it becomes difficult to search for previous visited sites in history. Chrome history also lacks in some other important features like:

#1. Looking up history for a specific date.

#2. Ability to search websites between the two dates.

#3. Sorting based on URL or date.

#4. Deleting specific parts of history.

We can easily overcome these problems with the use of chrome extensions. However, be advised that since these extensions are custom made they cannot be blindly trusted. Some of them might store sites you visit locally to give you enhanced functionality. A common method to choose extension is to choose one with high number of downloads having positive comments with good rating.

Let us look three such extensions that fulfil the above criteria and are very useful in managing history in better way –

History2 : Same History Page with Added Options

Chrome history2 extension

History2 is a very simple to use history viewer with a host of options that lets you view web history with already defined time frames such as 2 days ago or last week and others. You can even sort your search results alphabetically or by last time visit or by number of visits.

History Calendar: Beautifully designed Multipurpose Extension

history calendar

History Calendar is the best in its league but unfortunately it is not verified by Google. It gives quick information on already visited websites in a beautiful popup but this is just tip of the iceberg. The more evident use of this chrome extension is to view history for a particular date from calendar and to search history between two particular date intervals.

Recent History: A Nifty Web Browsing History Manager

recent histoey

Recent History is a heavily customised smart addon that gives you flexibility to view recent history with just a click of mouse and variety of options to manage better the past visited websites. The options page gives wide range of selections to choose.

The main history manager lets you view history based on the selected day of calendar. Deleting history between dates is hidden and you will have to click on the arrow next to calendar to reveal it. Similarly, the sorting options are not so evident. They can be found at top right most side of the page.

This extension does not not actually use Chrome history but it makes its own database separately. Therefore, it might be sluggish sometimes. However, this is a smart extension for improved browsing history management in Google Chrome.


Related : 5 new tab extensions to beautify Chrome.

How to Remove Websites from Tabs in Chrome Homepage

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Gtricks mobile interface beta is live at http://m.gtricks.com. Its about 7kb size page, so you can easily check of any updates through mobile conveniently.

Recently, when we covered 5 tab extensions to fancify chrome some readers mailed me, asking how to open blank tabs for privacy concerns? That is, they wanted to remove or hide most visited or recently closed websites from chrome’s new tab page.

Normally, when we open new tab in Google chrome, home page speed dial similar to opera displays most visited sites. Under normal circumstances, this is pretty useful as it provides facility to go to our favorite site with a single click. But sometimes, this is not at all favourable, especially when you want to hide your activities. At office or in home there are some situations when you don’t want to publicly display your recent visits for privacy reasons.

Possible solutions for this problem include - using incognito mode or removing website thumbnail from list. But this isn’t permanent solution for this recurring problem. Let’s discuss 2 potential solutions for this:

Temporary Hide Frequently Top Visited Web Pages

This one is simple, infact inbuilt in Chrome so you don’t have to download anything. All you need to do is click on Change Page Layout button and uncheck most visited and recently closed sites. Check out below image for instructions.

Permanently hide Thumbnails from New Tab

You can remove site thumbnails/images from chrome new page by clearing all your history. For this go to Options > Under the hood > Clear browsing data. Now to permanently stop these thumbnails from coming back, install Blank New Tab Extension. This extension forces chrome to open about:blank in new tab i.e. blank page.

Now you can easily hide all those commonly visiting sites by above two methods. Here is a short video for the same:

2 Choices for IE Tab in Chrome

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IE in google chrome
You have to accept that some websites work only with IE (Microsoft’s Internet Explorer). They are designed that way and you can’t do anything for them. Especially intranet websites which were made years before Chrome or Firefox and now have cluttered layout in latest browsers.

Another major problem is some links don’t recognize a click inside chrome. On hitting they don’t do what they were supposed to do, but sit idle. They seem to work perfectly in IE though. For such problems, you can use IE engine inside Chrome with this or this extension.

What these extensions/addons does is use inbuilt operating system’s IE engine to render web-pages inside Chrome, so you don’t have to open IE each time for IE-specific site. They are very useful for corporate intranet sites, designers and sites with ActiveX controls.

You have two choices for using IE-Tab in Chrome. One is stable and popular but the other one gives you better controlling though it has few bugs.

IE Tab is enormous popular inside extension gallery and it fulfills ones basic needs. You can add specific URL’s that you want to open in IE engine always.

IE-tab

IE Tab Classic is relatively new and provides better user interface than the previous one. With this you can specify which web sites or which pages always opens in IE. It also provides icon in omnibox to quickly switch between chrome and IE.

Note 1: When using IE rendering engines inside chrome, you can’t use chrome right-click items or other features such as opening new tabs by clicking middle mouse button.

Note 2: Some users have reported difficulty using tab key or Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V with IE Tab Classic. And it also doesn’t work with Mac OS.

Related: Official Google Extensions for Chrome

Google Makes Chrome Extensions Public

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As anticipated, Google has launched its extension gallery for Windows Chrome users and as an early Christmas gift, it has also released Chrome for Mac and Linux users.

We have already informed you that Chrome extensions might go public by Google this week and yes, it did. In all, there are 435 extensions though you might not find complex and multi-utility extensions like there counterpart addons in Firefox. These extensions are lightweight ( it means they won’t slow down your chrome browser) and typically get installed near the address bar.

chrome-xtensions

To install Chrome extensions, you must have latest beta version of Chrome. You can download it from here.

Some of the highly recommended extensions are:

AdThwart – Works like Adblock plus addon for Google. This extension will hide all the annoying ads from the webpage. Note that the ads are hidden, not removed. You can remove ads from chrome by this trick.

Gmail Checker – Displays number of unread messages from your Gmail inbox.

Google Translate – Lets you translate any webpage with a click of button. It uses Google translate engine to convert text, websites, blogs and documents.

VerticalTabs – If you have a habit of opening too many tabs at same time, then this extension is specifically made for you. Along with smaller tabs of Chrome (which are terrible to read), this extension will display all tabs in vertical fashion with full titles.

IE tab – For websites that doesn’t function properly in chrome, use this extension that will use IE engine but renders it in Chrome.

Facebook – No need to open facebook in a separate tab. This extension lets you check your wall, your feed and notifications from a small pop-up.

One number – Too many add-ons but less space? This nifty extension lets you save space by providing single button for Gmail, Greader, Gwave and GVoice.

RSS Subscription – Subscribe to feeds by clicking on RSS icon in address box (omnibox) just like in Firefox.

We will be soon publishing the list of most useful extensions. Until then, enjoy and experiment with Chrome extensions from here.

[Image source]

Tips for Google Chrome

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Google Chrome is now already known to all of us. It has become ubiquitous and now everyone wants to get more of it. In this post we will tell you  some interesting facts just like we did for Google and some web browser insights.

Lets look at some of the basic tips that might help you to imcrease productivity:

  • The Chrome Easter Egg- Write about:internets in omnibar aka address bar.
  • Similarly, about:crash – “Something went wrong while displaying this webpage. To continue, press Reload or go to another page.”
  • about:stats – It gives you various statistics, and the title says “Shh.. This page is secret”
  • About:Memory – it will open a detailed memory stats of each processes or opened websites.

    You can also find this out by Right-Clicking to the vacant top window colored blue area > Choose Task Manager

  • Other Stats for Nerds link
    about:network
    about:memory
    about:plugins
    about:version
    about:stats
    about:histograms
    about:dns
    about:cache
    and just plain about:
  • Google Chrome takes nearly 47MB space of your hard-disk while Firefox3 mearly uses 24 MB.
  • In Windows XP Google Chrome will be installed in C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\ directory. In Windows Vista Google Chrome will be installed in C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\ directory.
  • The Chrome installer adds a AutoUpdate application to the system startup.
  • Google Chrome is based on Webkit which powers the Safari Browser.
  • Google Chrome, currently version 0.2.149.27, seems to use a slightly older build of Webkit (version 525.13, to be precise).
  • Shortcut to hide and unhide the bookmark bar:Ctrl+B
  • Shortcut for task manager : Shift+Esc
  • Shortcut for opening The Last Tabs:Ctrl+Shift+T
  • Shortcut for opening a Particular Tab:Ctrl+1 through Ctrl+8
  • Shortcut for opening Your Home Page:Alt+Home
  • Shortcut for search: Ctrl+F , more ever it remembers the location of searched text on scroll bar and also highlight the search text in real time.
  • There are very few options, and even fewer menus. It lacks a status bar too. The clean interface is Google’s trademark.
  • By default the Java runtime only supports Internet Explorer and Firefox.If you want to run Java Applets on Google Chrome, download the JRE 6u10 for Windows and restart Google Chrome after installation.
  • You can tear off tabs into new windows. Just click and drag the tab off the tab bar. You can also put it back on if you wish.
  • There is no RSS auto-discovery in Chrome.
  • Your address bar actually doubles up as a Search field as well. Type whatever you want to search in it and hit enter. You can edit your search engines also by right clicking on address bar.
  • It is possible to have some tabs “icognito” and others not at the same time.
  • Different processes threads for each tab. Tab memory freed immediately as tabs are closed.
  • Chrome doesn’t have Addons like Firefox but it would eventually, it’s just a beta right now
  • Best feature – Create Application Shortcuts: This allows you to create a small program which is dedicated to a web site. This means just click the program and you will see it there.

The Browser War: Beware Google Chrome is Coming

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The search giants have now started to realize the power of web browsers. Everyone knows about the BIG G’s inclination for Firefox. Though Mozilla Foundation is non-profit group but Google donates millions of dollars for R&D; in Firefox. It has also recently extended its search agreement with Google that was going to be expired after 2 months. The deal has renewed for the second time after its first renewal in 2006. Mozilla-Google shares a three 3 years deal, according to which Google pays $57 million to Mozilla for setting Google as the default search engine on Firefox. The wholesome amount is subjected to be 85% of the Mozilla’s total revenue. The agreement was first expired in 2006, but was extended to 2008 and now it will last till 2011. But the organization claims to be open source that is not related to Google in any way.

Realizing the potential of search revenue, Yahoo too has started promoting yahoo search in Firefox. Look at these picture where yahoo says to select yahoo from search dropdown box in Firefox.

promoting yahoo search in firefox

recommending yahoo search in firefox

Eventually, there is yahoo version for Firefox.You can also get Yahoo toolbar from here.

yahoo firefox start homepage

So whats next in browser combat? Google too have announced their browser Google Chrome to be available soon. Even the have made a comic book for its promotion. You can download new Google browser from here.

The Internet Explorer 8 is about to be released. Though you can get beta from here. The new privacy feature of IE8, called InPrivate, can be the nightmare of any ad server. Google Chrome has similar feature Incognito but they probably allow adsense to run free. Google has worked hard for Chrome in terms of speed, stability, security and user interface. Lets see if Google can take down Microsoft with its browser.

But wait a minute, what about Firefox? the Google agreement? the Opera? and what does the web community really needs?