AdBlock Plus starting to sell ads, time to switch to uBlock Origin

In recent news, AdBlock Plus will be starting to bypass certain ads if these comply with some criteria that the company sets. Since we don’t know what they consider as “criteria”, we better switch to something else right away.

And that’s when uBlock Origin comes in. I read about it a lot before this news, but I made the change recently due to being lazy.

Main differences? Well, mostly the interface, and some RAM and CPU improvements over ye olde ABP. Also, the way that it allows you to block elements in the webpage reminds me a lot of how ABP worked on Firefox, that allows you to block elements in real time, instead of setting rules and stuff.

Anyway, switch to it as soon as possible. You won’t regret it.

Search Similar images in Google from the context menu

This is a very known feature of Chrome. If you have an image open and you want to know if or where it has been reposted you can easily right-click the image and click on “Search Google for this image”.

The problem with this is that you must have Google (the one who comes with Chrome) as your default search engine.

If I change my search provider, I lost that feature.

Also, you can Right-Click > S.

Fix “Updates are disabled by the administrator” for Chrome Updates

Yesterday I tried to see which version of Chrome I was using for curiosity, and suddenly this message appears “Updated are disabled by the administrator”. After reinstalling the browser, the problem persisted. And after a Google search, the solution appeared.

 

Chrome’s New Translate Button

As you know, Chrome’s has a perma-option to translate sites, it used to be a bar, but now it’s a button on the address bar.

And when you translate the site:

Disable Chrome’s SSL Certificate errors

Although is not something very known, many websites, services, and apps require an SSL connection to work properly and safe as possible. The thing is, for extensions or apps within Chrome that require a constant connection to a site with an untrusted certificated won’t connect because Chrome blocks these kind of site by default; you need to go into the site and click “Proceed anyway” for the app to work.

The workaround is with a flag:

--ignore-certificate-errors

That way, each time Chrome asks a site for it’s certificate, it won’t matter if is trusted or not, everything will be possible!

Page Monitor: Get a notification when a page updates

A few days ago I was looking for a service that notified me in real time when a site updated... it was impossible. Most sites ask for payments, and some others only check daily, and I need to be notifies immediately. And just by coincidence, I found Page Monitor.

This is a Chrome extension that checks if a website has any changes in real-time... or at least close to that. You can check every 2 days, or every 5 seconds, which is awesome! And every time a change occurs, you’ll get a notification up to 5 seconds late. Although many don’t have this kind of need, still is something very useful that all should know about.

It also keeps a history of the sites that have updated, so in case you weren’t in your PC or you shut down chrome, you’ll still be able to see what updated when.

Create AdBlock custom filters and block rules

Even though is a little complicated than Firefox, you can block custom items in AdBlock for Chrome too. It’s just like this.

Click on the AdBlock button > Block element.

A message will appear, read it, and then click on the ad or element of the website that you want blocked. In this case, the ads on Facebook’s right bar.

When you click an element, all other elements with the same value will be selected too. Also, you’ll see a screen letting you know the address or rule that will be used to the element.

Now just click the Add button and reload the site.

Disable spell check in Chrome and Firefox

When using any browser, you should notice that these check your spelling as you type, just as Word did at the beginning. To some people this is useful (me), to others it not. For those who don’t like this, here’s how to disable it on Firefox and Chrome.

Firefox

This is simple, go to Options > Advanced.

Now uncheck the “Check my spelling as I type” and you’re free to make mistakes again.

Chrome

To deactivate the spell checker, go to a text field (a field where you type), right click > Spell-checker options > Check the spelling of text fields.

This way, you can make as many mistakes as you want, no one will judge, except maybe the NSA, but they were judging you since that video you watch a while ago.

How to remove the Apps Shortcut from Chrome’s Bookmarks Bar

In latest Chrome builds you may have seen a “Apps” shortcut at the beginning of the bookmarks bar; the shortcut is there because the apps are no longer displayed on the New Tab page, instead they’re in another page… If you use Chrome, this is something you must know by know so I’ll skip it.

Now, how to remove it? Well, this is easy. Right-click the bookmarks bar, then make sure to uncheck the “Show Apps shortcut”.

And that’s it, if you want, you can bookmark chrome://apps, that way, you can remove name and leave the icon alone… if you want.

The 4 basic Chrome extensions

There are countless extensions, choosing which ones you must have will vary from user to user, but there are 4 that, no matter who you are, no matter what you browse, no matter what you do on your free time, you must have installed. There are also countless post showing which are the most important extensions out there, but those are for specific purposes, these ones are basic and all users must install.

Adblock Plus

The most important extension since the creation of extensions. This extension will hide intrusive ads, block some types of tracking, and even hide social buttons such as comment plugins, Like/+1/Tweet/Share buttons. Of course, this can all be changed in the options.

HTTPS Everywhere

Yes, HTTPS protocol is safer than HTTP. This extension will force a website to go into “Safe mode” or into HTTPS if possible.

Chromoji

Chrome doesn’t support emojis by default, so you need an extension to do it. Chromoji is what you need. (I already talked about it)

Turn off the lights

Finally, the one that everyone loves but few people know about it. This awesome extension will darken all the exterior of YouTube videos to make it look like a cinema... or at least that’s the idea. Works in YouTube, Metacafe, Vimeo, TED, and more.

Whether you like these or not, you need them, so, install them and you’re welcome.

YSK how to launch Chrome into Incognito Mode automatically

Incognito Mode, I love it, you love it, and there is even a way to create a shortcut to launch it automatically instead of the normal window by using a flag on Chrome’s shortcut.

Right click Chrome’s shortcut > Properties.

Now, at the end of Target, type -incognito.

And that’s it, every time you click that shortcut Chrome will open as an incognito window. In most cases I recommend having two different shortcuts, a normal one and an incognito one to avoid confusion.

Shutting down Chrome, the fastest way possible

This is something you possibly don’t care or even consider, but Chrome takes a few milliseconds to shut down, in some cases a few seconds, well let me tell you that there is a way to boost this speed (decrease it) to practically zero.

Go to chrome://flags/#enable-fast-unload. Enable that flag.

Trust me on this one, the closing time will be amazingly decreased; hitting the button will show what’s behind at that precise moment. Not only that, the processes will also be closed quickly - Chrome takes one or two seconds to shut down it’s processes - and even that is not much, it’s just feels better.

Get the old New Tab page on Chrome

Did you check the new Chrome new New Tab page? In my opinion it looks great. Yes, I miss the apps shortcuts, but still looks very nice. Anyway, if you want to change it back, it’s very easy.

Go to chrome://flags. Go down, search for “Enable Instant Extended API”, and disable it.

After restarting the browser, voila!

 

Chrome’s New “Recent Tabs” feature

Chrome updated last week with several new features that completely changed the interface, and of course, some old features were removed. One of these was the “Recent Tabs” option that was shown in the New Tab page, now if you want to access the latest tabs you need to go to the options and click on “Recent Tabs”.

At the end of the menu you’ll see a “More...”, which is only the history and can be accessed trough Ctrl+H.

List of Chrome URLs - Omnibox shortcuts

Since the arrival of Chrome, the omnibox has been one of the most useful tools it has; search from there, prediction, autocomplete, calculator, search from other search engines, and more. One of my favorite features is the possibility to type addresses for some Chrome pages such as extensions, plugins, settings, etc. Here are some of these.

• chrome://accessibility

In this page you’ll be able to customize the accessibility options in Chrome for each extension (spoken feedback, high contrast mode, screen magnifier). These options are only available to ChromeBook users.

• chrome://appcache-internals

Here you can check the application’s cache, AKA, offline data.

 

New Chrome and Google Appearance

It’s been a while since Google change the appearance of Chrome in beta builds, and the one of the search engine was saw a lot of times around the Internet. Well, today finally the update was completed and can be seen in Chrome and Google.

For starters, this is the new New Tab page on Chrome:

And Google removed the top bar menu completely.

Well, at least on my PC is like that, but the change should be available to everyone soon enough.

Two things to notice:

There is no “Open N closed tabs”, where N is the number of tabs recently closed

The Apps page is now the first bookmark. It can’t be moved or edited, but it can be removed and add it later if you want.

YSK how to select several Chrome tabs at the same time

One of Chrome’s unique features is the possibility to create new windows by dragging tabs outside of the current one.

But you can also select a set of tabs instead of just one and create a new window with several tabs instead of dragging one tab at the time.

To do this, just click one tab at the top, press CTRL, and then proceed to click the other tabs you want to select. It also works with SHIFT to select a range of tabs. Exactly like Windows works. You can even close multiple tabs at the same time, but you can’t re-open them by hitting CTRL+SHIFT+T; if you close several tabs at the same time, you need to re-open them one by one.

Get Desktop Notifications for Facebook with Fruumo using Chrome

Use Facebook a lot? Like Chrome? Doesn’t like to keep the browser running all the time? Fruumo is what you need.

First. Chrome can run in the background even when the browser is closed, this was made so people can easily get notifications from extensions or Chrome itself when the browser is not running (this can be disabled in the options).

Second. Fruumo is the extension for you.

 

Resetting Chrome to it’s default settings

Many thing happened while my Internet was dead. One of the things I noticed first was that Chrome had 2 major updates while I was gone and it introduced a new amazing feature in one of those: a reset button.

The button is very much needed because the previous way to do it was way more annoying and it took more time… and that previous way is deleting the User Data folder located at

C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome

Anyway, if you didn’t know about this, now you do.

Allow/Block a site’s content using Chrome

One of the most amazing feature in Chrome is the possibility to customize with content you want to allow and which one you want to block. By content I mean:

• Images
• JavaScript
• Plugins
• Popups
• Location
• Notifications
• Fullscreen
• Mouse Lock
• Multimedia

This content can be easily customized and set to Allow or Blocked just by clicking the site’s information on the far left side of the address bar.

The blocking/allowing can be easily done and undone, so you can try it out to set it to a confortable browsing of specific sites. Let me show you, here’s how reddit looks with settings at default:

Now let’s block Images and JavaScript.

This is how it looks now.

Of course, reddit is pretty simple stuff. Most sites when you need to use this feature are sites where mouse and keyboard events (click, hover, keypress) activate other events that may cause you an unpleasant time.

If a site is fuckin’ mess, just block the JS.