Google is constantly innovating and updating the performance of their Google Chrome Browser. The changes seem to sneak up on us like a thief in the night at times catching us off guard an unaware. 
Quite often the updates to Google Chrome are very subtle and have little impact on our day to day web surfing experience. Technically the browser will update on it's on, but every now and then we need to give it a gentle nudge by simply checking “About Google Chrome.”
Then there are times when a more radical change comes along that gets our attention – and not always in a good way. We're creatures of habit, which means that we're very resistant change and although we might get annoyed when features are moved around we have little choice but to accept them and move on.
Google has built a lot of loyalty into the Chrome brand (they have a way of doing that don't they) and even hard-core Firefox users will pop in and out of Chrome at least once or twice a day for various tasks.
The Blank Tab In Google Chrome
In a recent change to our favorite browser, Google moved the blank tab containing access to all of our apps and the Chrome Store up to the toolbar. I'll admit, I was very annoyed with that change and I'm sure some of you were also. But after a day or two I started to think of ways to take advantage of the switch. It's actually pretty handy to get access to my most frequently visited websites when I open a blank tab. Here's a peek at the line-up I see when I open a blank tab.
I've got loads of social media sites including YouTube, Triberr, Viral Content Buzz, HootSuite, JustRetweet etc.
What websites do see when you open a blank tab in Chrome? Let me know in the comments section.
Pro Tips for Google Chrome Power Users
One of the coolest tips for using Chrome comes from Peggy Duncan over at Suite Minute in a post called How to Add Your Favorite Webpages to Your Browser Bar. After watching her video I wanted to kick myself for doing it the hard way all those years. You might be doing it the long way too, since most people will click the star on the right hand side of the Omnibox and confirm the new bookmark in the dialog box. Next your bookmark will be added to the end of a long list of bookmarks and most likely it will never see the light of day unless you make the extra effort to move it to a new position.
The method Peggy shared works on Firefox and IE also and very simply, you just drag and drop the new bookmark and plop it down wherever you want on the toolbar.
That is only one of the tips that I share in this video – check out the others and you'll be a Google Chrome Power User in record time!
Google Chrome Browser Tips for Power Users
Related links:
- The Chrome Store
- How to Access Apps and Recently Closed Tabs
- Keep Google Chrome, Gmail and Wisestamp Up to Date
- Managing Extensions in the Google Chrome Toolbar
Transcript for Chrome Power User Video
Today I want to talk to you about the Google Chrome browser and how you can set your browser up for success so you can be a power user on Google Chrome. I wanna show you some tips to help you be more efficient and toward the and I'm gonna give you a special bonus tip that's gonna make you feel like a real power user when it comes to Google Chrome.
When you open a blank tab in Chrome you would get a display of all your applications that you have installed as well as access to the Google Chrome Store where you can find more handy applications and extensions. But one of the updates that they rolled out in the fall of 2013 was to change the home screen for a blank tab and now it looks like this.
So the first tip I wanna give you is even though this browser should update automatically sometimes it doesn't. So I want you to move over to the top of the page and come down and open up your settings bar and do “About Google Chrome”. This is going to check to make sure that you have up-to-date browser and then you'll get the message to let you know that it's up to date.Anytime you find that things are behaving a little strangely go up and make sure that it's up to date.
Now this new blank tab does have some cool features. It let's you do the Google search but it also remembers your browsing history so it's going to show you those pages that you visit most often. They also added a handy feature up in your toolbar to get you back to the Apps page and that's just a link right here.
Now I've showed this in a previous video if you wanna see your extensions and there's just a subtle difference between your Chrome extensions and your Apps you can install the link right on your browser bar for extensions and always check of this develop remove that's just gonna give you if there's any extra features or anything new rolling out that'll give you access if you find that there's an extension that you just don't really like and you haven't really been using it you can easily disable it right here. Or if you completely don't want to have anything to do with the app anymore you can delete it here.
Now HootSuite they're another one who's always constantly innovating and they just made some recent changes to the HootSuite Hootlet but there's options with that so if you wanna check on the options, always look to see what those options are and toggle off any features that you don't want.
Now let's turn our attention back to this browser bar and you'll notice something that I've done here see these bookmarks that I have right here. Notice that they don't have any words next to them that just gives you more room on your browser bar.
If you know certain icons for the favicon of certain sites that you visit often you can simply remove the words. For example this one is for Blog Engage you shortcut click open up edit see I know the favicon for Blog Engage so I don't need that to have any letters.
This next tip is going to save you time anytime you wanna add a new bookmark. So right now over on Triberr, and this my tribe over on Triberr. And you simply come up to the Omnibox that's what this space is called it's called an Omnibox, and drag it down. There you go and then we can edit that, get rid of the name. Now you have another quick way to get to your favorite sites; doesn't take up that much space on your bookmarks bar.
Moving on to the next tip I want to share with you, it's actually an extension is called Shortcuts for Google and this extension allows you to add any of the Google services that you want. It's just a quicker way to navigate around on Chrome and get easier access to all of the bookmarks and sites that you use, especially Google. And here's the Options page and you can see where this is all of the available Google services; you can just drag them over. Another option that I love about this extension is you can simply add a website. For example I added my Facebook page. So now I have easy access to go directly to my page right from Shortcuts for Google.
So now let's go over to our Power Tips and for those we're going to access the settings on Chrome. In the first section on “Start Up” this is where you gonna set the page that you always want whenever you open up Chrome. And for me it's going to be Basic Blog Tips which is my blog. You can also add additional pages that will open up every time you open your browser. So what we're going to do is we want to get access to those Apps very quickly so were gonna add the URL for the Apps. Come over to the Apps page, grab that URL, go back to our settings page, add it in. Now let's shut down the browser and open it back up and you'll see my homepage opened as well as that Apps page which I desperately wanna have access to as quickly as possible so I can go and check my email and any other sites that I wanna visit right away.
That's it for today guys hope you’re able to navigate your Google Chrome more efficiently, talk to you soon. Sign up for my newsletter that way you can stay on top of all the latest with blogging social media, YouTube, and podcasting. In order to sign up just go over to https://basicblogtips.com/tips And I'll chat with you soon.
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