No, your memory isn’t failing you — I’ve written about managing Chrome tabs before. I wrote about an extension called Tab Wrangler once upon a time that helped keep my scatter-brained tabs under control by automatically closing the ones I wasn’t using. Now, I want to take a closer look at a different tab management extension called OneTab, and tell you why I switched over.
Update: The Android app is receiving a similar update that allows users to add notes right from the Share menu. Additionally, hashtags in notes now act as labels.
Google Keep started out as a basic, cross platform note taking app with reminders and has slowly gained more features like image uploading, advanced search, and drawing. An update today adds a new Chrome extension that allows users to easily save and markup web pages and images.
A couple weeks back you may have seen a lot of news coverage about a Chrome extension that, when installed, replaces all instances of the word ‘millennials’ on the webpages you visit with ‘snake people’. The media seems to have this non-stop desire to write think piece after think piece about how snake peoples are a smartphone-obsessed, basement dwelling generation who expect everything on a silver spoon. If these posts are driving you crazy, Millennials to Snake People will ease the pain! There’s also an older one called ‘Cloud to Butt Plus’ which, while pretty self-explanatory, cuts straight to a kind of taboo topic that makes us uneasy and/or nervous, the feelings which are oftentimes best dealt with through laughter.
But maybe there’s some other word or phrase driving you mad that these extensions haven’t addressed. Thankfully, I’m here to help. And you don’t even need to have any web development experience, as I’ve already gone ahead done all the elbow work! When you’re finished you’ll be able to run this extension in the Chrome browser on your computer absolutely free, or for $5 you’ll be able to pay Google for the right to publish it to the Chrome Web Store where anyone can download it. So, here’s how to make a Chrome extension that replaces any word or phrase with the one of your choosing:
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It’s Friday! As the week draws to a close, we’ve shared some interesting little additions to the Play Store including new user feedback call-to-actions and a ‘Free App of the Week‘ promotion, and so it only makes sense to mention a change to the Chrome Web Store that happened this week: there’s a new device compatibility icon.
Yes, not a huge change, but helpful nonetheless. If an extension or theme is compatible with your device, you’ll see a reassuring “Compatible with your device” indicator in the right-hand information rail, above the app description. If not, you’ll (as always) see the “Add to Chrome” button replaced by a red “Not Compatible” button, like the one pictured below. That picture was taken from techdows.com because it’s surprisingly hard to find a Chrome Web Store app not compatible with any of my computers, but what the picture below is showing is Chrome disabling NPAPI plugins on Windows 8, as the technology is not compatible with Windows 8 Metro mode.
This change was initially spotted by a tipster speaking with the unofficial Chrome Operating System blog.
According to a statement from a member of the Google Chrome team, there are currently “no plans” to bring extensions to the mobile version of the browser. It’s a feature that has long been wanted, but the Chrome for Android Technical Program Manager says that they haven’t been able to implement them and still provide a good UX.
As per the AMA from yesterday:
There are no plans to add extensions support on mobile. We haven’t been able to implement these on mobile and still have it be a good user experience.
This seems a bit like the team is dodging the question here, and they don’t provide any details as to what exactly it is about the mobile experience that gets worse with extensions in the picture. One of the most popular extensions, AdBlock, would put an end to mobile ads—many of which Google themselves serves. Maybe this is what’s keeping extensions from allowing a “good user experience.”
Back in May of last year, Google started enforcing a policy that requires Chrome extensions be hosted on its Chrome Web Store, but only on Windows. The goal was to prevent malware hidden in extensions installable from outside its store, and it even started disabling extensions already installed on users’ systems that weren’t hosted on the Chrome Web Store. Now, Google says it will bring that requirement to Mac Chrome users over the coming months, as well as the Chrome developer channel for Windows that wasn’t previously enforcing the policy:
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Microsoft has a big day today at its Windows 10 press event, where in part it is expected to unveil a brand new web browser called “Spartan” as part of its latest operating system. ZDNet reports that Spartan will not simply be another Internet Explorer release, but rather a lightweight web browser that looks and functions more like Chrome, Firefox and Safari.
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Google has made several strides to improve the safety and reliability of Gmail in the past year, such as serving images through secure proxy servers and requiring an encrypted HTTPS connection. Looking to continue to that trend, Google announced on Tuesday that it has improved the security of Gmail on the desktop by adding support for Content Security Policy (CSP).
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The SmartBand Talk—which we leaked and was announced alongside the SmartWatch 3 earlier this year—is about to launch worldwide in the coming weeks, but today, its app has officially launched on the Play Store. Alongside the launch of this main companion app, the company has also launched four extension apps, which bring even more features to the SmartBand Talk.
The latest build of the beta version of Google’s Cast Chrome extension is now serving up 1080p tab casting. Not a finished product, you’re likely to encounter a few bugs while using it, however it should help give an idea of what’s coming to it’s more refined counterpart. The recent update introduces more robust control options under a section marked “Custom mirroring settings.”
If you’re a Chrome user, apps and extensions are most likely a major part of your web browsing experience. While these different types of software tools often make life easier for us, they tend have a lot going on behind the scenes. To help keep people in the know, Google has added an audit feature to its standalone Chrome Apps Developer Tool.
Today, Microsoft announced the availability of its OneNote Clipper extension for Chrome. Released earlier this year, this point and click app lets users snap bookmarks of just about anything on the web, making them available to be viewed at a later time. Kind of sounds familiar, huh? To download this software visit onenote.com/clipper while using Chrome and click the install button.
Last year, Google announced that it was working towards dropping Netscape Plugin Application Programming Interface (NPAPI) support from Chrome before the close of 2014. Today, the company took steps towards keeping its word by removing Chrome Web Store apps and extensions that use the aging cross-platform plugin. Not stopping there, this grand purge also applies to search results and category pages.
Google announced today that it’s now blocking local Chrome extensions to protect Windows users from malicious software. This means that only extensions coming from the Chrome Web Store can be installed on Chrome for Windows. As an additional safety precaution, Google says that previously installed extensions may automatically be disabled and cannot be restored until they’re hosted in the Chrome Web Store.
