I have been a Mozilla Firefox fan for many years, but during that time I have tried a couple of others, such as Opera and Google Chrome. Previous versions of Chrome just didn’t cut it for me, as it didn’t have the Extensions like Firefox does. I like to use certain Extensions/AddOns to make my Web Browsing experience more enjoyable, but now that Google Chrome has Extensions it’s time to try it one more time.
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Installation was nice and easy and my Bookmarks and Site History copied over easily. It was like I hadn’t changed browsers, at all.
To make Chrome similar to how I used Firefox, these are the Extensions I am using :-
- Mouse Gestures – I discovered this when I started using Opera a long time ago, and once you get used to it, you’d wonder what you did without it. It works by holding down the Right Mouse button and drawing a pre-determined line that is assigned to do a task. I have mine set to : Draw an L to close a Tab, Draw a vertical line up to open a new Tab, While sitting over a link Draw a vertical line down to open a link in a new background Tab, and Draw a line left or right to go forwards or backwards in your Tab history.
The biggest benefit is for a laptop user, I guess, but it’s just awesome to not have to move your mouse pointer to an X at the top of the screen to close etc. when the little fella is at the bottom of the screen. Just hold the right mouse button, draw the Mouse Gesture, done. Extension name : Smooth Gestures
- AdBlock – This wonderful extension keeps those pesky Porno site ads etc. in check, by giving you the option to hide them. Interestingly, but predictably, the Chrome version of this extension doesn’t work too well on the Google owned YouTube, as it hides some of the videos along with the ads. On Firefox, it works perfectly. I used to wonder what people were on about when they discussed YouTube ads, and the reason is because Firefox and AdBlock were doing such a great job of blocking them. I now have AdBlock disabled on Chrome for YouTube and the Ads aren’t overly intrusive. Extension name : AdBlock
- Search Box – One of the things I dearly love about Firefox is the Search Box/Bar that is at the top right of the window. I would have different Search Engines in there, such as Google, eBay, Wikipedia, YouTube and a couple of others. Google Chrome doesn’t come with this as standard, although you can search directly from the main Address Bar. With a very handy Extension called All Search, a magnifying glass icon is added to your toolbar that, when clicked, opens a small window to give you access to the Search Engines that you have chosen. Brilliant! Extension name : All Search
- StumbleUpon – The ultimate in time wasters. Add the Extension, sign up for an account, choose the categories you would like to see web pages about, and Stumble away! Each click of the StumbleUpon button will give you a new random webpage to look at. Check it out at http://www.stumbleupon.com/, and don’t blame me for the time you waste Stumbling!
Extension name : StumbleUpon
With these Extensions added, although I am trialling a couple of others to see what they do, I am enjoying my experience with Chrome and have now made it my default browser. Yes, it is that good. Try it and see how you like it. http://www.google.com/chrome
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