Extensions

THE previous Chrome Tips post was about apps. In this one, I’d like to talk a bit about extensions.

Extensions add new features to Chrome, or modify the way it works. The pic above is from my Chrome, and you can see icons for four extensions I have installed. (Not all extensions put icons up, by the way.) These are just examples, to give a feel for the kinds of things extensions can do, and it doesn’t constitute any kind of recommendation. From left to right:

• IE Tab: this one lets you open a web page in a tab using Internet Explorer’s rendering engine instead of Chrome’s own. That can be useful for viewing pages that were designed specifically for IE, and that don’t render properly in other browsers. These days I don’t have much need for it but I keep it around just in case. And, I don’t know how Microsoft’s new browser, Edge, fits in since it uses another rendering engine altogether.
• Forecastfox: That’s a weather extension that tells me the current weather and temperature. The background on the temperature changes to red when there’s a severe weather warning.
• Adblock Plus: Does just what it says – it blocks ads, which can speed up page loads. But it does more than that; it also blocks tracking cookies and a certain amount of malware, which is the main reason I use it.
• Pinterest: Gives you a quick way to pin a page to a board on your Pinterest account.

You get extensions from the Chrome Web Store, just like you do for apps, and you install them in pretty much the same way. Explore the store – there are lots and lots of extensions for all kinds of things.

Like I said, not all extensions have icons, but you can see all your currently-installed extensions easily. Quick way: right click on any icons you already have in that area and choose Manage extensions. If you don’t have any extension icons, then go to the Settings page and click Extensions on the left side. You’ll get a page with all the details.

Here you can remove extensions easily (just click the garbage can icon). You can also disable extensions – useful if you have one that you want to switch off for a bit but you don’t want to remove. Some extensions (like Forecastfox) have customization options, and you can get to those by clicking the options link.

Last word: if you have multiple accounts set up (as I explained in an earlier post), each account has its own set of extensions. So if you sign in on a new machine, your extensions are installed for you automatically. Nice.

Until next time, gentle reader . . .

The Difference Between Apps And Extensions

APPS are things that you start when you want them to, and they typically run in their own tab or window. Extensions, on the other hand, modify Chrome’s behaviour more generally. This post is about apps. I’ll come to extensions in the next post.

To get to your apps, click the Apps button—it’s usually at the left hand end of the bookmarks bar.

Oh, wait. You don’t see that on your Chrome? Right click in the bookmarks bar and click the Show apps shortcut setting to turn it on.

Oh, hang on. You don’t even have the bookmarks bar? Click the hamburger button  then mouse over Bookmarks, and you’ll see the option to switch on the bookmarks bar. Or just hit Ctrl-Shift-B to toggle it.

And there’s another way to get to apps, which is the Apps Launcher. This is installed for you (either when you install Chrome, or it might happen when you install something from the store; I don’t remember for sure). You can get to it on Windows by clicking the Start button, going to the installed applications, and looking under the Gs. You should be able to drag it to your task bar or pin it to the start menu. When you open it, you’ll see a grid with the icons of all your apps, and you can open them right there.

Where were we? Right, getting to your apps. Click the Apps button and you’ll see a page with your apps. One that should be prominent is the one for the Chrome Web Store. That’s useful to have, because the store is where you can get more apps and extensions. In fact, do that now. Go on, click it.

There are all kinds of apps for all kinds of things. There are games, of course. Lots and lots of games. But wait, there’s more. Productivity apps (including the ones Google provides, of course) like spreadsheets, and calendars, and text editors, and lots more besides. You have a Netflix account? There’s an app for that. Want to read books? There’s a Kindle app that lets you read books from your Amazon library, and of course there’s Google Play Books. Explore the store and you’ll see what I mean. Many of the apps are free, but there are a few that cost a little bit (if you find an app you’d like but it’s not free, the best thing to do is get a Google Play Store card. To add the funds to your Google Wallet account, follow the instructions printed on the card).

Adding an extension from the web store is easy. Pick one you want, and click it. A popup will pop up, and there you have the option to Add to Chrome. Click that, confirm that you want to add it, and it’ll download and install itself. That’s it. You don’t have to restart Chrome; the new app should be on your apps page and you can use it right away.

Sometimes apps open in a new window, sometimes they open in a new tab. You can control which. Go to the Apps page, right click on the App, and you can check or uncheck Open as window.

Removing an app you no longer want is easy, too. Right click on the app and select Remove from Chrome.

You can also set web pages as apps (in fact, some of the apps aren’t really anything more than a link to a web site). To do that, get the page open in a tab, then click the Hamburger button, mouse over More tools and then select Add to taskbar (I know – not really obvious). Choose whether to open as a tab or window (you can change that at any time, as I described earlier), and save. Now it’ll show on your apps page.

[Update: some time after writing that, a Chrome update changed that. At version 47 this feature appeared to have disappeared. At 48 it came back but works a little differently: now you click the Hamburger button, mouse over More tools and then select Add to desktop. That opens a dialog where you can set to open as a window. When you click Add, the web page link is added to your apps and as a desktop shortcut. You can then delete the desktop shortcut if you like, leaving just the app launcher link.]

Last thing: Remember the earlier post, about signing into Chrome? When you sign in on another machine, your apps will usually get installed on that machine right away so you have them available. Cool, huh?

Until next time . . .

Multiple Accounts in Chrome

I have several gmail accounts. I use one for book-related things, another for day-job stuff, and so on. Having separate accounts for separate concerns makes things much simpler. And Chrome makes it easy to keep those accounts distinct and switch between them. It’s also useful if you share a machine between several people.

The account you’re currently signed in as shows up on a button at the top right of the window, next to the minimise-maximise-exit buttons. (Want to change the name on the tab? Hamburger button, Settings. Scroll down to People. Select the current one, click the Edit button below. You can edit the name in the box that comes up.)

To add a new account, click that button at top right, then Switch person. Dialog opens. At the bottom you’ll see the option to Add person. Click it, and a fresh Chrome window appears. Now you can click the gmail link and create a new account, or sign in to an existing account. Or you can not sign in if you don’t want to.

Now, switching between accounts is easy. Right click your name button, and you’ll get a list of the people Chrome knows about on that machine. Or left click and click Switch person, and you’ll see the same people in a dialog box, and you can click the one you want. In both cases a new window opens connected to that person’s account. (The original window doesn’t go away, by the way.)

To remove someone from the machine, left click the name and choose Switch person. Mouse over the person you want to remove, and a drop-down arrow appears at the top right of their picture. Click that arrow and you’ll have the option to remove that person’s information from the machine completely.

Until next time . . .