Revert to Google Chrome's Older "New Tab" Page in 3 Steps

A few days back Google released a new version of Chrome which comes with a redesigned "New Tab" page. The new tab page now sports a large Google logo along with the search box. Like its predecessor, the page displays eight thumbnails of the user's frequently visited pages.

Chrome 29's "New Tabs" Page

Many users, however, are not happy with this change as the redesign doesn't seem to bring anything new to the table. Many, who have gotten into the habit of entering search terms in the address bar, are finding the new search bar redundant and a space hog.

If you are not happy with this change, you can switch back to the old view in just three easy steps:

Step 1 : Type the following in Chrome's address bar (a.k.a the Omnibox) :

                 chrome://flags/#enable-instant-extended-api              

Step 2 : Click on the first drop-down box from the top and set its value "Default" to "Disabled."

Step 3 : Click on the "Relaunch Now" button (present at the bottom of the page) or manually restart Chrome. 

Voila! Chrome's classic tab page is back :)

Chrome's Classic Most Visited Page

Vintage App's Page

 Also check :

• 20+ Google Chrome's about: and chrome:// commands
• Add Firefox-Style Live Bookmarks (RSS Feeds) in Google Chrome

How to Restore Old Gawker Commenting System [Lifehacker, Kotaku, io9]

Over the past few weeks, Gawker Media has begun rolling out a new commenting system, called Kinja, on its network of websites (Kotaku, Jalopnik, Deadspin, Jezebel, Gizmodo, io9, Gawker and Lifehacker). Rather than showing all comments on a given article, Kinja shows only the most interesting thread of comments and replies. Now instead of a long stream of comments, users can choose which threads to read. Gawker Media publisher Nick Denton hopes that this will finally erase the traditional distinctions between writers, editors, readers, subject, and sources.


Although the logic behind Kinja is sound, the implementation is not. The new commenting system is so minimalistic that nothing is intuitive to use. For example, suppose you want to read the comments. Instead of scrolling down, you now have to click through all the replies in a thread.

To counter the new commenting system, one dissatisfied Kotaku commenter has come up with a browser extension\add-on that one can install to restore the commenting system to its former glory.

Download Link : 

• Google Chrome
• Mozilla Firefox

Once installed, visit any of the Gawker site and click on the "SHOW ALL (Go Classic!)" link to view all the comments in the good old fashioned way.

 

Result :

 

Before

After

Also Check :

• How to Disable Facebook Timeline  
• How to Get the Old Chat Interface Back in Facebook?

Add Firefox-Style Live Bookmarks (RSS Feeds) in Google Chrome

Google’s Chrome browser is slowly, but surely becoming the most popular web browser, continuing to eat into the market share of Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer. However, an important feature that Chrome lacks, despite being released three and a half years ago, is its lack of support for RSS feeds.

If you love Google Chrome, but miss Firefox-style RSS feeds in your bookmark toolbar and menus, then try "Foxish Live RSS". Foxish Live RSS is an extension for Chrome that lets you put your feeds right in your bookmarks toolbar. It does this by syncing RSS feeds with bookmark folders and refreshing them at a configured interval.

Head to Chrome Web Store to install Foxish for Chrome. Once installed, a distinct red icon will appear in the browser's addressbar whenever you visit a site that offers RSS feed(s).

To subscribe to the RSS feed of the site, click on the red Foxish icon and select the appropriate link.

This will bring up the Foxish Live RSS page. Provide a custom name for the feed, the location where you wish to put it and a maximum limit for the feed items. The "Feed URL" and "Site URL" fields will be filled automatically. Once done, click on the "Subscribe" button and bingo! The Live feeds will appear in the bookmark bar / desired bookmark folder location.

If you want to adjust the polling time (frequency at which the feeds are checked for updates) or wish to delete feeds you no longer need, simply head to the extension's "Options" panel (click on the wrench icon, select Settings>Extensions and click on the "Options" link of Foxish live RSS) to do so.

You can add new feeds by clicking the green "add feed" button, and can delete a particular feed using the (-) red button.

Using Foxish Live RSS, you can even export all of your RSS feeds as an OPML file to Chrome's Bookmark folder. In the "Options" page, click "Choose File" to browse for the OPML file to import, and it will list down all the RSS feed items.

UPDATE : Google has come up with its own RSS subscription extension which the author believes is a better alternative to the mentioned Foxish Live RSS extension. You can download RSS Subscription Extension (by Google) from HERE

Also check :

• 20+ Google Chrome's about: and chrome:// commands
• Revert to Google Chrome's Older "New Tab" Page in 3 Steps 

50 Most Useful Bookmarklets

A Bookmarklet or Favelet is a snippet of JavaScript program that you can place as bookmark in your web browser and when clicked, performs a specific function, depending on what it is coded for.

Bookmarklets are efficient, are extremely easy to install and are browser independent. Moreover, they are cross browser compatible. For example, a bookmarklet written for Firefox is very likely to work with Google Chrome, Safari or Internet Explorer.

In this article, we’ll show you 50 most useful bookmarklets to get all sorts of things done as you surf the web.


How to Install Bookmarklets :

The following link will help you understand how to install a Bookmarklet in your browser's "bookmarks toolbar" – just drag and drop the links to your Bookmark Toolbar region, thats all.

Step by Step Instructions to Install a Bookmarklet

The above instructions are for the "Save Page to PDF" bookmarklet but the method is the same for other bookmarklets as well.

Note : Before installing a Bookmarklet, make sure your browser's bookmarks toolbar is visible.

To remove a Bookmarklet, simply right click on it and hit delete.


50 Most Useful Bookmarklets :

50. Capture Screenshot -  Capture screenshot of a web page directly in the web browser that you can directly upload to Flickr, Blogger, Evernote and other online services.

49. Edit Website - Allows you to edit a webpage. Note that original display will be restored upon refresh

48. URL Scanner - Scan a URL and show general information including website technologies, webpage components, file security etc.

47. To English - Automatically detect the source language of that page and translate the full page (or specific words) into English using Google Translate

46. Better Readability - This bookmarklet cleans up the page, leaving you with nothing but clean content for better readability.

45. Remove Bloat - Remove all occurrences of Flash, Java,and other third-party iframes from the current page.

44. Page Freshness - Tells you when the webpage was last updated

43. Display Images - Displays all the images on the page in a centered column.

42. Show Password - Shows the actual characters of an auto-fill password that are otherwise hidden behind asterisks in the password field. Only works if the password associated with that site is saved in the browser.

41. Gmail This - Quickly paste a link in Gmail

40. Alexa Ranking - Shows you the Alexa Ranking of the site

39. Delicious - Shows you who and how many people bookmarked the site in delicious

38. Google Trends - This bookmarklet will help you quickly determine the relative popularity (web traffic) of any web site using the Google Trends for websites service

37. Aardvark - Once clicked, click any element of a web page (paragraph, image, table etc.) to determine it’s HTML source, image dimensions and other properties

36. Show Cookies - Check out all the cookies a site has set for you with this bookmarklet.

35. Facebook Share - Share link on Facebook.

34. Share on Google Plus - Share link on Google Plus

33. Google +1 - +1 the current page\website

32. Tumbler - Share images on Tumbler

31. Share on Twitter - Share link on Twitter

30. Urban Dictionary lookup - This bookmarklet will look up the selected text on a web page in the Urban Dictionary, the collaboratively-edited slang dictionary

29. Acronym lookup

28. Like Everything on Facebook - Automatically "like" ALL the posts and comments on the page you’re on

27. Duplicate Tab - Opens the current site in a new tab

26. Linkify - Make all plain-text URL’s into hyperlinks.

25. Highlight Search Term -Prompts for a search term that you would like to highlight on the current page

24. Subscribe with Google Reader - One click bookmarklet to subscribe with Google Reader

23. Scroll by Dragging - Executing this bookmarklet will turn the cursor into a scroller and executing it again will return it back to normal.

22. Color Code Links- Makes all internal links on a site red, external links blue, and links pointing to the current page (internal bookmarks) orange.

21. Hide All Images - Hide all images from the current page

20. Google News Search - Performs Google News Search

19.Google Image Search - Performs a Google Image Search

18. PageZipper - PageZipper automatically merges all the "Next" pages into one. Check this link for details

17. Google Cache -View the Google cache for the current web page

16. Extract Link in a New Page - Extracts all the links present in the page in a new page

15. Long URL Please - Sometimes you want to see what’s behind that shortened URL before clicking. This bookmarklet will decode any shortened link for you

14. Rollyo RollBar - Allows you to search easily within a site, even when there is no search box to be found

13. Wikipedia Lookup : This bookmarklet will perform a Wikipedia search of the selected text

12 Stumble Upon? - Check if a site/page has been Stumble Uponed

11. Tiny Read - Reformats the current web page into a more readable and easy on eyes format

10. SoundCloud Download - Navigate to a Soundcloud page of a song and click on the bookmarklet : a red download link will appear. Click on the link, and the song will download.

9. Discard Cookies - Removes cookies set by the site, including cookies with paths and domains

8. Save Page to PDF - Lets you convert any webpage to pdf file for free.

7. Show RSS Feed - Shows the full content of the RSS feed associated with the website. It even provide you with options to subscribe in your favorite newsreader.

6. BugMeNot -Whenever you're at a page that require registration to continue, just click this bookmark and it will pop-up a window with user-submitted username and password for the site that you're currently looking at.

5. Dictionary Lookup - Quickly and Easily find the dictionary meaning of the selected text.

4. Downforeveryoneorjustme - Check if a website is down for everyone or just you

3. PrintWhatYouLike – Format web pages for printing.

2. Download TouTube Video - Save a YouTube video as an MP3 file, iPod file, FLV file, MP4 file, AVI file, and more. This bookmarklet also supports Google Video, DailyMotion.com, Facebook.com, MegaVideo.com, Break.com, MetaCafe.com, FunnyOrDie.com, Vimeo.com, and many other video sites.

1. URL Shortener - This bookmarklet lets you create short URLs for any site using bit.ly service


Related Post :

• Bookmarklet to Integrate Results from Facebook and Twitter in Google Search

Customize your Browser Home Page to Look like Windows 8

Bored looking at the same default home page whenever your browser starts? Then try "EIGHT", a browser start screen inspired from Windows 8's tiled interface. It is basically a web page created using HTML, CSS and jQuery. It shows website shortcuts as tiles which when clicked open the associated URLs. It's also got a search bar right in the page itself.

Not only EIGHT looks awesome, it is customizable too. You can replace the shortcuts with your own favorite sites, you can change the default search engine, you can customize the background color and you can even use a wallpaper as background. EIGHT is compatible with all the major browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Internet Explorer).

To use it, first download the ZIP file from here and extract the folder contained in it somewhere on your hard drive. Navigate to the folder (usually named "EIGHT-firefox start page+config") and open the “index.htm” with your preferred web browser. Close all other opened tabs before you continue.

Mozilla Firefox Users : Click on the orange Firefox button and choose "Options". Under the "General" tab select “Show my home page” from “When Firefox starts“ and click the "Use Current Pages" button. Press [enter].

Google Chrome Users : Copy the URL from the address bar. Click on the "wrench" button and select "Options". Choose "Open the following pages:" under "On startup" and in the "New tab" field paste the URL you copied earlier. Also, select "Open this page" from "Home page" and paste the same URL in its field. Close the tab and reload.

Other Browser Users : Follow similar steps as mentioned above.


Customizing EIGHT :

To customize EIGHT, again navigate to "EIGHT-firefox start page+config" and run "config.htm". Modify the shortcuts and texts as per your preference and click "Generate settings file". Copy the entire code. Now open "source.js" (also present in "EIGHT-firefox start page+config" folder) with notepad, replace the original texts with the copied text. Save the file.

Note : If you wish to change any pre-defined website shortcut with a new one, first paste the website logo in the "thumbs" folder. Now run "config.htm", click on the shortcut tile you wish to replace and provide title and URL of the website along with the name of the website logo.

You can find thumbnails icons here : Thumbnails for "EIGHT" by ~jeppethe

Check this link if you want to change the background color or want to use your own wallpaper as background.

Also Check :

• Download Windows 8 Beta (Consumer Preview)
• Get Windows 8 Start Screen in Windows XP, Vista and 7

 

20+ Google Chrome's about: and chrome:// commands

Like other browsers, Google Chrome have a special URI scheme to display some special pages that show information about memory usage, cached  files, plug-ins and more. These commands start with an "about:" or "chrome://" followed something, for example - "about:blank" displays a blank page.

Here's the full list:

General Information Pages:

• about:
  Shows information about Chrome.
• about:about
  Shows a list of about commands.
• about:blank
  Shows a blank page.
• about:plugins
  Shows the plugins page.
• about:terms
  Shows the Google Chrome License
• about:credits
  Shows credits
• chrome://extensions
  Shows installed extentions.
• chrome:newtab
  Clears the current page
• chrome://history
  Shows history

Advanced Information Pages:

• about:conflicts
  Lists all modules loaded into the main process and modules registered to load at a later point
• about:cache
  Shows information about the data in the browser cache.
• about:memory
  Shows a page that compares the memory used by all the active browsers and by Google Chrome's processes.
• about:dns
  Shows DNS records for 10 frequently visited host-names.
• about:histograms
  Shows a list of histograms for Google Chrome's internal metrics. 
• about:net-internals
  Shows network information including Proxy, HostResolver, URLRequest, HTTPCache and SocketStream.
• about:stats
  Shows a list of internal counters and timers.
• about:tcmalloc
  Shows stats as of last page load.
• view-cache:[URL]
  Shows you some under-the-hood cache details.
• view-source:[URL]
  Shows the source code.

Debug tools:

• about:hang
  Type this in the address bar of a tab when there's already an active web page to hang the process (this means that the process no longer accepts any signal, but it's still running). The other tabs will continue to work and the active tab can be closed.
• about:gpuhang
  Locks the GPU Process for debugging purposes.

Other Pages:

• about:flags
  Shows a page where you can enable experimental features
• about:crash
  Crash the active tab. Google Chrome displays the sad tab" image, followed by this message: "Something went wrong while displaying this webpage. To continue, press Reload or go to another page".

Let me know in the comments if I missed something.

Also check :

• Firefox's about: commands (and easter eggs!) 
• Some more Firefox about: commands 
• Add Firefox-Style Live Bookmarks (RSS Feeds) in Google Chrome  
• Revert to Google Chrome's Older "New Tab" Page in 3 Steps