Pinning Tabs in Google Chrome
Today, I discovered a feature in Google Chrome that had somehow eluded me to this date. If you right-click any tab, several contextual options will be listed. Most of these are fairly standard; however, one stands out from the rest. The “pin tab” option, once selected, will transform the current tab so that only the favicon is visible, not the text. This reduces the size of the tab, but also results in it being moved to the left-most side of the bar, as seen below:
When you close Chrome, and re-open it, tabs who have been pinned will load automatically. While you could achieve a similar result by adding numerous websites to your home page list, the tab pinning approach seems better, to me. I feel it truly reflects the minimalistic nature of Google Chrome, a trait that has been a big influence in its adoption. By simply showing a favicon, they are helping support the idea that an icon should be enough to represent an application a person uses often. Windows 7, for example, took a huge step in that direction with the task bar re-design. I’m happy to see that Google is doing similar, as it optimizes how the space is used within a window, and helps organize information.
If you find that your pinned tabs are becoming too numerous, consider moving some of them to the bookmark bar. It is possible to have the bookmarks appear with only a favicons as well. To do this, simply edit an existing bookmark, and delete the name. Chrome will still allow you to use the bookmark without a name, as it still has an icon to represent it.
The Polite Upgrade Notice
When I went to use Google Chrome yesterday, I noticed the following AdBlock plugin notice:
After reading it, I realized it was one of the most polite notices I’d ever read. It also had a sense a humor that I usually only expected to see in Google-authored pages and applications. Good job, Michael, and everyone else at AdBlock.
NOTE: As a web developer, I am very hesitant to use ad blockers, as ads are an important source of income for website owners. I usually only enable them when I reach a site that I feel is completely obnoxious with their placement and overall use of ads.
Using Google Search with SSL in Chrome
On May 21, 2010, Google announced the release of their new SSL Search service. This new search service behaves almost exactly like Google Search – the main difference being that it uses SSL for security. Wondering what SSL is? In the words of Google:
SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is a protocol that helps provide secure Internet communications for services like web browsing, e-mail, instant messaging, and other data transfers. When you search over SSL, your search queries and search traffic are encrypted so they can’t be read by any intermediary party such as employers and internet service providers (ISPs).
Source: Google SSL Search Help
So, put simply, the announcement was great news for privacy and security enthusiasts everywhere. As one of these enthusiasts, I immediately switched to Google’s SSL search for all my web search needs. Sure, there were some drawbacks to switching – namely, a loss in performance – but in my mind, I rather wait a little longer, knowing I have increased security. So, as a first step, I switched my homepage in Google Chrome. This was pretty straight forward, I simply had to press the Wrench icon, and then select Options.
The next step was to change the search provider – in Google Chrome, this is crucial – since it relies so heavily on one smart search/address bar. When I went to do that, I instinctively selected the existing search engine I was using: Google Canada, and attempted to edit it. Unfortunately, the URL field was grayed out, preventing me from making changes to the URL pattern.
I then figured out that some of these providers are built-in, and can’t be edited. You have to manually add a new search engine, which allows you to define all fields. Here’s what I entered for each field:
- Name: Google HTTPS
- Keyword: g
- URL: https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%s
Once I selected the new engine as my as the default, I was ready to go. Google’s SSL search was my homepage, and my default search engine. Yet, I still had some flexibility: I chose keywords that would allow me to easily switch between engines. For example, by typing:
gc wikipedia ducks
Chrome understands that I want to search using Google Canada:
This allowed me to have a secure search engine by default, all the while making it easy for me to use others on-the-fly.
Opera’s Quick Download Feature
There’s a particular feature I’ve always liked in Opera. I’ve seen it implemented in slightly different ways within other browsers. Let’s say I wanted to download my blog’s sitemap.xml file, and I wanted to do this strictly from within the browser. When I visit the link:
http://mattrefghi.com/wordpress/sitemap.xml
My browser doesn’t download the file, it merely displays it. This happens because browsers know how to display XML, and they figure it makes more sense to show you the content – rather than initiate a download. The behavior is different with “.zip” files, for example. Browsers usually initiate a download when they are pointed to a URL that ends in “.zip”. Downloading the physical XML is therefore slightly trickier. In Opera, I can just paste that exact URL into to the Quick Download box at the top of the Downloads page. When I press ENTER, it automatically downloads the physical XML file – rather than trying to display it.
I’ve used this countless times over the years. The same is possible in other browsers, but it usually isn’t as quick as Opera’s implementation. For example, in Google Chrome, I’d first have to view the page, click “Control The Current Page” button, and then “Save Page As”. I would then get a” File Save” dialog, which allows me to change the name, or simply press OK to save the file.
Certainly not as quick as Opera… and what if the XML file was massive? I’d have to wait for the browser to first display it, then I’d be able to download the physical file.
One more reason to keep Opera installed on my computer.