11 More Hidden Chrome Features That You Probably Didn't Know About
Chrome, being the most popular browser currently, has a wide variety of features, some of which are not very easy for the average user to come across. In this second part of the guide you'll see some more hidden features that will certainly help in various occasions and improve your overall browsing experience.
You can read the first part of the series here:
12 Hidden Chrome Features That You Probably Didn't Know About
- Creating profiles for kids and guests
- Checking access features
- Automatic translation
- Themes
- Chrome Remote Desktop
- Quick calculations from the address bar
- Task manager
- Offline mode
- Bonus: Three necessary Chrome extensions
Creating profiles for kids and guests
Chrome lets you create different profiles, which is useful when there are other people who use the same computer in your home or work environment.
What you can do is click on the icon located at the top-right corner of the window (on the left of the minimize button) and select Manage people.
Then, from the next page, you can add new users.
Parental control and supervising
Creating profiles in Chrome can be even more useful when kids are using the computer as well. Google's browser allows you to supervise users by reviewing the websites they visit.
In order to enable parental control, first you have to check the corresponding option during the process of adding a new user profile. Then you have to add your Google account, and lastly click on Save.
Checking access features
Chrome's features give you the chance to allow or block notifications and access of websites on various local functions of the computer.
To achieve this, click on the icon located in the address bar right before the "https" part. Then, all these hidden and useful options will appear, which you can adjust as you see fit.
Automatic translation
Chrome has Google Translate built-in for translating all web content directly. However, you can further improve access to translation, especially if you want information translated only in a selected sentence or paragraph.
This extra feature can be provided by the Google Translate extension. Once you add it to Chrome, all you have to do next is highlight the text you want to translate and the corresponding translation of the text will be displayed.
Note that you’ll have to configure the extension so that it can show translations in the correct language.
Themes
You can use hundreds of nice themes from the Chrome store in order to completely change the look of the browser, according to your taste.
All you have to do is visit the Chrome store and make a selection among a variety of themes.
Chrome Remote Desktop
One of Chrome's most useful hidden features is remote access to files and applications from another computer, which means that you can actually control one computer from another.
This is a highly useful feature provided by the Chrome Remote Desktop app.
Here's a summary of the steps you should take in order to get the most out of one of Chrome's best features.
- Open Chrome in your computer
- In the address bar, type chrome://apps and hit Enter
- Click on the Remote Desktop app you previously added
Under the “My computers” section, click on Get started and then click on Enable remote connections. You’ll be asked to enter twice a PIN which you should remember.
For more information regarding its setup and usage, you can refer to this article.
Quick calculations from the address bar
The address bar, apart from being used for searches, it can also give you results for simple mathematical operations.
Mathematical operations
Simply type the operation, and the result will be displayed automatically.
Unit converter
Similarly to calculator, you can convert any measurement unit, whether it is length, weight, height, pressure, etc.
By typing the conversion you want Chrome to perform, you will receive the correct answer immediately without having to hit Enter.
Task manager
Chrome manages each tab as a separate process, so if one of them creates a problem, the browser will remain stable.
To open Chrome's task manager and close any problematic tabs, as well as Chrome store apps and extensions, press the Shift + Esc hotkey combination.
Offline mode
With Chrome's Offline mode you can gain access to web sites that you have visited previously without being connected to the internet. If you revisit any of these webpages without an active internet connection Chrome will load a previous, saved copy of the webpage.
Offline mode is well hidden within the browser's experimental features, which means that it is not appropriate for all users. Therefore, enabling offline mode requires particular attention because if something was wrong, you should immediately click on "Reset Defaults", as shown in the figure below.
In order to gain access to experimental functions, you have to type the following in the address bar:
chrome://flags
The option you’ll be looking for in the list of settings that will appear is Show Saved Copy Button. Once you locate it, select Enable: Primary.
If you want the change to take place immediately, click on Restart now, otherwise the changes will be applied the next time you restart Chrome.
Bonus: Three necessary Chrome extensions
Firefox was the first browser to introduce us to the concept of extensions, which are small add-ons that add countless new features to the browser. Now, Google Chrome has hundreds of thousands of such extensions.
Let's take a look at three of the most useful Add-ons for Chrome.
OneTab
This is an excellent extension that turns all open tabs into a list, which is a great way to reduce memory consumption by the browser.
Additionally, when you need access to these tabs again you can restore them separately or all at once. However you can also save or lock them so that you can have direct access to these tabs after restarting the computer or clearing the history.
Within the extension’s settings you can find other useful features that will literally solve your hands, increasing Chrome's capabilities even more.
The Great Suspender
The Great Suspender is a lightweight extension with the main purpose of minimizing memory consumption by Chrome.
All you have to do is define how long you want a tab to stay inactive in order for the extension to disable it. In addition, you can exclude any tabs you do not want to be disabled automatically.
And when you want to access these tabs again, they will be automatically activated as soon as you move the mouse pointer over them.
Shortcuts for Google
This is another very useful extension, which brings together all Google services and apps in a single popup window.
So, with just one click and without navigating to the favorites menu or typing URLs, you have instant access to account settings, Android device management for mobile tracking, and much more.
The extension includes nearly 300 Google services and websites. You can add to the popup panel any of the services that you want.
As you can see, Chrome's hidden capabilities help you improve your browsing experience, as well as simplify and make the browser even more beautiful.
Talking about Chrome extensions, we also did The 13 Overall Most Useful Extensions for Google Chrome, so have a look.
