The stream, that’s basically all the messages that people write that are in your circles, provided that the visibility includes you on Google Plus. I’m personally not that happy with the way the stream is displayed on screen. Sometimes, you see so many comments under a message that you have to scroll multiple pages to [...]

Unlike Opera, Google Chrome does not support mouse gestures by default. This input method is probably not at the top of Google’s priority. Chrome users who would like to add mouse gestures to their browser can do so by installing an extension like Smooth Gestures. The extension adds default gestures to the browser that work [...]

Cookies are practical when you are able to block the ones you don’t want and allow the useful cookies. Cookies are tiny files that store information. These can come in handy if you want them but they are simply irritating if you don’t. Tracking cookies that record private information are the ones that most people [...]

The popular Firefox download extension Download Helper is not working in my build of Firefox. I’m running the Aurora channel which is currently showing up as Firefox 7.02a. I can install the extension just fine but do not get any menus or options to download video files from supported websites. That’s a shame considering that [...]

When you play games or watch videos on the Internet, you usually do so on a web page. Many sites, like YouTube, offer to change the size of the video to other predefined sizes on the screen or to full-screen. None offer options to resize the games or videos gradually on the screen. That’s what [...]

How do you search when you use the Google Chrome browser? Do you enter the search term directly in the address bar, open the Google search homepage and search there or do something else? Highlight to Search is a very popular Google Chrome extension that adds a feature to search by simply highlighting text in [...]

Google in a somewhat surprising move announced that they will discontinue development of the Google Toolbar for the Firefox web browser. Taking effect immediately, the company notes that the Google Toolbar will not be supported on Firefox 5 and future versions. The change has no effect on the current toolbar offered for the browser which [...]

The Google Chrome web browser, after a recent update, is now showing a cupcake in the upper left corner of the screen. To be precise, that cupcake is shown on the tab bar, and there on the left side of it. The tabs are then listed to the right of it. This cupcake links to [...]

I do not like the navigational structure of the Chrome web store. I cannot figure out for instance how to sort all extensions based on their last update. Sure there is the new and noteworthy category but it is limited to a handful of extensions. Featured and popular as well do not provide access to [...]

I have to admit that I’m spending more time on Google Plus than I’m spending on Facebook. Not a big amount of time though, usually anywhere between 5 to 10 minutes per day. While I like Google’s new messaging service, I have spotted a few annoyances that I wanted fixed. One of the main ones [...]

About:config provides access to many under the hood settings of the Firefox browser. That’s helpful for users who want to modify system settings beyond what is offered in the default options of the browser. It is also one of the distinct advantages of the Firefox browser over its competitor Google Chrome. The core audience on [...]

One of the biggest issues for users who work with different web browsers is synchronization. This includes passwords, log in information and of course bookmarks. Most browsers come with synchronization options, but those only include synchronizing bookmarks between versions of the same browser. And the import option is only important a certain state which means [...]

Security firm NSS Labs have been running some tests on different modern web browsers to see how they defend and protect their users against socially-engineered malware.  This is malware that attempts to trick users into installing it, much in the way Apple Mac users have been suffering with the recent spate of ‘Mac Defender’ malware. [...]

WordPress is displaying an admin bar since version 3.1 release that administrators can use to access the blog’s backend when they are on the frontend. The bar displays options to add new contents, edit the current page, open the dashboard, comment moderation or appearance settings of the blog. I personally dislike the new WordPress admin [...]

Many contents on the Internet require a user account before they can be accessed and used. This means for users that they have to create an account, by entering one of their email addresses, selecting a password, username and maybe some other information. They often get a confirmation email with a link that they have [...]

Mozilla has introduced a new feature called Telemetry in Firefox 7, which is currently implemented in Aurora and Nightly builds only. Telemetry has been added to the browser to measure the performance of the Firefox web browser. This is an opt-in service which means that it is not enabled by default. Users who want to [...]

I reviewed Tile Tabs for Firefox back in 2010. It added functionality to split a tab in the browser so that multiple websites could be displayed directly in that tab. The feature is especially useful if a large resolution monitor is used, like my HP w2408h monitor with a maximum resolution of 1920×1200. The core [...]

User tracking has been one of the hottest privacy topics over the past years. There have been light efforts to reduce user tracking, for instance by Mozilla with their Do Not Track headers. Many users on the other hand are not aware of the underlying issues, mostly because the tracking is done in the background [...]

Google+ is probably the most hyped service on the Internet these days. This stems from the fact that many of the early adopters are first movers that run their own blogs, websites or are very vocal on social networking sites. It still remains to the be seen how the general public will perceive Google’s social [...]

I have little use for a browser’s history feature. I usually bookmark all pages that I consider important and work my way through the rest so that there is almost no need to go back to a previously visited page in a future session. Part of my discomfort could stem from the Firefox history layout [...]

Malware on the web has exploded in recent years. Malicious organizations and users have moved from the Windows operating system as their main target to the web, and that with great success. When you look at the operating system in past years, you will notice that Microsoft has improved the security of it considerably, thanks [...]

Chance is you have a Facebook account. And if you do, you are likely using a few apps or playing some games on the Facebook website. Most users who do, load the games and apps after they have logged in. That’s not overly handy. It is on the other hand possible to bookmark games or [...]

We have talked about Mozilla’s move to improve Firefox memory usage starting with Firefox 7. Up until yesterday those improvements were only available in Firefox Nightly builds. Mozilla rolled out Firefox 7 to the Aurora channel today, and boy has memory usage gone down. The memory usage of the browser was usually in the 300 [...]

It has been eight days since the release of Opera 11.50, called Swordfish. In that time the new browser version was downloaded more than 32 million times. While that pales with download rates of Firefox and Google Chrome, it is still an astonishing feat for a web browser that is neglected by the majority of [...]

Memory usage has always been the Achilles’ heel of the Firefox browser for part of the user base. Mozilla acknowledges that and is currently working on optimizing the browser’s memory usage significantly. One would normally assume that opening a tab increases memory usage, and that closing the same tab would drop memory utilization again to [...]

The Firefox web browser maintains three different caches: The memory cache, the disk cache and the offline cache. It is possible to access those caches from within the browser by loading the about:cache page in the browser’s address bar, or by opening the cache location on the computer’s hard drive. The latter method is obviously [...]

Up until now the only way to share a web page, story or information on Google+ was to open the Google+ website to do so. That’s not overly comfortable, especially not so if you are not having the service open all the time in your browser tab. The new Google Chrome extension Surplus changes the [...]

I’m slowly getting the hang out of Google+. The coolest feature by far in my humble opinion is circles to group users and get filtered news streams. One thing that I think is missing are update notifications for your circles. As it stands now, you need to click on each circle stream to see if [...]

Many toolbars are not installed in only one browser, but in multiple web browsers. That’s not a problem if you have only one browser installed, but if you have them all like I do, you might end up with the same toolbar installed under multiple browsers. That’s cool if you want to use the toolbar, [...]

Not all RSS readers are the same. Indeed, some are far more useful than others and deserve to be pulled from the pack. One such reader is NewsSquares, a Chrome app specifically catered to the interests of news readers. While still in the final beta stages, NewsSquares is a great way to browse your various [...]

One of the main points of criticism of Firefox users is the memory usage of the web browser. While I personally think that it has gotten a lot better with recent browser releases, some users are still reporting that the memory usage goes through the roof over time. It is not always the browser core [...]

Google recently improved their image search capabilities by adding reverse image search options to it. I have reviewed the Google Search By Image in detail and a follow-up guide on practical uses of the new image search engine. The new feature can be used to find other websites that host similar or even the same [...]

Microsoft has switched into full gear and is now releasing new versions of the Internet Explorer on a regular basis. That’s good for the Internet as a whole, and especially good for Windows users who work with the system’s default browser. Not a lot of time has passed since the release of Internet Explorer 9. [...]

It is a good idea to backup your Firefox profiles regularly to have options at hand when a profile needs to be restored. This can be the case after a hard drive crash, file corruption or update that caused problems. We have reviewed several backup options before, from the Firefox extenion FEBE (Firefox Environment Backup [...]

With today’s release of Opera 11.50 comes a new feature that turns the static new tab page into a dynamic page. Speed Dial Extensions work basically like standard add-ons with the difference that they run only on the new tab page and not on other pages. They can be used to display information in real [...]

Despite releasing Opera 11.50, Opera seems to be one of the few browser developing companies left that have not yet jumped to an accelerated release cycle that shoots browser versions through the roof. That does not mean that the company is not pushing out new versions of the browser, but when they do, they use [...]

When you are trying to customize Microsoft’s latest web browser Internet Explorer 9 you are limited by the configuration options, called Internet Options in the browser. Those options have not really changed a lot since the release of Internet Explorer 6. Users who wanted to tweak and modify other elements of the browser had to [...]

Opera and Google are already doing it, so why should not we. That’s probably the reasoning behind Mozilla’s latest move to optimize the interface of the Firefox web browser. For those who do not know (is there anyone reading my blog that does not?); The http prefix in front of website addresses in the url [...]

Favicons are little icons that can be used to identify websites. These icons are for instance displayed in the tabbar, for each opened tab one, and in the bookmarks folder. Firefox adds the icons to both locations automatically. It can however happen that imported bookmarks are imported without favicons. There is no option to retrieve [...]

The Firefox rapid release process that Mozilla switched to has caused some confusion about continuing support for older versions of the browser. While there was never an official support timeline before and after the process change, it was assumed by many that major versions of Firefox were supported for at least six months after release. [...]

Every browser developer seems to be inclined these days to streamline and at the same time minimize the user interface. We have seen it with Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer, and now it is Opera’s turn do propose the same. Currently available as an Opera Next snapshot only but soon making its way to stable [...]

There are so many different buttons available to promote, like, write about or +1 pages on the Internet that it is sometimes difficulty to keep an overview of the available options. Two of the most commonly used buttons on today’s Internet are Facebook’s Like button and Google’s recently introduced +1 button. If you are a [...]

Thousands of internet users have discovered the joys of Reddit, a web portal that provides users with access to images, underground news and the latest memes through a simple and seemingly pre-2000 interface. While the website has been flooded by new users in recent months, long-time users have been developing add-ons and accessories that make [...]

Firefox ships with options to save individual pages to the local hard drive. These pages are then accessible offline, which is great for research and preservation of information. If you use Firefox solely for research, you may end up with multiple open web pages that you would like to save to your computer. That’s a [...]

The official release date of Firefox 5 has been set to June 21, which is three days from today. If you do not want to wait until then to play around with the latest stable release of the popular web browser, you can go ahead and download the browser for your language and operating system [...]

In most web browsers, when you click on the new tab button or use the shortcut Ctrl-t, you get a new tab page with a set of bookmarks. The idea behind those “speed dial” like new tab pages is to give users a chance to open often visited websites quickly. Opera went ahead recently with [...]

After the sweeping successes of Facebook and Twitter (and, in a distant, simpler time, MySpace), everyone wants to know around what social application or website the next social frenzy will occur. Many contenders have thrown their hat into the ring, including some of the biggest names in computers today, but the only really successful social [...]

Voice Search is the second new technology next to page prerendering that Google introduced exclusively for Chrome web browser users yesterday on Inside Search. Android smartphone users may already be aware of Voice Search, as it is available for their devices. The majority of desktop users on the other hand are new to the concept [...]

Prerendering is a technology that can speed up web browsing by loading web pages in advance. The advantage of prerendering is an almost instant page loading time for prerendered pages. There are disadvantages though. The average web page has anywhere from a few dozen to more than one hundred links. Prerendering all link targets would [...]

An earlier article here on Ghacks talked in some details about Google’s gradual beta launch of their Cloud services. Heralded as the bridge between Microsoft Office and the web, Google Cloud Connect was supposed to provide a way to host Office documents on the web, much as Google Documents had done for their own productivity [...]