Featured: Personalize-Your-Chrome (Offline/Online)

          Just tonight, I noticed Google’s new feature on Google Chrome’s internet browser. (Can you believe it? I started typing this spot-on! Then, one or two hours later, it’s uploaded!)

         When you click on the Google Chrome icon, it opens the internet browser window. On the upper right hand, at the top, in line with the Exit, Maximize, and Minimize buttons is the new feature of Google Chrome internet browser. It has a human head icon that when you click it, a little tab pops with a bigger icon.

          You’ll see the following on the tab:

     It is composed of:

      1.Icon – the big picture in a circle frame.
2. Name—your chosen name under the icon. Below the name is a request: Sign in to get your tabs, bookmarks, history, and other settings on all your devices.3.   Sign in to Chrome button
4.   Switch Person— It is like a social media site, wherein you can log out and change to another person’s Chrome profile. This is a feature for those two or more persons using one computer.
5.   Go incognito – This means private surfing, but not so private…

             Now, you just have to change the settings to personalize your own internet browser.

     1. CHANGING YOUR ICON

       Click on the icon right away if you want to change your icon.

         A box will open giving you choices which pictures to choose from and below these icons is a space provided where you can type your chosen name in a box.

          Click on your chosen icon, and type in your name then Save.

          But the easiest way is when you are online, you simply log in to your Chrome account and there it was. Your Chrome account's profile picture appears as your icon instead of choosing from the pictures presented on the screen shot above.

2.     PERSONALIZING YOUR SETTINGS:

ON STARTUP

            After saving, the Chrome Settings will appear to give you the chance to make your internet browser more personalized.

            On startup section is where you can choose what happens to the browser once you click the Google Chrome icon on your desktop or Windows Tab.

            If you choose Open the New Tab page, once you open your browser, a new tab will appear. This new tab is empty and therefore, you will have to type in the website to start off with your internet surfing.

            It will look like this:

                

               If you choose Continue where you left off, when you open the browser, it immediately shows or opens the last website that you’ve been into before you closed the browser.

               It goes like this:

                  If you choose Open a specific page or set of pages, you will have to input which pages you like the browser to open once you click it. Therefore, you will have to choose that option then click the Set pages link. A small tab will pop out, providing you the spaces where you should input links of websites (as many as you like!) that you want to appear automatically when you open your browser, then click OK.

                So once you open your browser, this one or two websites will open altogether automatically.

                APPEARANCE

Most probably, majority of Google Chrome users don’t mind about their browser’s start-ups but they feel it more personalized if they see it on the appearance of their browsers, so this is what the Appearance section of the Google Chrome settings is all about.

                There are two primary options for the appearance of your browsers. The first one is Get Themes and the second one is Reset to default theme.

                You already know the default theme of Google Chrome— white and blue. And when you open it, the tab shows Google and there’s an empty bar below it for typing in your searches and stuff.

                On Get Themes, you have to be online to activate this feature. Clicking this leads the user to Google Themes where there are lots of themes to choose from! From anime themes to colorful nature. You can browse, choose what you like, download it then install it. (That’s how I got my sweet and calm pinkish Google browser theme color!)

                And voila! Your own personalized Google browser theme!

                Show the Home button just means you can add Home on your browser’s bar, right beside the reload button.

                

                You can personalize your Home button, whenever you click it, you always go to that specific website that you consider your home, which usually is the site that you always log-in or open.

                Want to stay updated about the changes in the stock market but you always forget the url? Just click the Change link beside the New Tab Page below the checked Show Home button, choose Open this page then type in the website’s url on the empty bar beside it. Click OK.

                Clicking Always show the bookmarks bar adds another bar on your browser. So, it will look like this:

Without bookmarks bar

With bookmarks bar                

                This makes going from one favorite site to another more convenient because you will only have to click one of these bookmarks on the bar instead of opening another tab and typing one website link after another.

                SEARCH

                This feature is simple, you just have to choose which search engine you prefer to use in your browser.

                So if I choose Ask.com, it will be search engine to automatically appear on the browser when I typed on the empty search bar for a word that I just want to search or look up to on the internet. So when I press enter, results from Ask.com shall appear. That’s what also happens if ever your choose Google or Yahoo, etc, for a search engine.

                If you click Manage search engines, this is where you can add other search engine sites if ever it is not in the choices of search engine sites that you can set to personalize your browser.

               Click on Add a new search engine, then type the name of the search engine. In the picture above, it was on the first box that I typed Google. The second box asks for Keyword, so I simply put in Google, and lastly, the url of the search engine, so I put www.google.com. After that, click Done and you’ve added another search engine on your list.

                Then, you can make that website set as your search engine by making it default.

                Place your mouse’s arrow on the side of the new search engine you added. It will be highlighted in blue and a Make default button will appear. Click that and it automatically gets added on your default search settings list.

Finish and save your settings by clicking Done.

                PEOPLE

                Now, this is a little tricky for me because I am already too sleepy to tinker a lot about this section of the Google Chrome browser’s settings (and I know you are all aware that I am not some computer expert but a fellow user like most of the blog readers are) but I still hope this will be helpful.

                On this section, there appears your personal user icon. You can choose to check any of the following features.

                

                Look! Isn’t that the user profile you did earlier? The one named Alien (current). Yes, that means it is the current user of the browser while you are checking the settings.

                Enable user creation from the profile manager has the following features: Add a person…, Remove… and Import bookmarks and settings…

                On Add a person, you can add another user profile on your browser who can use it by logging in using his profile. It also undergoes the same process you have encountered in making your own user profile offline.

                Remove… is used whenever you want to remove the other user from their access of using your computer’s browser.

                

                Just click on their icon (making their user profile on the list be highlighted) then click Remove…

                There are Enable Guest browsing and Enable user creation from the profile manager options. On Enable Guest browsing, you pick one of the users and put a check on this option if you are letting this user browse on your browser. On the picture above, your user profile is Alien, and Jill is another user, maybe a friend or your sister. You allow her to browse on your browser when you checked on Enable Guest browsing.

                Now, she is able to browse but… not able to create another user on your browser for another person. But if you checked on Enable user creation from the profile manager, she will be able to create a user profile for her brother Jack.

                

                Once you sign in using your Google account, you will be able to control and keep track on what websites these users you added are opening or going to.

                

                You can also create a desktop shortcut for the user you added.

               The advantages I can see in this is it helps in preventing one user’s important bookmarks of websites be deleted by the other user because they only use one browser. This feature helps to separate their browser’s saved bookmarks, organize works of two or more people who use one computer, and can also help parents to limit their children from what websites might influence them badly online.

                Until here, folks! I won’t get too technical with something I don’t know a lot because the next part of this setting is the Advanced Setting where all about your browser’s privacy, passwords, languages, and other web settings.

(c) OriginalAS/AnamarieSoya