Chrome Hacks

Google Chrome is the most popular browser by far. Here are some hacks that can help your browsing experience.

Signing into Chrome (part 1)

Signing into Chrome requires a Google account but it can be very beneficial. Be aware however, that if you use a shared whānau computer (Not the Wānanga computers), or a Hub computer, it may not be recommended as it will give access to all kinds of things.

Being signed into Chrome means things like your bookmarks will be synced online, so if you have a personal computer, and use the Wānanga library computers, your bookmarks, history and extensions will sync between both, but it will also sync to your mobile device as well.

Signing into Chrome (part 2)

Did you know that you don't need to put in the full email address if you're signing into Google if you have a gmail email address? If you just use the first part of your email, Google assumes the 2nd part is @gmail.com

So when logging into our tetoiotua@gmail.com account, we just type "tetoiotua" and then press Next.

Chrome Shortcuts

Most of the same shortcuts for Windows work in Chrome, but here are some others that you can also use.

Ctrl + D = Bookmark the current tab/page

Ctrl + Shift + B = Show the Bookmarks Bar (the bar you can store bookmarks that sits underneath the address bar)

Ctrl + Shift + O = Open the Bookmarks Manager (see below for more info on the bookmarks manager

Ctrl + H = Open the history

Ctrl + J = Show the downloads

Ctrl + 1 to 0 = Change between browser tabs with 1 being the first tab and 0 being the 10th tab (if you have that many open)

F11 = Toggle between full screen mode. (Useful if using a web based presentation tool such as Prezi or Adobe Spark Page)

Zooming in or out of the screen

Just like with Windows Explorer, you can make everything in your Chrome window bigger or smaller, just by holding down the Ctrl (Control) key on your keyboard while pushing the Scroll-Wheel on the top of your mouse forward or back. Scrolling forward makes everything bigger, and backwards makes everything smaller.

You will also see a window indicator showing you what percentage of zoom you are using, with the option to reset. Chrome will remember your Zoom settings for each site you use it, and will retain your zoom level next time you visit that site.

You can also go into the settings and change the zoom

Chrome Notifications

Ever since Chrome allowed websites to show you notifications, almost every news or social media site now gives a pop-up, asking if it can show you notifications. It can be a pain and highly distracting. Here's how to turn off and even block notifications from sites.

1. Click the three vertical dots (kebab menu) at the top right of Chrome

2. Click on Settings

3. In the left hand panel of the settings page, click on Advanced to expand the Advanced options menu

4. Now click on Privacy and Security. The main panel will change to these options

5. Go down the list of options and click on Site settings. This will open up a new list of options. There are a lot of options that you can enable or disable. Scroll down the list until you see the Bell icon for Notifications.

6. Click on Notifications next to the Bell icon

Now you will see a list of sites that are blocked and allowed to send you notifications. The entries with a Jigsaw puzzle icon are mostly the Google services. Single webpages such as Adobe Spark will have a Kebab menu (three vertical dots)

7. For the sites you want to block notifications on, select the Kebab menu and click on Block.

Selecting Edit from this menu will edit the URL of the Webpage.

Selecting Remove from this menu will mean the request to send you notification will pop-up again the next time you visit that site.

Google Sites

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