Google Chrome is the only browser I've stuck to using. Being an Android user, Google has made sure that it seeps into all aspects of my life, and in my case, it has done so successfully.
In this blog post, I'm going to be sharing some key features of Google Chrome that stand out to me in terms of using Google Chrome productively as a student.
Let's dive into those, one by one.
1. Customisable New Tab
I'm a big fan of this feature as it lets me keep all the links and sites that I use very frequently, in one single place. I'm an architecture student and a content creator which means that there are a lot of places that I'm visiting online on a daily basis. To have a homepage for all of these links is a blessing.
To customise how your 'new tab' looks like follow these steps:
Open Google Chrome
Click on New Tab
Click on the customise button on the lower right corner
You can select a background from the options available
You can either select 'my shortcuts' where you'll be able to add URLs of sites you want or you can choose the most visited sites tab where it'll automatically bring your most visited sites to your shortcuts.
You can also edit the colour and theme to your liking.
After this, you can add up to 10 shortcuts under the Google search bar.
2. Bookmarking system
My mind was blown when I discovered this feature on my own. I have always been bookmarking important articles/ websites on Chrome but I began to actually sort those out into proper categories after I started researching for a paper I was writing in my 3rd year.
The bookmarking system is exactly like how you would sort files on your PC. You can have multiple main folders which have subfolders within them. And then you can save your bookmarks in these specific folders.
Let's make this a little less confusing with an example:
I was researching for a video once when I came across an article called '7 ways to make the world more positive via social media'. Since it was intriguing, I thought let's bookmark it. So I saved it in a folder called 'videos and blogs' which is nested in a folder called Save Ourselves.
Bookmarks > Save Ourselves > Videos and blogs > Article
3. Continue where you left off
Another setting worth having on! If you're someone who spends a lot of time on the internet and has multiple tabs you need to come back to several times a day, there's a great setting on Google Chrome that allows you to close Google Chrome without having to close all your tabs. The next time you open up Google Chrome, all the tabs you had on in the previous session automatically pop back up!
To enable this feature:
Go to settings
Click on the You and Google tab
Scroll all the way down
Select 'continue where you left off' for the 'on startup section'
That's it! Thank me later!
4. Customising the Home button
Did you know that there's a home button in Google Chrome that sits right on the browser panel on the upper part of the window? And you can set it to direct you to whichever site you want.
I find it useful to link my Home button to my most visited application, and that is Google Calendar!
To enable your customised Home button, follow these steps:
Go to settings
Click on the You and Google tab
Scroll down to the 'Appearance' section
Enable 'Show Home Button'
Put in the URL to the site of your choice and select that as the home button
You've got yourself a customised Home button now!
5. Chrome extensions
Chrome does a great job with its extensions. Based on the kind of work you do, a few extensions can really come in handy to increase your productivity.
You can install Chrome extensions from the Chrome Web Store.
Once you install them, they can be easily managed from the 'manage extensions' icon that looks like a jigsaw puzzle piece right next to the URL bar!
The chrome extensions that I use are:
These are the 5 features of Google Chrome I'm currently enjoying! Do you use any other features that could help me out? Let me know in the comments below!
Need a video tutorial for all these settings? I got you covered!
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