chrome

Infopackets Reader Jill P. writes: " Dear Dennis, I use Microsoft Remote Desktop (RDP) to connect to virtual machines over my network. Most machines use Chrome as the browser. The problem I'm having is that certain actions in Chrome are unreadable ... when using remote desktop. For example: if I try to install a Chrome addon, a dialogue window is supposed to appear confirming that I want to enable the extension. Over RDP, this dialogue box and the text it contains is white and unreadable. There is no way to click on 'OK' to enable the extension. Another time I've seen this happen is if I'm trying ... (view more)

Infopackets Readers Sam G. writes: " Dear Dennis, I recently switched from Firefox to Chrome, and was wondering if you can help me. Whenever I download a specific file type, I want it to save to a particular folder. For example, I have a Usenet ... account and I use it to download files off of Usenet servers. I want my Usenet .NZB files (similar to .torrent files) saved to S:\NZB instead of my default download folder, because I use my .NZBs files on another machine. When I use Firefox to download .nzb files, it remembers that I always want to save to S:\NZB, but all my other downloads go to my ... (view more)

Google says its latest browser update is "the largest gain in Chrome performance in years." It claims the browser will now be significantly faster, drain less battery and be more useful. Unlike many software updates, the majority of the changes in ... the latest version of Chrome are behind the scenes and affect performance rather than add new features. For example, Chrome will now devote more resources to "active tabs" (the ones that have most recently been used) rather than give the same attention to every open tab. It says on average this will reduce CPU usage by "five times" and add an extra ... (view more)

Two ad-blocking Chrome extensions have been removed from distribution after they were altered to collect user data. People who've already installed Nano Adblocker and Nano Defender should now remove the tools. Instructions for removal are near the ... end of the article. Both Nano Adblocker and Nano Defender started out as legitimate extensions which users could integrate into the Chrome browser to block ads. They had a combined total of 250,000 downloads, and ironically that success seems to be what ended up causing the problems. New Owners Manipulate Extension The original developer sold the ... (view more)

The way Chromebook's are updated is changing to boost security in older machines. The new changes mean that updates are separate from the Chrome operating system and the Chrome browser itself. The fact that the Chrome browsers is so closely ... entangled with Chrome OS is one of the key selling points of Chromebooks. Most applications and functions run in a similar way to how a user would experience them while running the Chrome browser on a Windows PC. In turn, the learning curve for Windows users switching to a Chromebook is very shallow an intuitive if they are already familiar with the Chrome ... (view more)

Microsoft will block Adobe Flash in its web browsers from the end of the year. It's the last major browser developer to drop the technology. While Adobe Flash was once the primary tool used for multimedia content on websites, it earned a poor ... reputation for security. It wasn't just that it had numerous security holes, but that when those holes were exploited, hackers were often able to access a computer's memory and gain a worrying level of control just by using a web browser. Steve Jobs a Noted Flash Hater Apple was arguably the first company to crack down on Adobe Flash content with Steve ... (view more)

Google is experimenting with a way to make Chrome use less power when a laptop battery is starting to run out. But it will rely on website owners to make it happen. The test is of a "Battery-Savings Meta Tag" which can be added to a website's code ... and will include battery saving recommendations specific to that site. These would then kick in whenever the computer is at a particular battery level. The idea is to avoid having Chrome itself simply take blanket measures that might not be appropriate for all websites. Video Frame Rate Lowered One of the examples Google gives is for a tag to say ... (view more)

If you use an Android phone, there's a good chance you use the mobile edition of Chrome to access web pages. If so, that experience is about to get a little safer and easier. Google has unveiled a range of changes to Chrome for Android including ... enhances security checks, a display tweak that could extend battery life, and an easier "autofill" tool for online forms. Safety Check Tools Added The first change is the addition of Safety Check, a feature that's currently only available on desktop versions of Chrome. It makes it easy to carry out three basic checks: Making sure ... (view more)

Google is increasing privacy on Chrome with a change to the way it connects users to websites. But businesses will be able to disable the move so they can keep tabs on staff. The change is to the way Chrome connects with Domain Name Servers (DNS), ... which act a little like a telephone directory for the Internet. A DNS takes a website address that a user types into their browser and finds the matching IP address, which identifies the specific connection to the device such as a server (or service) that physically stores the website's files. In the past, the connection between Chrome and a DNS was ... (view more)

Chrome is to start automatically blocking online ads that make particularly high use of computer resources. It will be a small change that Google hopes will have a big effect. This will be the second set of changes Chrome has made to the way it ... handles ads following alterations over the past couple of years to block "abusive" and "deceptive" ads. These include ads which have misleading buttons such as a "play" button that actually downloads a file or a "close window" button that actually opens new pop-up windows. The new change will involve Chrome having an limit on how much resources such as ... (view more)