chrome

A developer published a Chrome extension called Downloadify designed to let people download MP3 copies of the songs they stream over Spotify's Web-based player, but it quickly disappeared from the Chrome Web Store.

"Simple Chrome Extension to Download all Spotify Songs," reads the Downloadify description on GitHub. "Spotify made a great html5 player for their service...But they forgot their encription [sic]...Hey, I don't like encription but love spotify, just pay them for their magnificent content and I am sure they fix it soon."

The extension presents a dialog box that lets a … Read more

If you ask people what they like least about the Internet, the three items at the top of their list of complaints will likely be trackers, ads, and viruses.

While you may not be able to eliminate these and other Web nuisances, you can minimize their effect on your browsing via three free add-ons for Firefox, Google Chrome, and Internet Explorer: Ghostery, Adblock Plus, and Web of Trust. (Note that Adblock Plus is not available for IE; blocking ads in Internet Explorer 10 is accomplished by using the program's Tracking Protection feature, as explained below.)

Do-it-yourself do not track … Read more

If the next Gmail message you receive on your iPhone launches YouTube or Google Maps, don't be alarmed. The Internet giant enhanced its official Gmail app for iPhone and iPad today, adding two small but appreciated features for heavy users of the Web-based mail service.

First, the default behavior for opening YouTube, Google Maps, or Web links has changed. Now, when you click on any of those kinds of links, Gmail will spawn the respective native YouTube, Google Maps, or Google Chrome app for iOS to handle it. Formerly, such links were instead handled by the relatively inelegant built-in … Read more

Like their counterparts in the real world, computer criminals are always looking for vulnerabilities they can exploit. Instead of an open window or unattended wallet, malware purveyors watch for holes in software that allow them to install their spying and stealing payloads onto the computers of unsuspecting users.

As the most recent Volume 14 of the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report indicates, browsers have become the favorite target of computer crooks. In the last quarter of 2012, JavaScript and HTML were the most likely source of computer infections, according to statistics gleaned by the company from its Malicious Software Removal Tool.… Read more

I may need a tab manager manager before it's all said and done. After trying out Chrome extensions TabMemFree, OneTab, and TabJuggler, along comes Tabs Outliner. What I like about Tabs Outliner is the orderly, hierarchical structure it lends to your tabs in Chrome. It shows your open tabs, letting you jump from one to the next, but even more useful it keeps track of tabs you have closed, which provides a trail of your Internet wanderings without hogging system resources by leaving the tabs open for prolonged periods.

Tabs Outliner installs a button to the right of Chrome'… Read more

Google Keep wants to be the app that you dump all your little notes and big thoughts into, and Google introduced a Keep Chrome Web app version on Thursday.

To install it, you must use the link above, as it's not yet available by searching the Chrome Web Store.

Like Keep in Google Drive and Keep for Android, it lets you write notes in a stripped-down interface that lacks all but the most basic features. In addition to standard note-taking, you can change the text color or insert an image.

Keep for Chrome launches in its own window, and … Read more

Google is working on software that will improve Chrome (Windows, Mac) during moments when people lose their network connection by letting the browser load its own stored copy of previously visited Web pages.

Google programmer Randy Smith said yesterday he's added support for "offline cache mode" to Chrome. It's only on the developer version of the browser so far, and it's disabled by default, but the flag to enable it says the feature will let Chrome load Web pages from the browser's local cache if the online version isn't available. That could help … Read more

Internet Explorer 10 doubled its reach last month thanks to its recent debut for Windows 7.

In April, Microsoft's latest browser won a 6 percent share of all traffic seen by Net Applications, a healthy rise from the 2.93 percent captured in March. Of course, the bounce isn't too surprising.

Up until recently, Internet Explorer 10 existed only in Windows 8 and RT. But in late February, Microsoft released it for Windows 7 users. Among all desktop browser versions, IE 10 is now in sixth place, trailing slightly behind IE 6.

Internet Explorer 8 is the top … Read more

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