Until now, Sidewiki was available only through Google Toolbar for Firefox and Internet Explorer. Today, we’re excited to release the official bookmarklet for Sidewiki, which lets you easily read and write Sidewiki entries in Google Chrome, Safari and others browsers. The bookmarklet is a shortcut you can add to your bookmarks bar: When you click on the shortcut, it opens a window showing Sidewiki entries for the page you’re currently viewing.

To add the Sidewiki bookmarklet, all you need to do is click and drag the bookmarklet embedded in the Google Sidewiki Help Center page to your bookmarks bar.

So what’s the next step? We’re working on a Google Chrome extension for Sidewiki. For more updates on Sidewiki, follow us on Twitter and stay tuned.

Shift-click: Opens a link in a new window (just like right-clicking and selecting “Open link in new window”)

Shift-middle-click (or shift-ctrl-click): Opens a link in a new tab, and switches to that tab immediately

Alt-click: Saves the contents of a link to your computer

With these shortcuts, you can quickly handle links no matter how you wish to use them. Enjoy!

1. Show the list of recently visited pages from the current tab: right-click on the “Back” button. This also works for the “Forward” button.

2. Undo closing a tab: press Ctrl+Shift+T or open a new tab and check the “Recently closed tabs” section.

3. Focus on the default search option in the address bar: type ? before entering your query.

4. Perform simple calculations and unit conversions using Google Calculator by simply typing the expression in Google Chrome’s address bar (or “omnibox”). To copy the answer, select the suggestion.

5. If you need more space in a textarea, resize it by dragging the lower right corner.

6. Monitor the resources used by a web page – right click inside the page, select “Inspect element”, switch to the “Resources” tab and reload the web page. You’ll see a list of images, scripts and objects loaded from the web page and you can sort them by size or by loading time.

7. Detach a tab and open it in a new window – just drag the tab outside the active window. You can also add it back to the original window using drag and drop.

8. After downloading a file, you can copy it to the desktop or to any other folder by using drag and drop directly from Google Chrome.

9. If the search engine of a site supports OpenSearch, you can add it to Google Chrome’s search box by simply visiting the site and performing a search. The domain name automatically becomes a keyword and you should only type the first letters from the URL until you see “press Tab to search example.com”. Then press Tab and type your query.

You can also manually add search engines, by right-clicking on the address bar and selecting “Edit search engines”. Here’s one example, where you can see that you need to find the URL for the search results page and replace the query with %s:

Name – Wikipedia
Keyword – wiki (that’s what you need to type in the address bar)
URL – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=%s

You can also use the keywords for other kinds of services: for translating web pages, for bookmarking pages online or simply as aliases for web pages (omit “%s” from the URL).

Name – Google Translate (English)
Keyword – trans
URL – http://translate.google.com/translate?u=%s

10. Do you want Google Chrome without Google’s branding and with an open source license (BSD license)? Check Chromium, the open source project created for Google Chrome. You can install the latest snapshots for Windows or download the code and build it in Windows, Mac, Linux.

To install Chromium in Windows, go to the most recent directory from this page (it should be at the top) and download mini_installer.exe. Note that these snapshots could be less stable than the version available at google.com/chrome and you may need to manually update Chromium.

While Mozilla is working on this and plans to release it in Firefox 3.1 (3.5 from now on), it is not yet available, but they released about:tab add-on (xpi) that brings Chrome like features the the Firefox start page.

About:Tab shows a list of “frequently visited sites” and the “most recently closed tab” but you don’t see image thumbnails in the default view – you can however click the “star” icon and see Website screenshots on the start page just like Chrome or Opera.

Google Chrome’s most visited sites is read-only, but with this addon you can move or remove websites from it. The about:tab extension currently works only with Firefox 3.1 and the functionality could be a part of Firefox 3.5. You can check for some more start-page designs as suggested by the Mozilla community.
If any of your “most frequently visited” website has an RSS feed, Firefox will automatically display the latest news items from that feed when you open a new tab in Firefox 3.1 / 3.5. You can also customize the number of stories that are displayed per feed and Firefox will remember the settings across all browser sessions.

@media screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio:0)
{
div
{
color: red; /* The text will appear red only in Safari and Google Chrome */
}
}

Man o man!!!At first impression that was too weird. I can’t bookmark anything, I can’t see my Bangla name in FB and I can’t upload any pictures with that browser. To be honest,that was the first time in my life I’ve got scared looking at a computer program. I’ve got disappointed and started using Opera though it does not have any Bangla support. But that was the only way to avoid FF. To see Bangla I used Epiphany which is also a very good browser. Then some improvement has been done on the Chrome.

Version 3.0.195.0 Comes with some bug fixes like bookmark problem and Bangla character. It can render Bangla character But can’t display that properly.

After some time I got the version 3.0.198.1 which is really scorcher. I really liked it and now it’s my day to day browser. Here is a list of it’s benefit and disadvantage:

Benefits:

1. .Raw speed: Chrome has been well known for it’s raw speed and the Linux version is not any difference.
2. Bangla character support: Actually chrome now supports most complex characters and it shows Bangla characters perfectly. I think the rendering is better that FF.
3. Smart address bar: Chrome introduces something you can call Intelligent address bar. It can guarantee you that it will guess 95% time the correct address you are typing if you only type 4-5 letters of the address. But the condition remains that you have to at least browse 3 days full time to enjoy this feature.
4. Native look and feel: Now chrome Linux perfectly match the desktop edition. You can’t tell the difference.
5. THEMES!!!!!!!!!: Yeah that’s right. Now chrome introduces themes. I don’t know whether in windows it exists or not but I know for sure that is exists for Linux and I’m darn sure you’ll like it.
6. .Comes with the Bangla locale: Now Chrome is in Bangla to give you a native look and feel. The translation is quite good.

Disadvantages:

1. Can’t upload anything: Yeah that’s true. You can’t upload anything yet via Google chrome. That’s the main problem of this browser.
2. Every page loads too small by default: In Chrome,after the version 30.196.0 got released,every page loads too small. I don’t know why this is happening,but this is the fact and is a very painful disadvantage.
3. Sometime crashes: It often crashes or got freeze.
4. No add ons: It does not have any add-ons yet.
5. Download Manager does not support resume: Chrome’s download manager is a top class state of the art one but lacks the resume support. Otherwise it’s perfect for downloading something at a stretch.
6. Lacks of synchronization: It can’t synchronize your data with any device yet. But will surely can in future.
7. Can’t install 2 themes at a time: If you want to try 2 themes,you have to replace one with another.
8. You can’t watch video: Yeah. Sad but true. Video is yet to come

Now I can suggest you but I can’t force you to use the product. But if you have guts and will to try something which is new and different, this is a must have app for you.

A friend of mine let me in on some info about Google’s secret Chrome project about 6 months ago but I didn’t get to actually try it till yesterday. I’m pretty impressed with some of their new innovative features like independent processes for tabs, compiled javascript, and the incognito mode.

But then I realized something huge. If you use Google Chrome, Google will know every URL you type into the location bar. More than that, they will know (almost) every partial URL you type into the location bar. More than that, they will know every word or phrase you type into the location bar, even if you type it and then delete it before pressing enter. More than that, all this information can be linked with your main Google account, because Google sends your cookie along with every automatic search it performs from the location bar. Chrome will use the cookie of whatever Google account you are currently logged into.

No other browser that I know of uses an automatic search/suggest feature in the location bar. The location bar is where you type the address of the site you want to navigate to. Firefox uses a suggest feature in the search bar. It makes sense to do it there. Google.com now has auto suggest on their homepage. It makes sense there too. Now it makes sense to also have it in the location bar in terms of a nice helpful feature. But in terms of privacy I think this is a new low. I think Google should, at the least, not be sending your cookie out with these searches. But even then they could be connected to you by IP.

Don’t believe me? Go download the Wireshark packet sniffer and do some tests for yourself.

Now to be fair it seems they don’t auto suggest once you’ve typed “http://” but who actually types that anymore? There are also some timing issues, if you type really quickly and hit enter the auto suggest may not be attempted.

I’m sure there’s a team of Google data mining engineers somewhere who are giddy as shit about having all this information once Chrome becomes more widespread.

Update: Google responded to a CNET story about this issue regarding their data retention policy:

A Google representative told CNET News that the company plans to store about 2 percent of that data–and plans to store it along with the Internet Protocol address of the computer that typed it.

Update: As Rushi Vishavadia points out, the data will be sent to whatever search engine you set in the options. Of course it will default to Google but if you were to change it to Yahoo or MSN they would be receiving this data instead of Google.

Here’s an example of what Chrome is sending to Google while I’m typing the URL www.whatismyip.com into the location bar:

GET /complete/search?client=chrome&output=chrome&hl=en-US&q=ww HTTP/1.1
GET /complete/search?client=chrome&output=chrome&hl=en-US&q=www HTTP/1.1
...
GET /complete/search?client=chrome&output=chrome&hl=en-US&q=www.what HTTP/1.1
...
GET /complete/search?client=chrome&output=chrome&hl=en-US&q=www.whatismyip.c HTTP/1.1
GET /complete/search?client=chrome&output=chrome&hl=en-US&q=www.whatismyip.co HTTP/1.1
GET /complete/search?client=chrome&output=chrome&hl=en-US&q=www.whatismyip.com HTTP/1.1


Here’s an example when I’m typing the search query “how to cheat on taxes” into the location bar:

GET /complete/search?client=chrome&output=chrome&hl=en-US&q=how HTTP/1.1
GET /complete/search?client=chrome&output=chrome&hl=en-US&q=how+t HTTP/1.1
GET /complete/search?client=chrome&output=chrome&hl=en-US&q=how+to HTTP/1.1
GET /complete/search?client=chrome&output=chrome&hl=en-US&q=how+to+c HTTP/1.1
...
GET /complete/search?client=chrome&output=chrome&hl=en-US&q=how+to+cheat+on+tax HTTP/1.1
GET /complete/search?client=chrome&output=chrome&hl=en-US&q=how+to+cheat+on+taxe HTTP/1.1
GET /complete/search?client=chrome&output=chrome&hl=en-US&q=how+to+cheat+on+taxes HTTP/1.1


Even if I never pressed enter to submit the above search to Google, they would still have this data and be able to link it to my account.

I should point out this feature can be disabled by going to Options -> Manage -> Uncheck “Use a suggestion …”

Chrome loads fast, is spiffy and always up-to-date, so you don’t have to deal with managing updates or synchronizing data. Some of your applications store data locally and you can use them even when you don’t have an Internet connection. You’re running 3D applications, portable software, music players, photo editors, development environments inside your browser. Google Chrome OS is a challenge: are browsers and web applications mature enough to replace traditional software?

By the time the operating system is released, Chrome will integrate plug-ins like Native Client and o3d, while Google Docs will already become the place that gathers all the files stored in Google’s services. Chrome OS won’t bring anything that’s not yet possible on your current operating system, it will force you to change your mindset and make the operating system irrelevant.

Google Chrome OS won’t be a traditional operating system, it will just be a wrapper for the cloud.

Now let’s re-read Google’s announcement from July:

“Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. (…) The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform. (…) People want to get to their email instantly, without wasting time waiting for their computers to boot and browsers to start up. They want their computers to always run as fast as when they first bought them. They want their data to be accessible to them wherever they are and not have to worry about losing their computer or forgetting to back up files.”

The clues about Chrome OS aren’t very exciting probably because the operating system wants to negate its own existence and become invisible.