Selecting your preferred Google search engine

If you’re using Google.com search as your default search engine in the address bar and you’re outside the United States, you may notice that the Google search engine is from a country-specific site (e.g. http://www.google.co.uk in the UK) rather than http://www.google.com. Google uses your computer’s IP address and cookies to determine your location and the corresponding Google search engine to use. If you’d rather use regular Google web search in your address bar, follow these steps:

1. Go to http://www.google.com. If you’re redirected to a country-specific site, click the Google.com in English link that’s usually located at the bottom of the local Google site.
2. Perform a search. This action will save your preference for using the regular Google web search engine in a cookie.
3. Close all your Google Chrome windows to exit the browser completely.
4. Open a new Google Chrome window.

The Google Chrome address bar should now be set to use the regular Google.com search as your search engine.

Find search engine URL

When adding or editing a search engine option, you need to set the search engine’s URL, in addition to its keyword and name. To determine the URL for a search engine, follow these steps:

1. Go to the search engine you want to add as a search engine option and do a search.
2. Copy and paste the URL of the search results page into the URL field in the ‘Search Engines’ dialog box. 
   Keep in mind that the URL for the search results page is slightly different from the website URL. For example, while you’d go to http://www.google.com to access Google, the URL you’ll add here is from the search results page, http://www.google.com/search?q=cucumbers (assuming you did a search for the term ‘cucumbers’).
3. Replace your search term(s) with ‘%s’ in the URL. When you type a search query in the address bar, the query will automatically be inserted in place of ‘%s.’ For example, with the URL http://www.google.com/search?q=%s, typing ‘coffee’ in the address bar will automatically bring up Google search results for ‘coffee’ by opening the URL http://www.google.com/search?q=coffee.

Remove search engine options

Google Chrome automatically saves a list of the search engines you’ve encountered while browsing the Internet. If a particular search engine doesn’t prove useful, you can manually remove a search engine from the list.

1. Click the Tools menu.
2. Select Options.
3. Click the Basics tab.
4. Click the Manage button to open the ‘Search Engines’ dialog box.
5. Select the search engine from the list.
6. Click the Remove button.
7. Click the Close buttons for the ‘Search Engines’ and ‘Google Chrome Options’ dialog boxes when you’re done.

Add or edit search engine options

Google Chrome automatically saves a list of the search engines you’ve encountered while browsing the Internet. For example, if you visit http://www.youtube.com, the browser auto-detects and adds the YouTube search engine to your list of search engines, in case you want to quickly search YouTube later on, after you leave the website.

To add or edit your search engine options, first open the ‘Search Engines’ dialog box:

1. Click the Tools menu.
2. Select Options.
3. Click the Basics tab.
4. Click the Manage button in the ‘Default search’ section.

To add a new search engine, click the Add button. To edit an existing search engine, select the search engine and click the Edit button. Provide the following information:

• Name: Nickname for the search engine.
• Keyword: This field is optional. Fill out this field if you want to create a text shortcut for the search engine.
• URL: Type the URL for the search engine into this field.

Click the Close buttons for the ‘Search Engines’ and ‘Google Chrome Options’ dialog boxes after you’re done. Now you can type the search engine’s keyword in the address bar followed by your search query to quickly perform the search on the search engine.

 Find in page

Keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+F

To find specific words or terms on any webpage, follow these steps to open the find box.

1. Click the Page menu.
2. Select Find in page.
3. Type in your query.
4. Press Enter on your keyboard.

Google Chrome automatically searches the webpage as you type your query, highlighting potential matches in yellow. The total number of matches is displayed within the find box. Click the arrows at the end of the bar to quickly jump between different search matches (or try various keyboard shortcuts). The specific match is highlighted in orange, to distinguish it from other matches on the page.

Search your history, bookmarks, and downloads

Use the search boxes on the top of your History page (Ctrl+H), Downloads page (Ctrl+J), and bookmark manager (Ctrl+Shift+B) to quickly locate items in your web history and bookmarks.

• Search your browsing history
  Search the full-text of the webpages you’ve visited using Google Chrome, stored in your History page. (Note: The History page doesn’t store pages from secure websites, those you’ve visited in incognito mode, or those you deleted from your browsing history.) You can even view thumbnails of webpages you’ve seen in the search results. Matches to your browsing history also automatically appear whenever you start typing in the address bar. Click the History link above the search boxes to return to a full list.
• Search your downloads
  Search the file names and URL sources of all your downloads, recorded in your Downloads page. The icon next to each download lets you quickly identify its file type. Click the Downloads link above the search boxes to return to a full list.
• Search your bookmarks
  Search for the full titles of your bookmarks and see their exact URLs and the folder they’re filed in. Results show up as you enter your search term in the search box.

Source:google.com

Browse

Auto-suggestions

Google Chrome can automatically suggest related queries, matches from your browsing history, and popular websites based on your address bar input. For example, typing ‘new york times’ in the address bar could bring up ‘http://www.nytimes.com’ as a suggested web destination or the suggested search query ‘new york times best seller list.’

Google Suggest is the default service used for displaying auto-suggestions in the address bar, unless your default search engine uses an alternate suggestion functionality service.

This feature is turned on by default. To turn off this feature, follow these steps:

1. Click the Tools menu.
2. Select Options.
3. Click the Under the Hood tab and find the ‘Privacy’ section.
4. Deselect the ‘Use a suggestion service to help complete searches and URLs typed in the address bar’ checkbox.
5. Click Close .

Tabbed browsing

Tabs in Google Chrome sit on top of the browser toolbar, so you can easily switch between multiple websites within one browser window. Each tab contains the webpage’s icon and name to let you quickly identify a tab’s website at a glance. Besides the tips listed below, you can take advantage of many keyboard shortcuts to work with Google Chrome windows and tabs.

Opening new tabs

• Click the plus icon next to the last tab. The new tab is automatically placed as the last tab to the right.
• If you click a link that opens in a new tab from an existing tab, the new tab is positioned next to the tab you’re currently in so that related tabs are grouped together. To force a link to open in a new tab when you click it, press Ctrl on your keyboard when you click the link.
• To open the same website in a new tab in the same window, right-click the tab and select Duplicate.

Understanding various icons that appear in the tab

• When you load a webpage in a tab, a slow-spinning gray circle on the tab lets you know that Google Chrome is connecting to the website. The circle turns blue and spins faster once loading is in progress. Once the webpage is completely loaded, the icon changes to the website’s graphic.
• When you download a file, an arrow appears on the tab to signify a download in progress.

Revisiting webpages in your tab history

• Use the forward and backward arrows  on the browser toolbar to go to webpages you just visited in the tab.
• Click and hold either of the arrows to see a drop-down menu of more webpages from your current browsing session.

Select Show Full History to access the History page, where you can view all the webpages you’ve ever visited while using Google Chrome in standard mode.

Reloading webpages

• Click the circular button on the browser toolbar to refresh a webpage and see its latest content.

Moving tabs around

Tabs are really flexible in Google Chrome to let you arrange your websites the way you want them. You can rearrange the order of tabs within your browser window, or drag them out into new windows.

• To change the order of the tabs above the browser toolbar, simply click the tab you wish to relocate and drag it to its new location.
• To move a tab into a new window, simply click and drag the desired tab out of the browser window. If successful, you see a thumbnail of the tab that you are moving.
• To move it to a different window, drag the tab from its original window to the top tab bar in its destination window. The tab should pop in automatically.

Resizing tabs

You can use docking positions to quickly resize your browser window. Drag a tab to pre-defined locations on your computer monitor or browser window. When the docking icon appears, release the mouse over the icon to have the tab snap to the docking position.

Closing tabs

• The easiest way to close a tab is to click the x icon in the tab (or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+W).
• Tabs and applications operate independently, so if one tab malfunctions and crashes, it doesn’t affect non-related webpages opened in other tabs or the overall responsiveness of Google Chrome. Learn how to force a tab or window to close.
• Alternatively, right-click a tab to see more options:
  • Close other tabs: Close all tabs except the tab that you’ve right-clicked.
  • Close tabs to the right.
  • Close tabs opened by this tab: If you click a link that opens in a new tab, those two tabs are now associated. Selecting this option close all associated tabs, but leaves the original tab open.
• Closing the last tab open closes the window

Find previously visited sites

There are several ways to find websites you’ve visited before. Click a link below to get more details about each method.

Find websites from your current browsing session
Use the forward and backward arrows on the browser toolbar to go to webpages you just visited.
Click and hold either of the arrows to see a drop-down menu of more webpages from your current browsing session. Select Show Full History to access the History page, where you can view all the webpages you’ve ever visited while using Google Chrome in standard mode.
Reload a webpage by clicking the circular button next to the arrows on the browser toolbar.
Retrieve visited web addresses

Don’t work so hard to remember web addresses. Start typing parts of a web address in the address bar and it automatically searches your browsing history for matches. Relevant results shows up in the address bar drop-down menu.

Browse timeline of visited websites

To see a chronological list of websites you’ve ever visited in the last four weeks and when you last visited them, open the History page. (Note: The History page doesn’t store pages from secure websites, those you’ve visited in incognito mode, or those you deleted from your browsing history.)

1. Click the Tools menu.
2. Select History.

You can search the text of all the webpages in your entire browsing history, even those that are more than four-weeks old. Type your query in the search box at the top of the page and click the Search history button. Search results display image thumbnails of those webpages for easy scanning. To return to your full History list, click the History link above the search box.

See frequently visited websites

Last but not least, the New Tab page keeps track of the websites you visit the most, complete with image thumbnails. Click the + icon next to your last tab to open a new tab.

Clear browsing history

You can clear your browsing history for a specific day or for a longer period of time.

Clearing your browsing history specifically deletes the following:

• URLs of webpages you visited from the History page
• Cached text of those webpages
• Snapshots of those webpages for thumbnails
• IP addresses that were pre-fetched from those webpages

It does not clear cookies set by those pages or your download history.

Clear history for a specific day

1. Click the Tools menu.
2. Select History.
3. Scroll to the earliest time recorded for the day that you wish to clear and click the Delete history for this day link at the right.

Clear history from a longer period of time

1. Click the Tools menu.
2. Select Clear browsing data.
3. In the ‘Clear Browsing Data’ dialog box, select the ‘Clear browsing history’ checkbox.By default, Google Chrome clears only information collected in the last 24 hours. If you want to clear browsing information from a longer period of time, use the ‘Clear data from this period’ drop-down menu. To wipe out your whole browsing history, select the Everything option.
4. Click the Clear Browsing Data button.

Source:google.com