The Ridiculously Simple Guide to Surfing the Internet With Google Chrome

By Scott La Counte

If you are like the majority of people, you probably use Google Chrome. It’s the most popular browser out there. Hundreds of millions of people use it.

Using it to Google a funny meme is easy. But do you really understand everything about Google Chrome? There’s a lot under the hood, and this book will help break it down.

• Language: English
• Publisher: SL Editions
• Release date: Feb 26, 2020
• ISBN: 9781087869193

Book preview

Introduction

If you are like the majority of people, you probably use Google Chrome. It’s the most popular browser out there. Hundreds of millions of people use it.

Using it to Google a funny meme is easy. But do you really understand everything about Google Chrome? There’s a lot under the hood, and this book will help break it down.

In addition to showing you how the browser works, it will also cover Google Searching and how to use Gmail.

Crash Course

Google Chrome is available for Windows, Mac, Chromebook, and more. So which version does this book cover? All of them and none of them! What I mean by that is that it’s not directly based on any of them because all of them function essentially the same. The User Interface might look slightly different if you have a Mac or a Windows PC, but what this book covers is universally applicable.

If you happen to have a Mac and then decided to switch to Windows, or if you use Windows at work, but have a Mac at home, then one thing you’ll love right away is that all of your bookmarks and settings will be carried over from one device to the next.

If you’re using Chrome on other devices, you’ll be able to access all of your history by clicking Other Devices, (click the three dots, hover over history, and scroll to the bottom of the list). If you’ve accidentally closed a web page, Chrome will save it for a period of time under the Recently Closed menu. 



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Anatomy of a Google Chrome Window

Everything you need to manage a Chrome window is located at the top of the page. At the top right corner, you’ll see the Back, Forward and Refresh buttons. These are used to navigate back or forward through your recent screen views and to reload pages. They match up with the three keys on the keyboard directly to the right of the ESC key on the top row.

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In the center of the top part of the screen, you’ll see the address/search bar, known as the Chrome omnibox. Type a website’s address (google.com, facebook.com) here to go directly to that site. You can also use this area as a search bar (kittens, DIY birdhouse, etc.). 



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At the right end of the omnibox, you’ll see a star. Click that star to bookmark the web page (we’ll go into more detail on this process in just a second).

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Finally, at the far top right corner, you’ll see the Chrome menu button. Here you’ll find everything else you need to manage a Chrome window. We’ll refer to this button pretty often throughout this guide! On some devices (like Chromebook), it looks like this:

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On others it looks like this:

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Tabs and Windows

There are two viewing units to be aware of in Chrome—tabs and windows. Tabs open inside one window, as pictured below. You can open a new tab by pressing CTRL+T (remember: t for tab), by right-clicking the Chrome icon in the shelf, or by clicking  Picture 41 > New Tab. 



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Opening a page in a new window, on the other hand, opens a completely separate frame (which can then be populated with a new group of tabs if you like). You can open new windows by pressing CTRL+N (N for new), by right-clicking the Chrome icon on the shelf, or by clicking  Picture 43 > New Window.

When tabs were first introduced, they streamlined the laborious process of switching between several windows while browsing the Internet. As a result, many users now associate tabs with an easier workflow.



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Browsing Ingonito

If you’re shopping for birthday presents, or doing anything else that you don’t want enshrined in your search history, Incognito is the browsing mode for you. Pages you view while in an Incognito tab won’t be saved in your history. Search terms won’t resurface in your search history, and website cookies won’t be stored on your computer. However, if you download or bookmark anything, remember that this will be retained on your system. 

To open an Incognito tab in Chrome, press CTRL+SHIFT+N, right-click the Chrome icon on the shelf, or click  Picture 45 > New Window. You can tell at a glance which windows are Incognito by looking for the shadowy figure in sunglasses peeking from behind the top left corner. 



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Bookmarks

Bookmarks are a handy way to organize your favorite sites for fast access later on. There are a few different ways to bookmark a site. You can click the Star outline in the omnibox, as previously discussed, or you can press CTRL+D. You can also navigate to  Picture 47 > Bookmarks > Bookmark this page. 

By default, your bookmarks are stored in the bookmarks