Date First Published: 27th October 2024
Topic: Computer Systems
Subtopic: Computer Software
Article Type: Computer Questions & Answers
Difficulty: EasyDifficulty Level: 3/10
Here are 22 Chrome settings you should change now.
Google Chrome offers plenty of settings and features that you can adjust to enhance your browsing experience and personalise it. If you use Google Chrome, you should consider changing these 22 settings to make your browsing experience better and improve privacy and security. Here are 22 settings you should check out and consider changing.
To optimise your experience, Chrome collects some information. In particular, Chrome collects information about crashes and any bugs you encounter. Allowing Chrome to collect that data can improve the browser on the whole by letting Google know when crashes occur and how much memory is being used when navigating between pages, but you don't have to provide that information. From there, you can choose what information is automatically collected or used by Google, including autofill, spell check, and error reports.
Smooth scrolling is a Chrome feature that allows you to scroll more smoothly. If you are experiencing unexpected bumps during scrolling, you can enable the smooth scrolling feature from the smooth scrolling feature from Chrome Flags.
If you use Google Chrome, that doesn't mean you have to use the Google search engine. There are other search engines you can use instead of Google, such as Bing and DuckDuckGo. You can set your default search engine inside Chrome.
If you want to block websites from playing sound by default, you can choose not to allow sites to play sound. Blocking sound by default will prevent any websites from disrupting you with background music that automatically plays as soon as the page is loaded. You can select the websites to allow sound.
Third-party cookies can be used to track your activity and history across multiple websites, not just the website you are visiting. This is often viewed as a privacy risk. If you want to block third-party cookies, you can select the option to block them. If you find that a specific website doesn't work properly after turning off third-party cookies, you can add the site to the allow list.
You can change the font size used by all webpages you visit in Google Chrome. You can set the minimum font size used by Chrome and change the default fonts. This is useful if you want to adjust the font size in the browser as a whole.
To review all the security settings of Chrome, including saved passwords, updates, safe browsing, and extensions go to safety check. On this page, you can find any compromised or weak passwords you should change, and any unsafe extensions that Chrome recommends you remove.
You can tell Google to automatically delete your browsing history after a given amount of time, so that its recommendations and other algorithms are only running from recent data. Depending on when you want to automatically delete your browsing history, you can select Auto-delete activity older than and choose 3 months, 18 months, or 36 months.
Not many people will likely use this setting, but secure DNS in Google Chrome encrypts information during DNS lookups to protect your privacy and security. If you want to turn it on, just go to the security settings and turn on use secure DNS under advanced.
Chrome's default settings are that it notifies you any time a site, app, or extension wants to send you some information. These notifications can start to stack up, especially if almost every site prompts you to add notifications. On this page, you can see what sites are allowed to send you notifications and which ones aren't. You can also choose to block all sites from sending any notifications at all.
You don't have to use the default Chrome theme. You can customise the colours and the background image used on the new tab page in Chrome. This can make it more visually appealing and more personal.
You can choose whether to show or hide the home button. Clicking on the home button will direct you to the homepage. You can choose the homepage to be directed to and it doesn't have to be the Google homepage.
You can create shortcuts for websites you often visit. To create and edit shortcuts, go to the new tab page and click add shortcut. You can then enter the URL and name so that you can quickly go back to it later.
By default, Chrome runs all its apps in the background even when you don't have Chrome open. Having your apps running continuously in the background takes up system resources and battery. If you want to save system resources and battery life, you may want to turn this off.
Chrome has settings that give you more control over targeted ads. You will see three options on the page. For maximum privacy, you can turn them all off. This only affects browsing on your PC and not ad settings for your Google account.
To change the Chrome settings to improve the system performance and speed up the browsing experience, you can go to the performance settings. You can free up memory from inactive tabs so that the tabs you are currently working on have more system resources and preload pages.
When starting Chrome, the startup page doesn't have to be the homepage of the search engine you use. You can change the page that Chrome will open every time you start it. You can choose to open the new tab page, continue where you left off, or open a specific page.
Your microphone and webcam are a potential privacy risk, so you want to ensure only the websites and services that really need access to these devices have permission. You can see the full list and manage permissions in Chrome's settings.
When you install extensions over the years, extensions that you no longer need or use can build up. From time to time, you should review your extensions on the extensions page. From there, you can turn off extensions that you don't currently need or remove any that you don't think you will need again.
Popups and redirects can be annoying and interrupt your browsing experience. Chrome has a built-in feature that allows you to block popups and redirects from most websites. To enable it, click on don't allow sites to send popups or redirects.
Parallel download is an experimental feature that provides faster download speeds compared to traditional download methods. It can make downloads of large files much faster. To turn it off, type parallel downloading in the search bar and click enable.
By default, Google Chrome makes it simple to access your extensions, but if you want to make the process even quicker, you can assign keyboard shortcuts to your extensions. You can enter a keyboard shortcut that will be used to activate the extension and perform other tasks.
If so, it is important that you tell me as soon as possible on this page.
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