The Computer Tutor

A couple of handy features in Google Chrome

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My default web browser is Google Chrome. I also use Firefox for some things and it’s fine, but I really like Chrome. Recently I came across a couple of interesting things in Chrome.

 

Feature #1: Customize website zoom level

Have you noticed that as you get older, some of the text on certain websites gets smaller and harder to read? It’s an interesting phenomenon. I’m sure it has nothing to do with my eyesight changing as I age. Must just be a defect in the computer, right? Of course.

I’ve found this to be an issue only with some websites, not all. So certain websites I view at 100%, some 125%, some 150%. The nice thing with Chrome is that you don’t have to adjust the zoom each time you visit a particular website – you can set the preferred zoom level, and Chrome remembers it.

Here’s how you do it:

  1. Go to a website for which you need to adjust the size of the text (make sure this is the only tab open in Chrome).
  2. Hold down the CTRL button on your keyboard, and roll the wheel on your mouse to adjust the size of the text. Rolling the mouse wheel away from you makes the text larger, and rolling it toward you makes the text smaller.
  3. When the text is at a comfortable size for reading, close Chrome.
  4. Open Chrome and go back to that same website, and you’ll see that it stays at the zoom level you chose.

    5. Note: as an alternative to scrolling with the mouse wheel, you can click the Customize button (the 3 horizontal lines in the top right of the Chrome window), go down to the “Zoom” area and hit the “+” or “-” buttons to adjust screen content size.

    You can do this for every website you visit. And if you want to see all of the websites that Chrome is storing for you at customized zoom levels, you can click the Customize button, then click Settings, Show Advanced Settings. Under Privacy, click Content Settings, then scroll all the way to the end and click on “Manage” under the Zoom Levels section. Nice list of all your customized sites:

     

     

    Feature #2: Customize website notifications

    I had a client ask me about this recently. He kept having a recurring, annoying problem:

    Scott – I do like to use Facebook sometimes. But when I’m doing some actual work or research on my computer, I close Facebook and email and other distracting websites so that I can focus on my work. But then while I’m working, all of a sudden I see a little window pop-up on my screen, and it’s a Facebook notification that someone has liked my post, or someone commented, or something else has just happened on Facebook. I don’t know how this is happening when I don’t even have Facebook open! How do I get rid of that?”

    Yes, sometimes it does seem like Facebook follows us everywhere even when we want to get away from it. I noticed this same thing happening a while back. Fortunately, there is a way to turn off those Facebook notifications.

    1. Click the Customize button and click on Settings, and Show Advanced Settings.
    2. Find the Privacy section, and click on Content Settings.
    3. Scroll about halfway down that list to the section called Notifications, and click on Manage Exceptions
    4. Find Facebook in that list, and out to the right you can click on “Allow” and it will give you a drop-down menu where you can choose “Block”
    5. Click the “Done” button in the lower right corner.

      6.  

      And now you can work without Facebook popping up every 30 seconds to distract you!

      And of course, you can probably customize Firefox to resolve these issues as well but I have not really researched that specifically since I usually use Chrome.

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