Hack & Improve

Chrome
Firefox &
Edge

There are thousands of secret settings and

extensions that make your browser faster, safer and
easier to use. Jonathan Parkyn reveals the best for
Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Internet Explorer

n the surface, web browsers

might seem like fairly simple
programs. Unlike, say, a photoediting program, which may
provide dozens of advanced tools for
the clever manipulation of images,

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Change settings so that web pages
load much faster
Improve your privacy, block tracking
and turn o data gathering
Speed up your PC by stopping your
browser hogging system resources
Use your browsers hidden features and
experimental tools

50 7 20 December 2016

browsers only really do one thing: display

web pages.
In actual fact, most web browsers are
doing some pretty complicated things
under the bonnet in order to load and
display pages quickly and safely, without
putting too much strain on your PCs
resources. Some browsers are better at
this than others. But were not here to
stoke the res of yet another browser
war Microsoft, Google et al seem more
than capable of that without our help, if
recent boasts from Google (www.snipca.
com/ 22465) and counter-boasts from
Microsoft (www.snipca.com/22464)
about their respective browsers are
anything to go by.
Instead, were going to show you how

to radically improve your web-browsing

experience with a selection of tweaks
and hacks designed to boost your
browsers speed, security and general
usability whichever one you use.
Some of our hacks involve adding
extensions that unlock brilliant new
features, while others involve tweaking
advanced settings that x shortcomings
or improve performance. Most browsers
also include little-known ways to enable
experimental new features and
technologies. Well be showing you how
to take advantage of all these and more.
So, whether you use Chrome, Firefox,
Edge or Internet Explorer read on to nd
out how to make your browser brisker,
safer and better than ever.

Hack & improve Chrome, Firefox & Edge

INSIDE YOUR PC
CHROME
tabs and
1 Close
windows faster

Chrome oers a number of hidden

cutting-edge features, known as ags,
which can improve performance, add
new abilities and more. To access these,
type chrome://ags into the address bar
and press Enter. At the top of the page
youll see a warning telling you among
other things that there are no
guarantees these experimental features
will work as expected. Wed advise
against changing settings here willy-nilly
unless youre condent you know what
youre doing. The ags were going to
recommend all worked ne for us, but
theres a handy Reset all to defaults
button at the top, which you can click if
you experience any problems.
One way to make Chrome feel
instantly faster is to enable Fast tab/
window close, which kills open tabs
and windows faster when you close
them by terminating them in the
background. It can be hard to nd
settings you want in the ags list, so try
pressing Ctrl+F and typing keywords into
the search box in this case fast tab and
press Enter. Click the Enable link under
Fast tab/window close (see screenshot
top), then click Relaunch Now to restart
your browser.

2 Boost page-loading speeds

For an easy speed boost, search the
chrome://ags page for Experimental
canvas features, which use opaque
page elements that require less time to
load. Click Enable, then Relaunch Now
to restart Chrome.

Enable the hidden

Fast tab/window
close option in
Chromes flags
for a performance
boost

Use the Zoom extension to permanently change the text size on specific websites

You may also get a signicant

speed boost at least on some websites
by enabling the Experimental QUIC
protocol ag. QUIC (Quick UDP Internet
Connections) is a relatively new web
protocol developed by Google that speeds
up web trac, meaning youll enjoy
faster page-loading. Support for the
protocol isnt universal, but a growing
number of websites benet from QUIC,
so its denitely worth trying it. Search
the chrome://ags list for it, select
Enable from the dropdown menu and
click Relaunch Now.

passwords
3 Generate
automatically

Chrome has a hidden password generator,

which does away with the need for a
separate password tool. It automatically
detects pages on which you need to create
an account, and supplies a suitably
secure, randomly generated password
when you click in the New Password box
(see screenshot below left). To switch this
feature on, search chrome://ags for
Password generation, select Enable from
the dropdown menu and click Relaunch
Now. There are a couple of caveats. First,
you need to be signed into Chrome with
your Google account in order for the
feature to work. Secondly, the feature
works in tandem with Chromes saved
passwords feature.

Make text larger on

4 specic
sites

Get Chrome to generate new passwords automatically without the need for an extension

Chrome lets you permanently increase

the text size on all websites click the
top-right menu button (three dots),
Settings, Show advanced settings, then
scroll down to the Web content heading.
Change the Font size and Page zoom
settings to suit your taste.
What Chrome doesnt do is let you set
specic text sizes for dierent websites.
To do this, install the Zoom extension
(www.snipca.com/22555), then rightclick the Z icon at the top-right and select
7 20 December 2016 51

Options. Scroll down to the All Zoom In/

Out heading, type a websites URL
underneath, then choose its zoom value
in the box to the right. Click Add to
conrm the change. You can also add
Zoom to your right-click menu by ticking
the box next to the Context Menu heading.

Click Unsuspend
to reload tabs that
have been closed
by The Great
Suspender

5 Load images faster

Heres another way to boost speed in

Chrome. Head back to the chrome://
ags page and nd Number of raster
threads. In its dropdown menu, select 4
this will increase the speed at which
images are rendered. Click Relaunch Now
and you should notice that images load
noticeably faster than before.

tabs and
6 Suspend
free up memory

We all do it, but leaving lots of browser

tabs open can seriously eat into system
memory especially when using
Chrome, which is a memory hog at the
best of times. Rather than constantly
closing tabs youre not using, though, you
could use The Great Suspender to help
you manage them instead. Its a free
Chrome extension (www.snipca.
com/22490) that automatically suspends
tabs after a period of time specied by
you. Once added, click its icon, then
Settings to customise this and other
options. Click a suspended tab to reload it
or click the extensions icon, then
Unsuspend (see screenshot above right).

rid of malware and

7 Get
clean up Chrome

If your browser has started behaving

strangely, you may have inadvertently
changed the wrong setting or worse
your browser may have become the
victim of a malware attack. Besides
running a scan with your antivirus
software, you should also download and
run Googles Chrome Cleanup Tool (free

from www.snipca.com/22491 see

screenshot below). This scans your
browser, analyses settings, removes any
malicious or unwanted software it nds
and restores defaults. Run the tool and
click through the prompts.

8 Disable telemetry

Every app, tool or operating system

seems to want to collect telemetry data
these days, and that includes Chrome.
Not only does this compromise your
privacy, but it also uses a background
process called ChromeCrashHandler.exe
that eats your PCs resources. To switch
telemetry o, type chrome://settings in
the address bar and press Enter. Then
click Show advanced settings, scroll
down to the Privacy section and if
Automatically send usage statistics and
crash reports to Google is ticked, untick
it (see screenshot right). You must restart
your browser for this change to take eect.

any printer into a

9Turn
Google Cloud Print device

Many new printers come with built-in

Google Cloud Print support, but if youre
a Chrome user, you dont need to shell
out for an expensive new device just to
print wirelessly from other PCs, phones
and tablets. This handy trick will
instantly convert almost any old printer

Download Googles free Cleanup Tool for Chrome to give your browser
a full health check

52 7 20 December 2016

Stop Google collecting usage data by

unticking this option and restarting Chrome

into a Google Cloud Print device.

Switch on your printer and make sure
its connected to your PC. Then open
Chrome, type chrome://devices in the
address bar and press Enter. Under
Classic printers, click Add printers (see
screenshot below). Youll see a list of
devices to register. Untick all but the
printer you want, then click Add
printer(s). The only catch is that your PC
will need to be switched on when you
want to print from another device.

Click Add printers under Classic printers to turn your device into a
Google Cloud printer

Hack & improve Chrome, Firefox & Edge

INSIDE YOUR PC
FIREFOX

Enable Firefoxs Tab Center then click this arrow icon to show or hide your tabs
sidebar

Get a handy personalised tab of your favourite and

recently visited sites using Firefoxs Activity Stream

tabs to the side of

1 Move
your browser window

If you want to try new features, but

you dont want the disruption and
inconsistencies that often come with a
beta version of Firefox, then you could
sign up for Mozillas Test Pilot scheme.
Its free and provides access to some
brilliant tools that arent currently
available to standard users. Go to www.
snipca.com/22495 and click Install the
Test Pilot Add-on and a ying-saucer
icon will be added to your toolbar.
Tab Center is a Test Pilot tweak that lets
you customise Firefoxs layout so that
tabs run down the side of the window
instead of along the top, which makes a
lot of sense given that most PC screens
are wider than they are tall. Click the Test
Pilot icon, select Tab Center, then click
Enable Tab Center. Your tabs will move to
a sidebar on the left. You can resize the
sidebar by clicking and dragging. Clicking
the small arrow icon at the top (see
screenshot above) will pin the sidebar
open or hide it when its not in use.
Theres also a search box that lets you
instantly navigate to a specic tab.

Identify and shut down resource hogs with the Task Manager add-on for Firefox

top right). Activity Stream is another Test

Pilot tool, so see Tip 1 to nd out how to
install it. Once installed, click the Test
Pilot icon, select Activity Stream, and
click Enable Activity Stream. Now click
the + icon to open a new tab and view
the page.

Create a personalised tab of

2 your
browsing activity
tabs and manage
3 Kill
resource consumption
Most web browsers help us nd our way
back to favourite websites, by letting us
bookmark them, review our browsing
history and so on. But by enabling
Activity Stream, you can get Firefox to
deliver a personalised page showing your
top sites, recent history and more every
time you open a new tab (see screenshot

Web pages and add-ons that stop

responding or sap PC resources are a
pain. Task Manager for Firefox is a free
add-on (www.snipca.com/22496) that
works in a very similar way to Windows
Task Manager. Launch it using its toolbar
icon to see your current tabs and active

add-ons listed, along with the amount of

memory and CPU resources they
consume. If you spot a tab thats hogging
memory or not responding, for example,
click it then click Kill Process (see
screenshot above). You cant kill add-ons
from here, but you can use Task Manager
to spot when one is using more than its
fair share of resources, then simply
uninstall it via the Control Panel.

4Boost browsing speeds

Like Chromes ags (see page 51),

Firefox has a selection of secret settings
that can alter and improve the way the
browser works. To access these settings,
type about:cong in the address bar and
7 20 December 2016 53

Use about:config hacks to improve Firefoxs speed and performance

press Enter. Youll see a warning message

explaining that you should continue only
if you know what you are doing. Click
I accept the risk! to continue. The
about:cong settings are then presented
as one long list, so use the search bar at
the top to locate specic ones using a
keyword search.
To speed up browsing, for example,
type animate in the search bar. Rightclick the following entries and select
Toggle to switch their Value to false:
browser.download.animateNotications
browser.fullscreen.animate
browser.preferences.animateFadeIn
browser.tabs.animate
In addition, search for network.http.
pipelining and network.http.proxy.
pipelining, right-click both and select
Toggle to switch their value to true
(see screenshot above). Now search
for security.dialog_enable_delay, right
click it and select Modify, change the
value to 0 then click OK. And if youre on
a seriously slow internet connection you
could consider searching for network.
prefetch-next and toggling this to False.
Restart Firefox when youve nished.

improve security
6 byInstantly
forcing HTTPS

Installing one simple, free Firefox

extension can make browsing the
web much more secure. HTTPS
Everywhere works by automatically
forcing websites to default to an
encrypted HTTPS connection, rather
than an unprotected standard HTTP
version, making it all but impossible for
hackers to intercept your connection. Not
all sites support HTTPS, but tens of
thousands do and if you browse the web
over public Wi-Fi hotspots, HTTPS
Everywhere is pretty much essential.
Get it from www.snipca.com/22499,
restart Firefox once its installed and click
Yes to turn on the Observatory feature
(see screenshot above right), which can
detect attempts to hack your browser.

Firefoxs
7 Disable
built-in add-ons

A quick way to speed up any browser is

to disable extensions and plug-ins you
dont need. In Firefox, click the menu
button (three lines), then Add-ons,
then click Disable or, better still, Remove

Instantly improve the security of thousands of

websites with the HTTPS Everywhere add-on

next to any extensions you dont want.

However, you cant uninstall Firefoxs
built-in add-ons, such as Pocket and
Hello, this way. Theres an about:cong
hack that will get rid of them, though,
so navigate to this (as described in
Tip 4). To disable Hello, search for loop.
enabled, right-click it and switch its value
to false. To disable Pocket, search for
browser.pocket.enabled, right-click it and
switch its value to false. Restart Firefox.

o
8 Turn
telemetry

By default, Firefox shares a fair bit of

data about your browser usage with its
developer Mozilla. It sends health reports
that include details about your system,
as well as telemetry statistics about
your usage of Firefox, which identies
you by your IP address. Mozilla claims
this information is collected to improve
Firefoxs performance and security, but if
youd rather not divulge these details,
click the menu button (three lines), then
Options, Advanced, Data Choices and
untick the three options here (see
screenshot below).

YouTube videos
5 Stop
buering

In the old days, if you had a slow internet

connection (and most people did), you
could watch movies on YouTube without
any annoying buering by allowing them
to fully load before starting playback.
Nowadays, however, YouTube (and other
video-streaming websites) employ a
system called DASH that loads videos in
chunks, meaning you can no longer click
pause, wait for the whole thing to load,
then play it. But, by installing a free
add-on called YouTube without DASH
Playback, you can force Firefox to fully
load videos before you play them. Get it
from www.snipca.com/22500 and toggle
it on or o using its toolbar icon.

54 7 20 December 2016

Untick Firefoxs Data Choices options to stop Mozilla tracking what you do online

Hack & improve Chrome, Firefox & Edge

INSIDE YOUREDGE
MICROSOFT
PC
up browsing using
1 Speed
Edges secret settings

Like Chrome and Firefox, Microsofts

latest web browser harbours a page of
hidden experimental settings and
conguration tools. You can access
these by typing about:ags in the
address bar and pressing Enter. There
arent as many options here as in other
browsers, but there are some potentially
useful hacks to exploit. Flags can be
unpredictable, so if Edge starts behaving
oddly after making a change here, return
to the about:ags page and click Reset
all ags to default.
One ag thats denitely worth
experimenting with is Enable TCP Fast
Open tick it under Networking (see
screenshot below), then restart Edge.
TCP Fast Open (TFO) is a newer protocol
for connecting to networks that can

improve page-loading speeds

by up to 40 per cent, according
to Google (www.snipca.
com/22501).

Boost performance
2
with experimental
tweaks

If youre browsing on a PC
with lots of RAM installed, you
could take advantage of an Edge
ag that improves performance
by letting the browser use as
much memory as it likes.
Open the about:ags page
(as described in Tip 1), tick
Allow unrestricted memory
consumption for web pages
(this might impact the overall
performance of your device),
Disable Adobe Flash to improve performance as well as
then restart Edge. If your PC
security
starts to slow as a result, return
to this option untick it. Another ag
Protect your privacy when
worth trying for a performance
voice or video chatting
boost is Enable experimental JavaScript
When you use a browser to connect to
features. This may speed up page-loading web services that use WebRTC (a series
on some sites by supporting the use of
of protocols often used for many
JavaScript features that are still in
real-time communications, such as voice
development.
or video chat), theres a real possibility
that the connection may reveal private
Disable Flash
information about you, such as your
Turning Flash o can not only
language, operating system and worst
improve page-loading speeds on many
of all your local IP address. This makes
animation-heavy sites, but can also make it possible for a hacker to intercept this
Edge much more secure by preventing
data. Edge has a feature that can make
hackers from exploiting Flashs
voice- and video-chat sessions more
seemingly endless aws. In Edge, click
secure, but it isnt enabled by default.
the menu button (three dots), click
To switch this on, open the about:ags
Settings, View advanced settings then
page and scroll down and tick the
click the slider under Use Adobe Flash
Hide my local IP address over WebRTC
Player (see screenshot above right) to
connections option, then restart
disable it.
your browser.

Speed up web pages by enabling the

experimental TCP Fast Open feature in Edge

THE BEST HACKS FOR INTERNET EXPLORER

Microsoft has more or less abandoned poor old Internet Explorer
(IE) in favour of Edge, its latest web browser. And, according to
recent gures from NetMarketShare (www.snipca.com/22466), IE
usage is in steep decline. But Microsofts original browser remains
popular its built into Windows 7 and 8 (neither of which are
compatible with Edge), and its still included in Windows 10, though
you have to dig deep to nd it. IE11 is less tweakable than other
browsers, but here are our four favourite tricks:

Set IE as your default browser in Windows 10

Not a fan of Edge? Use the trick in our Workshop on page 42 to set
IE as your default browser in Windows 10 and block Microsoft from
changing it back to Edge.

Change the size of the address bar

Simply move your mouse to the line between the address bar
and tabs, then click and drag left or right.

Instantly improve security

Click Settings (cog icon), Internet Options, then Advanced. Scroll

down to Enable Enhanced Protected Mode tick it, then click OK
and restart your PC.

Automatically dump the junk

Click Settings (cog icon), Internet Options, then Advanced, scroll

down and tick Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when
browser is closed, then click OK.

7 20 December 2016 55

Hack & improve Chrome, Firefox & Edge

Click Backup Database in EdgeManage for a handy way to back up your bookmarks

a free tool to manage

5 Use
your bookmarks

One thing that Edge isnt great at is

handling bookmarks or favourites, as
Microsoft calls them. You can open the
Favourites bar by clicking the Hub icon
(three lines), then the Favourites (star)
icon, but actually doing much with your
bookmarks such as organising and
managing them is ddly.
Step forward EdgeManage (www.
snipca.com/22505), a small, free tool that
lets you easily arrange, import, edit, export
your favourites and more. Its very
simple to use just make sure that Edge

is closed before you launch it. Any

changes you make in EdgeManage will be
reected in Edges Favourites bar next
time you open the browser. One useful
bonus is the ability to back up your
favourites just click Utilities, then
Backup Database (see screenshot above).

Edge easier to use

6 Make
with Mouse Gestures

Edge is built with touchscreen users in

mind and, while its possible to control it
with a standard mouse or trackpad,
desktop PC users miss out on the handy
gesture controls that those using tablets

Put the Home button back where it belongs

by switching it on in Advanced settings

and touchscreen devices get. Install the

free extension Mouse Gestures (www.
snipca.com/22506, see screenshot below
left), however, and you can vastly
improve navigation without the need for
touch controls. While browsing, for
example, hold down the right mouse
button and swipe to the left to simulate
swiping back to the previous page. You
can also use gestures to scroll, navigate
through tabs, refresh a page, reopen
closed tabs and more. Once installed,
click the menu icon (three dots),
Extensions, Mouse Gestures, then
Options to see all the gestures available
and to customise them.

the missing
7 Restore
Home button

Navigate the web as you would using a touchscreen device with the Mouse Gestures tool

Microsoft has a habit of killing o buttons

that people love. In Windows 8 it was the
Start button, and in Edge its the Home
button the handy icon that returns you
to your home page from wherever you
are. Thankfully, you can restore the Home
button just click the menu icon (three
dots), Settings, View advanced settings
then click the switch under Show the
home button (see screenshot above). In
the dropdown menu that appears, you
can choose where the Home button takes
you to the Start page, to a new tab or to
a specic web page (you can specify any
URL in this option).
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56 7 20 December 2016