Google Chrome has finally arrived for Android mobile devices.

On Tuesday, in an official Google Chrome blog post, the company announced the release of Chrome Web browser for Android app. While announcing, the company said that like the desktop version, Chrome for Android Beta is focused on speed and simplicity. The new browser features seamless sign-in and sync to make sure you get the same personalized web browsing experience wherever you go, across devices.

Actually, the Chrome Beta app is only available for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) phone or tablet. So, if you fall in the 99% of Android device users who still don’t have ICS, you’re out of luck. Further if you don’t live in United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Australia, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil but have ICS, you’ll not be able to find and download the app from the Android Market. It seems Google wants to limit the beta version to as few users as possible.

Chrome Web browser app will serve as an alternative to the default Android Web browser, with an uninspiring title “Browser.” Just like the desktop version, the app features tabbed browsing, lets you search and navigate from the omnibox, browse privately in Incognito mode. When you sign in to Chrome, the app syncs your bookmarks and lets you view tabs you have open on your computer.

Some cool additions were also made to the mobile version. You can open and switch between unlimited tabs in an easy-to-view stack. You can also send pages from desktop Chrome to your smartphone or tablet with one click and read them on the go, even if you’re offline.

Excited about the official Chrome web app for your Android? Are you testing the beta version on your Ice Cream Sandwich device? Let us know which features of the app you liked or hated any of them? If you fall in the major number of Android users who can’t yet test the app, are you disappointed? Let us know in the comments below.

Google Chrome Stable Channel updated to 16.0.912.77 for Windows, Mac, Linux and Chrome Frame.

Important Note: Bookmark this page (Press CTRL + D) to always Get the latest update about Google Chrome Stable Channel for all platforms.

According to the Google Chrome Releases blog, Chrome 16 has many improvements. These includes enhancements to Sync and the ability to create multiple profiles on a single instance of Chrome.

With the enhancement of multiple profiles, Chrome users can now easily add new users, each user will have their own sync profiles. To add a new user, click on the Spanner icon (Settings) and go to Options (Preferences on a Mac). Click “Personal Stuff” and then click on “Add new user”. Chrome will start a new instance of the web browser, users can now customize with their own set of apps, bookmarks, extensions, and other settings.

Users can now customize the name and badge present in the upper corner which lets them know that this new Chrome browser belongs to them. If a user clicks on this badge, a drop-down menu appears, through which users can easily switch between different Chrome users profiles.

Security and bug fixes in Chrome 16

• [106484] High CVE-2011-3924: Use-after-free in DOM selections.
• [107182] Critical CVE-2011-3925: Use-after-free in Safe Browsing navigation. *
• [108461] High CVE-2011-3928: Use-after-free in DOM handling.
• [108605] High CVE-2011-3927: Uninitialized value in Skia.
• [109556] High CVE-2011-3926: Heap-buffer-overflow in tree builder. Credit to Arthur Gerkis.

The bugs 106484, 107182, 108461, and 109556 were detected using AddressSanitizer.
* Bug 107182 was fixed in 16.0.912.75 but accidentally excluded from the release notes.  For more details you can view the post at Chrome Releases blog.

If your Google Chrome installation was falsely identified by Microsoft Security Essentials as a piece of Malware (“PWS:Win32/Zbot”) and was removed from your computer system, follow the guide below to restore Chrome manually. (Google Chrome Blog)

First, you need to update Microsoft Security Essential virus definitions, follow the instructions as posted in this article.

After updating the virus definitions of Microsoft Security Essentials, download Google Chrome from the links below and install it.

Latest Google Chrome Stable Channel Download Links For All Platforms

You can download the latest version of Google Chrome using following link:

Download Google Chrome (Web installer)

Download Google Chrome for All Users (Enterprise Edition)

If you want to download the Google Chrome offline installer instead of the web installer, you can get it using following link:

Download Google Chrome Offline Standalone Installer

Do check out the Google Chrome category to see everything about the web browser.

Android 4.0.3 aka Ice Cream Sandwich update is now available for Google Nexus S.

Nexus S users who have already received the update via OTA are already enjoying ICS but what about those folks who are still waiting for the update?

Thanks to XDA-Developers forum member zephiK for providing a manual way to update Nexus S to official Android 4.0.3 (ICS). Before updating please note down the warnings, and please don’t blame us if your device gets damaged or bricked during the update process. Proceed at your own risk. Here’s the method described by him.

Warning: AT&T Nexus S is NOT supported. Only T-Mobile and Retail versions of the Nexus S GSM/UMTS are supported. Please DO NOT proceed if you have the CDMA version of Nexus S.

Note: If your Nexus S is rooted, running a custom ROM, this update may not work for you. It’s advised to revert back to stock Gingerbread ROM on the device and then try with flashing the update.

Disclaimer: Please follow this guide at your own risk. Please do not hold My Technology Guide liable for any damage or bricked Nexus S devices during the manual update process.

How To Manually Update Nexus S to Android 4.0.3 (Ice Cream Sandwich)

1. First, you need to download the official ICS update for Nexus S: VQ8PQk_V.zip (128.03 MB).
2. After download is complete, rename the file to update.zip and copy it to the root of your SD card.
3. Switch off the device and then reboot into bootloader mode. (To get into the Bootloader mode, hold Volume up button and the Power button together.)
4. Use the Volume key to navigate and select Recovery from the menu to boot into recovery, press the Power button to confirm.
5. When you see the warning triangle and arrow, hold the power button and tap volume up. You’ll see a menu.
6. Select “Apply update from /sdcard” and select the update.zip file from the list.
7. Once the update is flashed, select “reboot system now” to reboot your device.
8. Enjoy the cool Ice Cream Sandwich treat by Google this holiday!

Watch the video below by qbking77 to know how to flash the latest Android 4.0.3 on your T-Mobile Nexus S device.

[via xda-developers]

Google is full of surprising fun “Easter eggs” and “Hoaxes“, hidden within search queries and other services. Google ‘s latest Easter egg discovered just in right time for the holiday season is very cool.

If you type “let it snow” into Google.com, the Mountain View-based search giant will return the normal search results. The Easter egg now starts to unfold in front of you with falling snowflakes. After a few moments the search page is completely obscured by a digital blizzard. Once the page is full of snow, you can literally ”draw” on the screen with your mouse. If you want to clear the screen, click on the “Defrost” button, but snowflakes will continue to fall in the background.

Earlier, in November, Google came up with another Easter egg popularly known as the ”barrel roll” trick. The trick still works and if you search for the phrase “do a barrel roll” you will see the search page doing a 360-degree flip before settling down.

Another cool trick is “askew” or “tilt“. Upon searching for anyone of them, Google search results page looks little tilted and out-of-place. To enjoy this easter egg, simply search for either “askew” or “tilt” in Google.

Other Google Search Easter eggs are as follows. If you type “anagram,” Google displays “Did you mean: nag a ram” and if you search for “recursion“, you will get search result along with a question “Did you mean: recursion“, which recursively runs searches for “recursion.”

If you search for ”christmas”, “christmas tree” or “santa”, Christmas lights will appear at the top of the screen. (Thanks to our reader niklas for sharing)

Enjoy these cool “Easter Eggs” and if we missed any, do share with us below. We will be happy to include them in the list.

Android Market has exceeded 10 billion app downloads, Google announced on their Google blog. To celebrate the milestone, Google has announced that for the next 10 days, starting from December 6, they’ll have a new set of apps available each day for only 10 cents each.

“Of course, none of these apps would have existed if it weren’t for the developers who created them. Every day, these developers continue to push the limits on what’s possible and delight us in the process. For that, we thank them,” said Eric Chu in his post at the Android Developer’s blog post.

The celebration started with the following ten apps:

Asphalt 6 HD, Color & Draw for Kids,Endomondo Sports Tracker Pro, Fieldrunners HD, Great Little War Game, Minecraft, Paper Camera, Sketchbook Mobile, Soundhound Infinity and SwiftKey X.

In their announcement Google said,

One billion is a pretty big number by any measurement. However, when it’s describing thespeed at which something is growing, it’s simply amazing. This past weekend, thanks to Android users around the world, Android Market exceeded 10 billion app downloads—with a growth rate of one billion app downloads per month. We can’t wait to see where this accelerating growth takes us in 2012.

As you can see the exponential growth in the graph below, Android Market took around 22 months to reach 1 billion downloads. But it took only 9 months to reach the 10 billion mark from the one billion mark on July 2010.

By July this year, things started moving exponentially for the Android Market as it hit the six billion mark. In the last four months alone, four billion apps have been downloaded to mobile devices using Google’s operating system.

The premium apps offered by Google for 10 cents are really worth checking out!

Visit https://market.android.com/details?id=apps_timed_promotion for joining the 10-day-10-cents celebration. We also noticed that the apps already offered earlier day are still available for 10 cents each. So, if you have missed buying the apps featured earlier, you can search the Android Market and still buy them for 10 cents.

(Thanks to Android Developers Blog)

Google is soon going to enable the new navigation menu replacing the current black navigation bar.

“The Google bar, which runs across the top of the browser of nearly all Google services and offers easy access to Google’s products, has recently updated its look for a more consistent, streamlined user experience and increased visibility of the most popular services,” explains Google.

The new navigation looks much more elegant and compact. You will find the gray navigation bar above each of Google’s products. The bar basically has three main areas. When you hover your mouse pointer over the Google logo on the left or click on it, a drop-down menu will appear with links to Google services. The menu links to Google+, Web Search, Image Search, Google Maps, YouTube, Google News, Gmail and Google Docs, but you can mouse over “More” to see more services. The central area has a search box for the Google service you are using now. The right side features a share box and notifications to take part on Google+ from any Google page.

Watch the introductory video below:

How to enable and test Google’s New Navigation Bar?

If you use Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari or Internet Explorer 8+, than simply visit www.google.com in a new tab.

If you’re using Chrome, open JavaScript console by pressing Ctrl+Shift+J. In Firefox, open Web Console by pressing Ctrl+Shift+K. IE Developer Tools can be accessed by pressing F12.

Apple Safari users are need to turn on the ”Develop menu” first before they can get access to the “Web Inspector.” To enable “Develop Menu,” follow the steps below:

1. Open Safari Preferences and click on the ”Advanced” tab.
2. Check the box beside ”Show Develop menu in menu bar”. Close the Preferences window.
3. A new Safari menu item appears, labelled ”Develop”.
4. Now, right-click on the Google.com web page and click on Inspect to bring Web Inspector.

Now, all users of the above browsers, just select the “console” tab. Paste the following code and press Enter. After that you can close the “console”.

document.cookie="PREF=ID=03fd476a699d6487:U=88e8716486ff1e5d:FF=0:LD=en:CR=2:TM=1322688084:LM=1322688085:S=McEsyvcXKMiVfGds; path=/; domain=.google.com";window.location.reload();

After reloading, you will be greeted by the new navigation bar:

If you’re not in the US and you’re using a different Google domain, replace .google.com with your domain in the code. For instance use .google.co.in in India.

Please note that this cookie hack only works for the English interface, so if you are using a localized version of Google, you many need to adjust your language preferences to English.

YouTube introduced Redesigned Homepage and Channels view making it look closer to the Google+ look.

If you remember, few days back we provided a sneak peek into the new YouTube look. We also shared a simple cookie hack, using the hack, you can enable the new YouTube look. No more hacks required any more as the look has been officially finalized for YouTube.

When you login to your YouTube account, you’ll be greeted with recent activity from your subscriptions. You can also browse and add new Channels to your homepage. Connect with Google+ and Facebook to share your favorites with friends. Wait, what? Facebook integration? Well, it seems integrating both Google+ and Facebook together, Google wants to invite the large user base of Facebook to also try out their new Google+ social network by using YouTube as a bridge between the two.

Watch the introduction video below to get an overview of what’s new.

An instruction manual is also available at http://www.youtube.com/t/new.

Read more about the redesign on the YouTube blog.

Google has debuted a new search tool “Verbatim” that enables you to get results for your query exactly as you wrote it.

Google Search does a lot of work behind the scene to offer you relevant search results. Normally, when you use Google Search, Google intelligently provides a lot of results which are close to your search query. Improvements like automated spelling corrections, search for synonyms and similar or omit terms that may be redundant or irrelevant from your query, search for words with the same stem, like “running” when you actually searched for run helps you find what you wanted even if it’s not exactly what you type in.

But, sometimes even these intelligent changes do not yield good results. Sometimes you may have meant to search for the exact words you have typed and not the Google “corrected” version. For this reason, Google came up with their new Verbatim search tool. When you use Verbatim, Google returns results that matches the exact keywords you type in and drops all tweaks, personalizations and advanced search enhancements.

How to turn on Verbatim Feature?

1. Click More search tools on the left side of the search results page.
2. Click Verbatim.
3. Type your search terms into the search box and type Enter.

Even though this new search tool is a good addition but the way Google has implemented it has let us wondered if they actually want a lot of users to use it? Since, the new “Verbatim” search tool is hidden under “More search tools,” it takes longer for a user to use. You have to first type your query, then go to “More search tools,” then you click “Verbatim,” after which your query will be run again.

Google could have come up with a better way to implement it instead of hiding it and making it a pain to use. What are your thoughts on the new search tool? Are you satisfied by the results it is generating?

Image credits: Google

Google is testing a new homepage design for YouTube (not the Cosmic Panda test). Even though there is no official announcement, you can get a taste of it using a simple cookie trick. If you don’t like it or want to get back to the old YouTube interface, simply delete the cookie.

YouTube visitors can enable the new test homepage layout by following the steps below:

• First, visit http://www.youtube.com using Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox.
• Now, in Chrome, press Ctrl + Shift and J to open the Developer Tools. Alternatively, you can click on the spanner icon, go to Tools and select Developer Tools.
• Firefox users need to press Ctrl + Shift and K.
• Now, click on the “Console” Tab and type the following text and press Enter to confirm.
  document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=ST1Ti53r4fU";
• Reload YouTube and Google will greet you to the new layout.

The new YouTube homepage layout is divided into three columns (as explained later) and looks like the screenshot below after a reload.

After logging in, you will notice neat Google+ and Facebook integration along with very well laid out subscribed channel information prominently displayed on the left side. Below it, under From YouTube, you can now easily access Trending or Popular videos. Further below, you will find suggested channels for you to subscribe to. The middle column is filled with updates from subscriptions, or if you click on From YouTube link, it displays the trending/popular videos. In the third (right) column, YouTube displays recommended videos based on your activities on YouTube and videos you have watched in the past.

Do you like the new test homepage layout of YouTube or like the old one? Share your thoughts with us.

Note: Google is testing this new layout and there is no official announcement if Google will finalize this as the new YouTube homepage in the future.

Thanks to Moritz Tolxdorff on Google+ for sharing the cookie trick.

Gmail team has finally released Gmail’s new look. Gmail new look was earlier available through two themes namely, Preview and Preview (dense).

Gmail’s new looks seems to be one more stepping stone towards bringing a consistent look throughout all Google products after the launch of Google+ (Google Plus). This new look features Streamlined conversations, Elastic density, New HD themes, Smarter navigation and Better search.

How to switch to Gmail’s New Look?

The new look is available to everyone and is now a opt-in feature. You will find a link to switch to the new look in your Gmail. If you don’t see the link to switch simply refresh Gmail once. Personally we liked the new look and features very much.

Watch the video to get an overview of the improvements.

New Gmail features in details

The Gmail Team has posted on Official Gmail Blog explaining the new features of the new Gmail look.

Streamlined conversations: Conversation view has been completely redesigned to help you read through your email threads. You’ll now see profiles pictures for your contacts, so it’s easier to keep track of who said what. We also stripped out as much as possible so you can focus on communicating with your friends and colleagues.
Elastic density: We know that you use Gmail from a variety of screen sizes and devices, so now the spacing between elements on the screen will automatically change based on the kind of display you’re using. If you prefer a denser view all the time, you can change your density manually in the Settings menu.
New HD themes: Themes have been completely rebuilt to enable us to bring you a new set of beautiful high-resolution themes with imagery provided by iStockphoto. We’ve updated most of the old favorites as well and your theme will be automatically carried over to the new look. Go to the Settings menu to take another look at themes and choose the one that fits you best.
Smarter navigation: The navigation panel on the left keeps your labels and chat contacts in view. It’s also more customizable: you can resize the labels and chat areas if you want to see more, or hide the chat area entirely via the chat icon in the lower left. You can also use the arrow keys to navigate around the user interface.
Better search: Click the drop-down in the search box to see a new advanced search panel, which makes it easier and faster to find exactly what you’re looking for. You can use the same panel to create a filter from any search in just a few clicks.

Below is a screenshot of the new Gmail HD Themes.

iStockphoto has partnered with Gmail to offer high-resolution images for Gmail HD Themes. If you want to buy iStockphoto credits (50 or more credits) at 20% discount use the discount code GMA1120.

Are you already touching the Google+ limit of 5000 people in your circles? Do you want to do some clean up and get rid of all the inactive people? Uncircle+ is a Google Chrome extension for you.

Uncircle+ lets you uncircle people (i.e. remove) inactive people from your Google+ circle with ease. So, if you want to add new people to your circles, you can add them without reaching the 5000 limit.

Do note that the “Inactive people” here referred by the author of the extension, are those people in your circles who have not shared any posts (original, reshare, private or public posts) with you. So, if that person is having at least one post, he is active. Thus, after doing the housekeeping with this extension, if you want to further cleanup “dormant” accounts, you have to do so manually. We are referring “dormant” here are those people who have not shared any post for a long time after they signed up.

How to use Uncircle+ to remove inactive people from your Google+ circles?

1. Install the extension from the Chrome Web Store. You will see an icon of Uncircle+ on the toolbar.
2. Sign in to your Google+ account and click on that icon.
3. Uncircle+ will open up a new tab where it displays the status of each steps being performed. It starts collecting a list of people whom you’ve added to your circles.
4. Now, click on the Find Inactive People! button. It will start checking the activity of all the people found in your circles.
5. After the analysis is complete, it displays a list of inactive people and lets you select which ones to remove.
6. Clicking on the Remove Selected button starts removing the selected inactive people from your circle.

Do check out the 10 best Google+ extensions for experiencing the best of Google Plus. As you are busy removing inactive people from your circles, why don’t you add me to your circle?

A word of caution, before removing, do check the list. Don’t blame us if something goes wrong. Happy hunting… Thanks to Kimberly Castleberry.

Google after 100 days of field testing Google Plus, their social network service, has opened gates for the service to all.

Up until now, Google+ was an invite only social networking service. It was only possible to join the service after receiving an invite from someone who got lucky to get in first, or by accessing the site when Google temporarily removes the invite-limitation.

Today over at the official Google Blog, Google announced that Google+ is now available for everyone. Anyone now can sign up for Google+ without any invitation. Thus Google+ officially graduated from “field-trial” to “beta” phase.

If you have waiting to get into Google Plus, but wasn’t lucky, now you can sign up through the official website at google.com/+ or http://plus.google.com/. After visiting that page, simply click on Sign In button and use your Google Account to sign in. Fill up the form and click on the Join button to start using Google+ social networking service.

The blog post also announced many new and improved features. This includes Hangouts on your phone. Hangouts uses live video to bring people together, face-to-face-to-face. If you use your Android phone to connect to Google Plus, you can now join Hangouts just like your buddies using the desktop can. Hangouts now supports Android 2.3+ devices with front-facing cameras (and iOS support is coming soon). The new mobile app is rolling out to Android Market today, so you can start hanging out at any time, from just about anywhere.

Hangouts on Air is another new feature which allows Google+ users to record a session and broadcast it. As usual up to 9 people can join you while can be watched by anyone. Other improvements and extras Hangouts got include Screensharing, Sketchpad, Google Docs support and Named Hangouts.

Last week Google launched the Google+ API for developers. Today, Google released Hangouts API specially made for Hangouts. If you are a developer, you can find more information about the available APIs over at the official Google+ Platform blog.

Search in Google+ got more improved. Using Search in Google Plus, you can now find relevant people and posts, as well as popular content from around the web.

Other notable improvements can be seen on the mobile front of Google Plus. The notable ones are improved SMS support, improved +mentions support, +1′ing comments from the mobile app (iOS app only, Android will be supported soon). The Google+ mobile users will now be able to edit their profile photo and customize notifications. Google+ app for Android now supports App to SD storage. And last but not the least, Google renamed Huddle to Messenger.

You can read the full announcement over at the official Google Blog and over at the official Google Mobile Blog.  Do add me to your circle while you go through all the improvements!

Google is making ready a new Gmail Google Account Sign-in page, keeping it similar to the minimalistic look of the Google+ theme.

After the launch of Google+ social networking site, Google is changing almost all of their services to the new theme. First, it was the search page, than other services, than it was Gmail and now Gmail the Google Account sign-in page. Actually, we are loving this new minimalistic bold look.

It looks great, have a look at it yourself:

What do you say about this new Gmail sign-in page?

If you are in Google+, you can follow me for updates:

10 best Google Chrome Extensions for all the Google+ users out there! Try them all to enhance your Google+ experience.

Google+ (Google Plus), now in field trial and is an invite-only social network project by Google. Within weeks after its first launch, it has attracted over 10 million users and 1 billion items being shared per day. Though Google is yet to release an API for Google+ but many developers have already developed extensions for enhancing the user-interface of the social network project. The list of extensions, plugins and userscripts are not limited to Google Chrome only. This article is a summary of the best 10 Google+ extensions available for Google+ users. These best Google+ Chrome extensions improves overall interaction, navigation, sharing and social interactions for a richer experience.

How to add these Google Chrome extensions?

Just click on the names of the extensions we have covered here. You will be taken to their respective Chrome web store page. Click on the big blue Install button to install them. To manage the extensions, simply click on the spanner icon (Tools) than under Tools, click on Extensions. You can directly visit the extensions page by typing chrome://extensions in the address bar and pressing Enter.

Best 10 Google Chrome Extensions for Google+ (Google Plus) users.

G+me for Google Plus

Google+ Stream displays all the messages from people in your Circles (if it is shared with you). But sometimes, you may not be able to cope up with the information overload, caused by the real-time updates of comments under the message. G+me for Google Plus solves this problem by collapsing the messages. It is great enhancement to work with real-time large stream of messages and comments. Other notable enhancements it brings to Google+ are:

• Notification status visible at all times: Browser icon shows badge with number of new notifications.
• Collapsible comments: Always-visible button makes 100s of comments easy to hide.
• Collapsible posts: An alternative to muting, this is great if you’re not interested in seeing a post but still want to get back to it later and/or still want to get notifications.
• Real-time comment count on collapsed items: Track the number of seen or unseen comments, whether you like to collapse posts and comments.
• Mark comments as read: Collapsing posts/comments automatically keeps track of comments you’ve seen; the extension remembers.
• List-mode option keeps at most one post displayed: This turns the stream into a dashboard.
• Mouse-over instant preview: In list mode, hover the mouse over a collapsed post to get a fully functional preview on the side.

Usability Boost for Google Plus

Usability Boost for Google+ is a Chrome extension that makes small CSS changes to the user interface. These changes help you put your focus on the content, separating visually posts and comments. It keeps the Google Notification bar at a fixed place on top. So, even when you’re scrolling down the page, you’ll never miss a notification again. For more convenience, it displays a direct link to mute post. The extension makes the following changes that are visible right away:

• A grey background that substitute the white one and create a nice contrast between the post and the background
• A little spacing between post to clearly difference them
• A blue background in comments, like Facebook
• The likes are highlighted with a white background and red letters
• A direct link to Mute posts

It also offer three options that you can disable/enable from the extension option’s menu: Fixed Top Bar, Grey background and Direct access to mute link.

Native GMail for Google Plus

Native GMail for Google Plus is a Google Plus extension for Google Chrome browser that adds email notifications next to your Google username on the Google navigation bar. It shows total number of new emails received, when you click on the notification, a drop down list appears with details about the email(s) received. The email notifications only appears on your Google+ page and not on any other Google service page. Using the extension’s option you can set how soon it should check for new emails and if it should keep checking even when you aren’t on your Google+ page.

Google Plus Bar Minus

Google Plus Bar Minus extension is useful for those Google+ users who wants to disable or hide the black Google navigation bar on their Google+ page. Using a single click on the extension you can turn on or off the Google navigation bar. Just turn off the black Google+ nav bar to get more real estate on the screen. This extension will be useful for everyone who are using the various notification extensions featured on this article.

+Comment Toggle

+Comment Toggle is a good and useful Google Plus extension for Google Chrome browser. It helps you hide comments to posts within your Stream and when you actually want to see them you can toggle the option. Like G+me (which we have covered above), this plugin automatically hides all comments on a post.

Helper for Google+

This extension tweaks Chrome search and lets you share on Twitter. Helper gives you desktop notifications for new Google+ posts as pop-up window or an audio alert. The extension offers the following enhancements to Google Plus:

• Share Google+ Posts with people on twitter.
• Translate posts with Google Translate to language specified by you.
• Notifier – Get desktop notifications on new posts, also with sound. (mouse over notification to freeze it).
• Bookmark Google+ posts for reading them later.
• Bookmark posts on Delicious.
• Linked hashtags in posts for better search.
• Search in Google+ posts and profiles directly from your omnibox (address box), just type the search keyword “plus” (excluding the quotes) and type your search query.

+Photo Zoom

+Photo Zoom is another very handy Google Plus extension for Chrome which enables image zooming on mouse over. +Photo Zoom provides fast and simple zooming for photos within your Google+ Stream. Just hover over the image you wish to zoom and +Photo Zoom will load the enlarged version of the picture saving you extra clicks to view them.

Search Extension for Google Plus

This extension enables you to search Google Plus public contents online. The extension can filter profiles, posts, posts from Buzz and posts from Google Reader. The results page is neatly arranged into tabs featuring all results, results from Google+ posts, profiles, Google Buzz and Google Reader.

GTools+

GTools+ is a Chrome extension that adds many useful features to Google Plus. Using this extension you can: stick the Google bar fixed at the top when you scroll down, translate foreign language posts, customize the notification color, change Google Chat place, add notification for Gmail and Reader and more. In all, the extension provides the following Google+ enhancements:

• Unified Google bar, your personalized menu is possible on all Google services.
• Stick the Google+ bar always on top when you scrolling.
• Prevent open in new tab or window when you click on link inside the Google+ bar.
• Change the position of the chat for put in the Google+ Bar.
• Change the color of the notification bubble in the Google+ Bar.
• Right click on the extension icon for go to the options page fastest.
• Add a translation link in the context menu (auto detect the post language).
• Add notification for Gmail and Reader in the Google Bar.
• Edit the color of any notification bubble.

Surplus

Surplus extension allows you to easily access all your notifications, create new posts from any website. The best thing is you can do all these actions without even switching to Google site. Just click on the extension’s icon present beside the address bar of Chrome to get access to all these features. The enhancements offered by the Surplus extension are:

• Post or respond from within the pop-up of the extension.
• Desktop Notifications with notification sounds.
• Switch between multiple Google accounts.

We hope you found our compilation as useful as we have ourselves. Do you use any other extension or userscript? Share it with us, we will love to test it.

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Google Docs Viewer recently added support for viewing ZIP and RAR archive files online. With these two additions, Google Docs Viewer can now display 17 file formats in your browser. If you simply want to view the contents of ZIP or RAR archive files or just want to extract some files, you can now do so using the viewer.

Now, you might be wondering how to view the contents of the archive files using the viewer. If the archive was sent to you through email to your Gmail account, you can easily open it using Docs viewer. Now, lets you have just seen a very good freeware available in an archive file for download. You can always go ahead and click on the download button to download it. But why don’t take the advantage of Google Docs viewer and see beforehand whats inside that archive? It would have been time-consuming to do that manually, but thanks to the “Open ZIP and RAR With GDocs” Chrome extension, you can now easily view whats inside that ZIP or RAR archive file before downloading it.

The extension aptly titled “Open ZIP and RAR with GDocs” allows you to view the contents directly in your browser using Google Docs viewer. Once installed, it add an entry to the context menu of Google Chrome. So, the next time you run into a ZIP or RAR file and you want to see what’s inside before downloading it, just right-click on the link of the archive and select “Open with Google Docs.” A new tab will open showing the contents of the archive file in Google Docs viewer. You can now browse through the contents, download files, save in your Google Docs account, and if the content is a supported file type you can view even view it in Google Docs.

Open ZIP and RAR With GDocs is a very useful Google Chrome extension which allows opening any ZIP or RAR file hosted online using Google Docs.

You can download Open ZIP and RAR With GDocs for Google Chrome from the Chrome Apps page.

Google Docs Viewer just got a lot more useful. It now lets you view archive file types, ZIP and RAR contents online.

The Google Docs Viewer is an online service by Google which allows you to quickly view many file types. Using it, you can view PDFs, Microsoft Office files, and many image file types online and without leaving your browser. According to the official Google Docs Blog, now, if someone sends you a ZIP or RAR file in your Gmail, you’ll be able to view its contents from within your browser by clicking on View. This works for archives inside archive files too. Like, if you have a ZIP file inside a RAR file (or vice versa) you can simply click on that file to get access to the contents of the embedded archive.

Google Docs viewer already supports 15 different file formats. These includes:

• Microsoft Word (.DOC and .DOCX)
• Microsoft Excel (.XLS and .XLSX)
• Microsoft PowerPoint (.PPT and .PPTX)
• Adobe Portable Document Format (.PDF)
• Apple Pages (.PAGES)
• Adobe Illustrator (.AI)
• Adobe Photoshop (.PSD)
• Tagged Image File Format (.TIFF)
• Autodesk AutoCad (.DXF)
• Scalable Vector Graphics (.SVG)
• PostScript (.EPS, .PS)
• TrueType (.TTF)
• XML Paper Specification (.XPS).

The support for viewing archive file types ZIP and RAR has just made Google Docs Viewer much more useful than ever. The best thing is this feature is available in Google Docs for mobile, too. You can check out the feature yourself by viewing a ZIP file.

Do keep in mind that you can’t create archive files in these formats using Google Docs – you’ll still need the original applications to do that.

With these features, Google has added a welcome usability to Google Docs and Gmail. Now, I don’t have to download those large archive files from my Gmail, just to preview them. What other file types would you like to be supported in the Google Docs viewer?

YouTube “Cosmic Panda” is the latest Google experiment, which promises to offer an entirely new videos, playlists, channels experience.

YouTube is one of the most visited website for watching and sharing videos. According to the stats of Google, the website registers 3 billion hits a day and users uploads around 8 years of video everyday. Google does a lot of experiments with the way user interacts with its services. This experiments most of the time brings in great concepts and provides better user interactions.

After the launch of Google+ (the now dubbed “Facebook killer“), Google has brought forward an array of changes to almost all its products including Google Search and Gmail. Now, its time for YouTube. The latest experiment promises to give an entirely new experience to its users. It is not only a cosmetic change but its functional too. With the few minutes of tinkering with it, we must add that we got impressed. We suggest you to take part in the new experiment yourself and get the new watching experience.

Below are some screen shots of the new experimental experience to give you an overview.

Playlist viewing experience

Browsing a channel

How to enable YouTube Cosmic Panda?

It’s very easy. You can easily opt in to test the new experiment by visiting http://www.youtube.com/cosmicpanda and clicking on the “Try it out!” button.

How to disable YouTube Cosmic Panda?

If for some reason, you want to get back to the old default interface, simply visit http://www.youtube.com/cosmicpanda again. This time you will find a link that says “older version”, click on it and you will be back.

If you want to test some other experiments which enables some pretty cool features, simply visit TestTube at http://www.youtube.com/testtube and try them yourself. Some of the notable experiments available at the TestTube are YouTube 3D, YouTube HTML5, Video Editor, etc.

The Data Liberation Front team has launched a new service called Google Takeout, allowing users to liberate their data and create backup of all Google products.

Takeout service basically makes it easy for the end-user to back up all their data stored in their Google Account. This way they can later use the backed up data into a new account or at a different service provider.

Using the Takeout service, users can now download all the information related to Google Buzz, Contacts and Circles, Picasa Web Albums, Profile and Stream. “These are just the beginning: we will be adding more Google products as time goes on, so stay tuned” said Brian Fitzpatrick, The Data Liberation Front.

With the click on a button, back up of all the data starts and wrapped into a single zip file for download. You can see a quick overview of the total number of files it is backing up and the estimate size of those files.

How to use Takeout to Liberate Your data?

For using Takeout service, first you need to login to your Google Account. After logging in, visit google.com/takeout.

For liberating all the data, simple click on the Create Archive button.

If you want to take backup of each service individually, click on the Choose services tab and select the services that you want to back up.

You are than shown the estimated number of files and file size. Click on Create Archive button to continue.

You will see a statistics of the files which are getting archived. If everything is going good, than the progress bar will be green. If its red, than try again.

After the backup is complete, you will see the Download button, click on it to get back your data.

Facebook has a similar backup option which lets users download all their photos, videos and other data related to their Facebook account. Facebook compiles all the information on the back-end and then emails the user when the file is ready instead of displaying the backup process in real-time.

“We believe that if we make it easy for you to leave Google, we’ll have to work just that much harder to make sure you don’t,” the Data Liberation Front said in the video unveiling the service.

What are your thoughts about this new service? Will you be able to trust more in “Don’t be evil” motto because of Takeout?

With the release of Google+ (Google Plus), Google’s attempt to take on Facebook, Google has bought in a minimalist and refreshing new look across many of its services. The combination of black navigation bar with the blue search buttons or orange buttons looks nice to the eyes. First it was Google search, now its time for Gmail. This new refreshing look is now available to all Gmail users from today.

The new Gmail look as of yet is available as Gmail Theme and is thus optional to all. Two new themes: “Preview” and “Preview (Dense)” are now available for users to test out the new look. You can easily switch to the new look by accessing the Themes feature of Gmail.

First, Log in to your Gmail account and click on the gear icon present on the top right corner of the page, select “Settings” from the drop-down.

Click on the Themes tab, scroll down and select the theme named Preview or Preview (Dense), whichever you like. The new theme will be applied.

If you don’t like the new look, you can always go back to the old Classic look or whichever theme you were using.

Here’s what the thread list looks like:

And in conversation view:

Here’s what Chris Wiggins, Creative Director, Google has to say about the Google design and experience:

The new Google experience that we’ve begun working toward is founded on three key design principles: focus, elasticity and effortlessness.
Focus: Whether you’re searching, emailing or looking for a map, the only thing you should be concerned about is getting what you want. Our job is to provide the tools and features that will get you there quickly and easily. With the design changes in the coming weeks and months, we’re bringing forward the stuff that matters to you and getting all the other clutter out of your way. Even simple changes, like using bolder colors for actionable buttons or hiding navigation buttons until they’re actually needed, can help you better focus on only what you need at the moment.
Elasticity: In the early days, there was pretty much just one way to use Google: on a desktop computer with an average-sized monitor. Over a decade later, all it takes is a look around one’s home or office at the various mobile devices, tablets, high-resolution monitors and TVs to see a plethora of ways to access the web. The new design will soon allow you to seamlessly transition from one device to another and have a consistent visual experience. We aim to bring you this flexibility without sacrificing style or usefulness.
Effortlessness: Our design philosophy is to combine power with simplicity. We want to keep our look simple and clean, but behind the seemingly simple design, use new technologies like HTML5, WebGL and the latest, fastest browsers to make sure you have all the power of the web behind you.

What is your opinion about all these changes? Do you like the new look?

Google has launched a number of changes including a black nav-bar with gray font color, the navigation bar present at the top, which links to many Google services. But for many users this contrasting change is unacceptable unlike many who loved it. They want to get back good old white navigation bar. For those users who wants to get back the old interface, here’s a very quick tip (actually a userscript).

Google Light Navbar userscript restores back the original white nav-bar and blue font color on all Google pages. The userscript works in the Firefox, Chrome and Opera web browser. Here’s how to get the userscript working on your favorite browser.

New black nav-bar

Old white nav-bar back after using the script

Simply download Google Light Navbar userscript from http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/105735 and install it.

Firefox users will first need to install Greasemonkey or Scriptish add-on before they can install and use the script.

Chrome users can directly visit the userscript page and install it to instantly use it.

Opera users will need to specify a directory on their computer where they put userscript in, if they haven’t done so already.

You can do so by clicking on the Opera button, than on Settings, Preferences, Advanced, Content, JavaScript Options. Now browse to specify the directory. Download the script and put it into the directory specified for use.

The userscript works without restarting the browser. If you are having the page open already, you may need to reload the page to see the changes in effect.

The author of the script also mentions that the user is free to customize the nav-bar color to any color of their choice.

For changing the color, click on the spanner icon on the far right of the bar and click on the colors to change the hex values of the colors. [via]