How to Get Most Out Of Your Web Browser

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Web browser iconsNo matter which web browser you're using, following some simple tips and tricks can help you leverage all the powerful features offered by it. Nowadays, Firefox and Google Chrome are two of the major web browsers followed by Internet Explorer and many others. Almost every modern browser includes support for extensions or plugins and several other common features to increase your productivity. Unfortunately, large numbers of web surfers are not able to utilize the functionalities and features of a typical web browser in a correct way. Today, we're going to learn how we can ensure that we're using our web browser in a productive way such that it not only saves our time but also get our online activities completed in an efficient way. All the general guidelines mentioned here can be applied to all the modern browsers.

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Avoid Stacking Dozens of Plugins

One of the reasons a web browser becomes sluggish or a resource hogger is the use of countless extensions. Although there's no tool or service to analyze or test any plugin for its inefficiency, still we can take some precautions to avoid making our web browser a piece of bloated code.

First, you must make the list of all the essential plugins you intend to use with your web browser. Once the list is complete, analyze each one of them and see if it's really vital for your online activities. If not, immediately remove it from the list. Once you've finalized the list, you can now concentrate on selecting the best available option for each of the listed plugin.

But the big question is, how to and find and select the best alternatives. This can be done through a two-step method. The first method involves checking the user base and the review of existing users and the second one involves testing of the plugin on your own web browser. In a nutshell, you must be very careful before adding a new plugin to your web browser. Your goal should be to get things done with an as low number of plugins as you can.

Export & Save Your Bookmarks Every Month

Depending on how frequently you bookmark and delete selective links, you must consider exporting and saving all your bookmarks at regular intervals. This can be a big life saver in case your computer crashes and you need to reinstall the operating system again.

Make sure you've saved your bookmarks file in one of your online storage services. This way, you can easily restore access to all your important bookmarks very easily in the event of system crash. It may seem a very simple and unimportant thing initially, but following this step can help you preserve your essential links for not only restoration in the event of any mishap but also for accessing them easily anywhere on a different system.

Use Password Manager

Almost each one of us maintains several types of online accounts. If you're not using a shared computer, you must install a good password managing plugin to help log in your multiple accounts with ease. This is a great time-saving plugin, especially if you're accessing lots of different accounts on a daily basis.

Although there are dozens of password managing plugins, but I prefer LastPass both for Firefox and Google Chrome. You can use your favorite alternative for managing all your account passwords. Quite similar to bookmarking facility, almost every password manager has an export facility to save your database externally. You must utilize this feature to avoid losing all your precious account data.

Enable Complete Auto Cleaning On Exit

Whenever you exit from a web browser after a long browsing session, all your cached data, form submission data and various cookies are saved within a special database. To avoid accumulation of this data, you must enable auto-cleaning of the entire browsing session database as soon as you close your web browser.

This becomes more important when your shared computer is being used by several people. Both Firefox and Google Chrome provide strong auto-cleaning functions that can be used to purge your sensitive data every time you close the browser.

Use Private Browsing (Whenever Required)

Even if you've configured auto-cleaning of your browsing history, you cannot take the risk of leaving any kind of information while surfing private or sensitive material. That's where private browsing facility comes handy. Almost every modern browser support it out-of-the-box. This browsing mode doesn't store any kind of data while you surf and visit various websites.

In Firefox, you can immediately start a private browsing session through a CTRL+SHIFT+P key combination. In Google Chrome, it's called Incognito mode which can be easily started through a CTRL+SHIFT+N key combination. It basically opens a separate tab for the exclusive private browsing session. If you're visiting a local cyber cafe, I'll strongly suggest you to use this facility to avoid leaving any trace of your browsing activity.

Use Ad Blocking System for Slow Connection

If your broadband connection is slow, you must use a good ad blocking plugin to save your bandwidth and time. Both Firefox and Google Chrome support various ad blocking extensions. I also use this system while visiting my own blogs to avoid unnecessary ad impressions.

Almost each of these plugins provides the facility to create custom filters. You must wisely use this feature to allow or block ads on selective websites. This will make your browsing experience much better and without any clutter.