CHROME
32 22 Jan - 4 Feb 2020
Skip intros and ads on
Amazon Prime and Netflix
Billed as a solution for the
‘super lazy user’, the Auto
Skip Intro (bit.ly/skip493)
extension does away with
adverts for new releases on
both Amazon Prime Video
and Netflix, automatically
skipping them. The tool also jumps past
intros and end credits, so you can get
on with watching shows without the
tedium of having to click Skip yourself.
There’s only one bit of setup to carry
out – once you’ve added the browser
tool, you need to refresh the Netflix or
Prime Video page you’re on. This
extension is especially ideal if you hook
up your computer to the TV.
Open ‘mailto’ links with
Gmail
If you’re a hardcore Gmail user, clicking
‘mailto’ links – the ones that open a
Modern browsers are smart – they let
you choose whether to start afresh
each time you open them, continue
where you left off or open specific
pages. Open Them (bit.ly/open493)
is a new browser tool that lets you
decide which websites open whenever
you start up Chrome. “But wait,” we
hear you cry, “doesn’t Chrome already
let you do this?”. And, in the words of
Sir Humphrey Appleby, we reply:
“Yes. And no.”
While Chrome does let you set
specific pages, or collections of pages,
by visiting chrome://settings/
onStartup, Open Them adds a few
more useful options. For one thing, you
can force specific websites to open in
Incognito mode, simply by toggling
that option to On. You’re also able to
determine what time these links willopen – so, for instance, if you have
sports pages on standby but don’t
want to know the latest scores, you
can stop those pages showing.button to see a list of items you can
remove, from cache and cookies to
plugins and passwords. Tick each
item you want to clear, then turn
your attention to the bottom of the
screen where you can specify time
ranges, which span from one minute
to all time (and everything in
between, if you choose to edit the
available times). Finally, select ‘Clear
data’ to purge Chrome of unwanted
data.
In addition to clean-up options,
there are keyboard shortcuts that
help you clear Chrome more quickly- and these, too, can be customised.
desktop program such as Outlook so
you can send an email – can be a pain.
It’s often easier to click (or right-click)
the link, then copy the email address
from Outlook to paste into Gmail.
Mailto (bit.ly/mailto493), from
developer CloudHQ, streamlines this
process. Instead of being directed to
your default email client when you click
a mailto link, you’re taken to Gmail
instead, so you can start emailing
without all the faff that mailto links
typically involve.
To use another of your Gmail
accounts, not just the default one, click
Mailto’s toolbar button to add them. You
can also choose whether mailto links
open in a new tab or window, and tweak
the CC and BCC settings.Clean up Chrome more
easily
Clear Cache for Chrome (bit.ly/
clear493) makes clearing your browser
data easier than ever. Click its toolbarBest New Browser Tools
Start Chrome with your favourite websites