Browser Tips
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Edge’s ‘sleeping tabs’ feature saves
memory and laptop battery by
suspending tabs you’re not using, and
version 100 puts eight per cent more tabs
to sleep. To access the feature, click Edge’s
three-dot menu and choose Settings^1 ,
then ‘System and performance’^2.3
Click the three-dot menu button and
choose Performance to see how many
tabs Edge has put to sleep and how much
memory the feature is saving you^1. Click
the pin icon^2 to keep the Performance
panel on top so you can monitor your
sleeping tabs.2
In the ‘Optimise performance’ section,
switch on ‘Save resources with sleeping
tabs’^1 , then click the dropdown menu next
to ‘Put inactive tabs to sleep after the
specified amount of time’ and choose a
waiting time^2 , from 30 seconds of inactivity
to 12 hours.FIREFOX
Use the best new features
in Firefox 100
After the underwhelming arrival of
Chrome 100 in March, which didn’t
include much of interest, we’re pleased
that Mozilla has made more effort with
Firefox 100. Released on 3 May, the
centenary version of the browser adds
several useful features, and thanks its
loyal users for helping it build a “better,
healthier internet”.
Notable additions include support for
closed captions when you view videos in
Firefox’s Picture-in-Picture (PiP) mode.
Turn on subtitles/captions for a video on
YouTube, Netflix or Amazon Prime Video,
and when you click the ‘Watch in
Picture-in-Picture’ button to pull out the
video into a floating player window, they
will be displayed in the same way as in
the standard video player.
Another handy new option lets you
customise the appearance of websites to
suit your visual preference, rather than
just applying a theme to the browser’smenus and toolbars. Click the
three-line menu button and
choose Settings, then General. In
the ‘Language and Appearance’
section, choose the colour
scheme you want to use, such as
your default Firefox theme (see
screenshot below), your system
theme or a light or dark one. You
can browse the full selection of
Firefox themes by typing
about:addons, or by pressing
Ctrl+Shift+A to open the
Add-ons Manager. Note that not
all websites let you change their
background and content colour.
Finally, Firefox 100 will now
automatically save and fill in UK
credit and debit card numbers to save you
having to type the whole thing when you
buy something online, though for
security reasons, you’ll still need to enter
your card’s three-digit CVV number. To
disable this feature, go to Settings, then
Privacy & Security and untick the option
‘Auto-fill credit cards’.CHROME
Add notes to your
saved passwords
One of the best new
features in Chrome
101, which was released
at the end of last month,
is the ability to add notes
to the passwords you
store in the browser. This
is useful if you want to
save additional
information for thatlogin, such as when you created the
password, the answers you provided to
security questions, whether the site uses
two-factor authentication and other
details that may help you access your
account.
As is often the case with Chrome, the
new option is currently a hidden ‘flag’
that you’ll need to activate manually.
Type chrome://flags into the address bar
and press Enter to load Chrome’s
Experiments page. Search for the entry
Password notes in settings, select Enabled
in the dropdown menu and relaunch the
browser.
To add a note, open Chrome’s password
manager at chrome://settings/passwords,
click the three-dot ‘More actions’ icon
next to a password and select ‘Edit
password’. Type the information you
want to store for that login in the Note
box (see screenshot above) and click Save.WORKSHOP Save memory using Edge’s sleeping tabs
11 – 24 May 2022 • Issue 6312
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