14 GOOGLE CHROME HACKS YOU NEED RIGHT NOW

     There's no denying Chrome is the diamond standard of Internet browsers. But if there's one way to take an awesome thing and make it even better, it's taking it apart and seeing all the hidden secrets it has to offer. Want to get rid of clickbaity headlines forever, turn the news into SparkNotes, and finally shut up noisy tabs once and for all?

     Check out these 14 tips, hacks, and extensions that will take your browsing from chrome to platinum. 

1. Bookmark All Your Tabs at Once

     If you've got a million tabs open and want to save them all, Command+Shift+D for a Mac or Ctrl+Shift+D for a PC will give you the ability to save them en masse to a new or existing folder. Instant life insurance against the dreaded computer crash.

2. Tweak Everything with Chrome Flags  

     Typing "chrome://flags/" into the Omnibox will lead you to Google's hub of behind the scenes browser experiments. These are still in development and could crash at any time, but they unleash a treasure trove of options, like the ability to make Chrome stop prompting you to ask about remembering your password, or increasing the amount of RAM Chrome can use at a given time. 

3. Use Chrome as a Calculator

     Simple equations in any blank tab will auto-populate with the solutions. Just another reason today's high schoolers have it better off.

4. Lock Yourself Out of Facebook for 10 Minutes

     The Chrome extension StayFocusd bans you from visiting sites that are known distractions by setting time limits. Sigh...see you in 10 minutes, Facebook.

5. Mute Noisy Tabs

     One of the more useful Chrome flags can be activated with the code "chrome://flags/#enable-tab-audio-muting" in the Omnibox. This puts an audio icon on the top of each tab, allowing you to mute them if they're playing in the background, even if you're not on that page.

6.  Moderate Hyperbolic Headlines

     Extension Downworthy will automatically replace ridiculously hyperbolic headlines with more accurate depictions on everyone's favorite clickbait-y sites.

7. Stop Autoplay

     If you want control over your multimedia video/audio, input chrome://settings/content into a blank tab and navigate to Plug-ins and choose "click to play." From here on out, nothing will play until you click to start it. 

8. "Pin" a Tab Instead of Bookmarking

     For sites you visit all the time, you know....like this one, right-click the tab and select "Pin Tab" in the menu to make it a permanent fixture on the left side of your browser. 

9. Summarize Long Articles

     Become a master of current events with the SparkNotes of Chrome extensions. TLDRcondenses lengthy articles into just the facts you need to understand—or pretend to understand—what the Internet is buzzing about.

10. Get Instant Health Ratings on Yelp

     This NY-centric app displays the health grade for restaurants when you pull up their page on Yelp, Zagat, Seamless, Menupages, Foursquare, and Opentable. Lookin' good, Cafe Select. Now go pester the developer until they bring this to wherever you live.

11. Instantly Define Words

     The Google Dictionary extension lets you highlight words to see their definition instantly, rather than right-clicking and opening the menu.

12. See Full Size Images Immediately     

     Hover lets you roll your mouse over images on Google, Facebook, etc, and see the full-size photo without clicking to expand it. 

13. Re-open Accidentally Closed Tabs

     Cmd + Shift + T. If it's not already burned into your brain, memorize it, because those are the magic keystrokes that will bring back a tab if you mistakenly close it. You're welcome.

14. Hover Your Mouse Over to Translate

     Instead of running to Google Translate at the first sight of a foreign word, use the TransOver extension. It'll tackle any language, and it'll do the same okay job you've come to expect from the guys in Mountain View.