Chrome

Quite some time ago, Twitter discontinued the ability to see tweets when you did a search through Google. The tweets were actually useful, because you could see who was talking about whatever you searched for, as well as gather additional information.

If you want to add the Twitter results back to Google search, you can do so with a simple extension. Just install a copy of HashPlug for your Chrome Web browser.

This extension will add the Twitter results into a small column to the right of your search results. The column updates with live tweets, but if you … Read more

As far as social networks go, I prefer Facebook to Twitter because I like seeing photos from my friends' daily lives. I don't like having to exit and then return to my News Feed, though, in order to view a larger image. With Photo Zoom for Facebook, I no longer have to.

Photo Zoom for Facebook is a Chrome extension that lets you view a larger version of images just by mousing over them. Hover over a zoomable image, which includes profile pictures and photos in photo albums but not thumbnails from shared news stories, and a pop-up window … Read more

This Chrome extension is particularly useful for Chromebook users and anyone who uses Google Drive to store their files more so than their hard drive. If either of these profiles describes you, then I would urge you to give Save to Drive a try. It's dead simple to use and provides useful functionality for storing any image you stumble across in Chrome, along with HTML5 video and audio files.

When you spot such a file you'd like to keep, right-click it. With Save to Drive installed, you'll see a line -- Save image to Google Drive -- … Read more

I was probably one of the last people in our great land who regularly purchased CDs. After Spotify landed on our shores, however, I finally stopped the practice of buying them, instead relying on Spotify and Pandora for my listening pleasure. I enjoy both services, and now with a Chrome extension called Pandora to Spotify Playlist Converter, I can get the two talking to one another, to a degree.

The conversation is one-sided. That is, the extension helps you move tracks from Pandora to Spotify. Specifically, it lets you copy links for tracks you've liked on Pandora and paste … Read more

With the introduction of tabbed browsing, the way we surf the Internet has never had more distractions. Session Buddy and Session Manager aim to bring a little order to the chaos. Whether you're a couch surfer, a college student, or an office jockey, chances are you probably have what seem to be a thousand tabs opened right now. Managing all those open windows were a hassle before, but now with each one having about 20-plus tabs opened, too? One trick was to force shutdown Chrome. The crash-saving feature would save your session for the next time you launched your … Read more

In the grand scheme of things, it's fair to say our solar system is very tiny.

You might especially agree with that statement after viewing 100,000 Stars, a Google Chrome Experiment Web page that gives anyone the chance surf around the our slice of the universe from the comfort of their Internet browser. Spacesuit and oxygen supply optional. … Read more

When it comes to consumer technology, I expect failure. At some point, your tech will break and let you down. But it was my own human error that led me to use one of the new Samsung Chromebooks for the week following Sandy, and it held its own in a couple of specific but widely used situations.

I was in New York for the Windows 8 launch on October 26, and had decided to spend an extra week there for work, but also to see friends. I made a tactical error in leaving my workhorse Windows 7 laptop in the CNET office over the weekend, figuring I wouldn't need it until Monday. I didn't think Sandy's storm surge would wreak havoc on lower Manhattan. … Read more

The Internet is a pretty great resource for work or school, but it can also be an enormous distraction. timeStats is an extension for Google Chrome that allows you to see how you spend your online time. A few clicks will get you a chart distribution of your Internet activity; a couple more, and you can get even more detailed reports. The reports break down your daily/weekly/monthly activities with awesome pie charts and bar graphs showing what you did on which day. It can also show you other details such as the sites, domain zones, and time spent … Read more

The Chromebook family of devices welcomed its cheapest member yet into the fold today when Google announced an 11.6-inch netbook from Acer for $199.

The Acer C7 Chromebook joins the Samsung Chromebook and Samsung Chromebook 550 in the current lineup of computers running Google's cloud-based Chrome operating system.

The latest model boasts an Intel processor, full-size keyboard, and clickable trackpad. It has a 320GB hard drive and 100GB of additional storage, free for two years, on Google drive. The C7 boots in 18 seconds and gets 3.5 hours of battery life, Google says.

There are trade-offs involved … Read more