Hey, welcome to Invitehawk.. Enjoy your stay and hope you have a good time here.

Hey, welcome to Invitehawk.. Enjoy your stay and hope you have a good time here.

Hey, welcome to Invitehawk.. Enjoy your stay and hope you have a good time here.

Hey, welcome to Invitehawk.. Enjoy your stay and hope you have a good time here.

Hey, welcome to Invitehawk.. Enjoy your stay and hope you have a good time here.

Hey, welcome to Invitehawk.. Enjoy your stay and hope you have a good time here.

Hey, welcome to Invitehawk.. Enjoy your stay and hope you have a good time here.

Hey, welcome to Invitehawk.. Enjoy your stay and hope you have a good time here.

Hey, welcome to Invitehawk.. Enjoy your stay and hope you have a good time here.

Syncing data between your phone and PC has become a necessity for the everyday internet user. While there are many browsers and third-party services that offer cross-device syncing, doing it directly through the browser is still the most convenient and effective solution. Here, we'll go over how to sync your browsing data between your phone and PC for some of the most popular browsers, including Brave, Firefox, Opera, Google Chrome, and Microsoft Edge. Brave Brave, while still relatively new, is able to compete with other big-name browsers. RELATED: Brave Is A Faster, Safer, Non-Google Web Browser Made For Today’s Internet From the get-go, Brave doesn’t require you to make an account to sync your data. You simply generate a QR code on your desktop browser and scan it using Brave on your phone. The syncing process is fairly straightforward. Here's how to do it starting on your desktop browser: Click the horizontal lines at the top right of the screen, and select Customize and Control Browser > Sync. Select Start a new Sync Chain. Pick the device you’d like to pair: a Phone/Tablet or Computer. Then, on your smartphone's Brave browser: Go to Settings > Sync under Advanced. Select Scan or enter sync code. Scan or enter the code. Image Gallery (2 Images) Through the Sync tab, select Categories to control which data you want to sync. Do the same in your desktop browser through Manage your synced device. Brave will automatically sync all the data you enabled it to. That includes your bookmarks, history, themes, settings, and passwords. While you can view the websites you signed up to, along with your username or emails, you’ll need to enter your phone’s PIN code to see the password. This ensures that no one will steal your password when you allow them to use your phone. In addition to syncing tabs between devices, Brave also allows you to keep and sync an address book. Firefox Firefox has always been one of the most customizable browsers on the market, allowing you to personalize everything from privacy and security settings to aesthetics, themes, and features. With Firefox, you need to create an account and sign in on all the devices you want to link. Firefox automatically syncs bookmarks, history, passwords, and more. Here's how to start syncing from your desktop browser: Click Firefox Account from the top right corner. Click Sign in to Firefox and sign in to your account. Click Show Code. From your Firefox browser on your smartphone, follow these steps to complete the process: Go to Settings > Turn on Sync. Select Ready to scan or Use email instead. Complete pairing. Image Gallery (2 Images) As a precaution, Firefox will require you to approve the pairing on your phone and desktop. What makes Firefox unique compared to other browsers is that it requires you to enter your PIN code before going anywhere near your logins. That makes for an excellent added security measure, preventing anyone using your phone from finding your email address, or even the websites you have accounts on. In addition to syncing your tabs, you can also easily send tabs between browsers. You can do this on your phone with these steps: Tap the three dots at the top right corner of the browser. Tap the Share icon at the top of the list. Select the device you want to send the tab to. Image Gallery (2 Images) To send tabs from your desktop browser, simply right-click the tab you want to send, and click Send Tab to Device > Firefox on [Device Name]. Firefox also syncs tabs, giving you access to open tabs on all devices. To find synced tabs on your desktop, click Menu, and then select Library > Synced Tabs. When you open Firefox on your smartphone, you'll find Synced Tabs directly in the three-dot menu in the bottom right corner of the screen. Google Chrome To sync data on Google Chrome, you need a Gmail account. Google Chrome lets your sync bookmarks, passwords, history, and various Google Play Services. When it comes to passwords and logins, Chrome's PIN code only protects your passwords. It doesn't hide your emails, usernames, or websites, which could be a security risk. What makes Google Chrome stand out is that the syncing process encompasses a variety of apps and services. You can control them through your browser and use the same Gmail account. Here's how to sync data from your smartphone's Chrome browser: Tap Settings. Select your Gmail account. Switch syncing services On or Off. Image Gallery (3 Images) Not to mention, Google Chrome has one of the simplest ways to share tabs between devices. To do this on the desktop browser, follow these steps: Right-click the tab you want to send. Click Send to [Device Name]. Sharing tabs using Chrome on your smartphone is also straightforward: Tap Menu > Share. Tap Send to your devices, and then pick the device you want to send the tab to. Image Gallery (3 Images) Opera To use Opera to sync your browsing data, you'll need an Opera account. But you can sign up to Opera using any email provider. Opera probably has the most complex syncing process out of all the browsers on this list, but it's still quite simple once you know how to do it. To sync your desktop browser to your smartphone, follow these steps: Click the silhouette icon at the top right corner. Click Turn on Synchronization > Use email address. Toggle the On and Off buttons for the data you want to sync. Click Start. Now, finish the process on your mobile Opera browser: Tap the Opera icon in the bottom corner. Go to Settings > Sync and backup > Connect Device > Connect. Image Gallery (2 Images) Search for "Opera.com/connect" on your desktop browser. Scan the QR code with your smartphone. Once you sync your device, Opera will regularly update your passwords, bookmarks, speed dials, tabs, and history. In addition to Opera's countless unique features, it also lets you set a passkey to encrypt your synced data, instead of using your smartphone PIN code. That makes it much harder for someone to access your logins and adds a layer of security on top of your locked phone. RELATED:Opera Browser Tips That Make Web Browsing More Fun One unique feature Opera synchronization offers is called My Flow. In addition to syncing your usual browsing data, you can keep a record of the latest passwords synced, as well as send notes to your other devices. While My Flow isn't automatically password protected, it's still a great addition to syncing and connectivity. Microsoft Edge If you're planning on using Microsoft Edge, you'll want to utilize it to the fullest. And that includes syncing data. Luckily, Microsoft Edge has one of the simplest syncing methods: On your desktop browser, click on the silhouette at the top right corner, and click Sign in. Log in to your Microsoft account through the window that pops up. Click Sync. Image Gallery (2 Images) Next, log in to the same Microsoft account on your smartphone: Tap the silhouette icon at the top left corner. Choose the account you want to log into. Turn sync On. The various account synchronization options allow you to split your internet browsing between work and personal use. That way, bookmarks, history, and passwords don't get mixed up. To customize your syncing experience in Microsoft Edge, go to Manage Profiles Settings > Profiles > Sync. The Edge browser allows you to sync your bookmarks, settings, logins, and even extensions. Unfortunately, Microsoft Edge doesn't support history and tabs sync, yet. If they're essential to you, you might want to skip Microsoft Edge for the time being. You Don't Have to Settle for One Browser Every browser offers a unique set of features, from the type of data it syncs to security and ease-of-use. Still, that doesn't mean you need to drive yourself crazy trying to pick just one. One browser might best suit your work model, while another is more convenient for casual browsing. Not to mention, your decision doesn't have to be final, as most browsers offer seamless data exportation and importation

While it often takes a bit of practice to familiarize yourself and get skilled with mouse-less computer use, the effort can be well worth your while. Any data entry worker or software developer will tell you that keyboard and keyboard shortcuts allow you to accomplish tasks with a lot more speed than you would with a mouse. Today we'll look at how to apply that philosophy in your internet browsing. An Introduction to Mouse-Less Browsing Someone unfamiliar with it may be confused: how do you follow links without a mouse to click on them? Most mouse-less solutions overlay each clickable item on a webpage with a unique "hint", which is basically a temporary keyboard shortcut that allows you to click the item. Rest assured though that if the hints don't work, most of these apps and extensions will still allow you to use a mouse when you need it. We'll first cover a few extensions available for popular browsers, and then we'll explore some alternative browsers designed primarily for browsing without a mouse. All are free, and most are open source. 1. Vimium Calling itself "the hacker's browser," Vimium is a free extension for Chrome and one of the most popular Vim-based keyboard browsing utilities. Vimium, as well as many of the other software we're looking at today, will say they are based on or inspired by Vim, which is a command line text editor used primarily by developers. First released in 1991 for the Amiga, Vim has since seen cross-platform development that continues to this day, and its influence is prolific. RELATED: The Vim Linux Command Line Editor Cheat Sheet If you've not used command line text editors like Vim before, using Vimium may take a little practice. Vimium's website features a short video demo if you're curious about the experience. If you're a Firefox user and want to try Vimium, there's a port available called Vimium-FF. Download: Vimium for Chrome (Free) 2. Tridactyl Tridactyl is similar to Vimium, but exclusively an extension for Firefox. It's designed to emulate Vimperator, a keyboard-based Firefox extension that's no longer compatible with the latest versions of Firefox. If you're a web developer, Tridactyl might appeal to you with its HTML development tools. It's very customizable too, allowing you to add your own commands or edit Tridactyl's standard commands. To start using it quickly, type f while viewing a webpage, and hints will pop up as little red icons. Type the hint you see on the link or object you want to click, and Tridactyl will click it for you. Accomplishing tasks like entering text-input mode and navigating tabs might take a little more time to get used to, but the hint function is a great introduction. Download: Tridactyl for Firefox (Free) 3. DeadMouse DeadMouse is a free Chrome extension that takes a slightly different approach than Vimium and Tridactyl. Rather than creating unique hints for each link on the page, DeadMouse simply allows you to start typing the text in the link you want to click, and the extension will try to identify the link with a wiggle animation. You can then either hit Enter to click it or Tab to go to the next closest match. If that sounds confusing, DeadMouse's website allows you to try it without installing it, and you'll see it's an uncomplicated approach to keyboard-based browsing. Some might consider DeadMouse's process to be more intuitive than the other extensions, in which the created hints are not precise representations of the links they're highlighting. Of course, a good amount of links you encounter and use on the internet are pictures or icons, not text, and DeadMouse might not handle those correctly. As it doesn't have as many features as other options on this list, you might choose DeadMouse if you don't consider yourself any kind of power user, and you just want the option to quickly select text links when it's convenient. Download: DeadMouse for Chrome (Free) 4. qutebrowser Qutebrowser is a free and open-source browser designed in the spirit of Vimprobable, another Vim-based browser that's no longer in development. Like the other Vim-based browsers and extensions, you must enter f and hints to follow links on the screen, as demonstrated in the photo. Qutebrowser also has a very minimal interface, so to access most features, like bookmarks and downloads, you must enter the correct command. You'll also find it highly customizable, although you must be prepared to edit configuration files. If you're using it for the first time, qutebrowser offers a free course designed to get you skilled in its commands and shortcuts, or you might refer to the official key binding cheat sheet. Download: qutebrowser for Windows | macOS | Linux (Free) 5. Edbrowse Originally written by visually-impaired developer Karl Dahlke, Edbrowse is unique in this list as the only command-line browser. That means it allows you to, through the terminal, browse the internet line-by-line. If that sounds slow and cumbersome, that's because it is---at first. But if you take the time to learn its commands and interface, you may change your mind about that. As Karl explains in the user guide, most people use their eyes to scan websites to sort and get to the info they really want. Edbrowse's commands offload that work from your eyes to your computer. If you've ever used the common Ctrl + F shortcut to quickly find a certain word for phrase on a page, it's essentially the same function. Even while being terminal-based, Edbrowse does in fact support JavaScript, and the GitHub wiki includes guides for using Edbrowse to access Facebook, Twitter, and even YouTube. You can also use Edbrowse to efficiently automate internet tasks, like email and form submission. Download: Edbrowse for Windows | macOS | Linux 6. Lynx If you want a terminal-based browser that visually renders websites, operates on keyboard commands, and uses minimal bandwidth, you might look into Lynx. There is zero JavaScript support, so if you want to do more than simply read text, you might have to look elsewhere. You may be asking how Lynx can be useful to anyone. It's useful if you browse a lot of server files, or if you're using a "headless" operating system (like Ubuntu Server) with little or no graphical capabilities. Additionally, if you have access to a very limited internet bandwidth, Lynx uses a significantly smaller amount relative to what you would use accessing the same websites with a traditional browser. Lynx is free and open source, and its developers have been actively improving it since the 1990s. Thus, even if it doesn't do many things modern browsers do, you can trust it's achieving its goals and purposes to the highest degree possible. Download: Lynx for Windows | macOS | Linux (Free) Get Around the Web With Just a Keyboard There are more mouse-less browsing solutions, although many are defunct projects (often the inspiration for those we did mention) or are extensions that only work with older browsers. Some are still somewhat popular, but we didn't cover them because browsing the internet with non-updated applications is dangerous. If you want to continue making your workflow more efficient, there are plenty of ways to more efficiently utilize your computer's keyboard, even beyond internet browsing.

The internet seems designed to make you lose focus at work. These extensions and addons will help you block distractions and concentrate on the task at hand. Some researchers have shown that small distractions like checking email or browsing Facebook can make you lose over 20 minutes of productive time. It's not easy to re-focus on work, especially when you're already working from home. The better way forward is to reduce digital distractions as much as you can on your work computer. 1. Unweb (Chrome): Adblock for Distractions Like Feeds, Suggestions Adblock stops annoying ads from appearing on websites. But these days, the website itself has more annoyances and distractions to keep you browsing longer. These are recommended videos and news feeds, suggestions of other things you might enjoy, and so on. Unweb is a blocker for distractions on the internet. By default, Unweb works on 19 popular sites including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, BBC, Buzzfeed, and Amazon. You can email the developer to request to add more sites. It blocks a few elements unique to each of these portals, which are aimed at distracting you from what you came for. For example, if you wanted to visit Twitter to search for a user or check an odd tweet, the site distracts you with related tweets, people you might want to follow, and other notifications. Unweb will hide all those. The cool part is that you can unhide or reveal any one element in a single click, whether temporarily for a one-time view or permanently. So Unweb is not a particularly strict way of avoiding distractions, it's more a way to stay on task. Download: Unweb for Chrome (Free) 2. Grayscale the Web (Chrome): Make the Internet Less Fun to Browse There's a popular theory among productivity experts on how to reduce digital distractions. Technology is full of bright colors and cool sounds. If you turn all of this to black-and-white, it's less distracting and tempting. Grayscale the Web will turn your entire browser into a grayscale experience. The extension lets you switch it on for all sites or particular websites. That can be especially useful for social networks and other common distractions. Some sites can be always set to grayscale, or always excluded from the rule. It's an interesting strategy and it actually seems to work on some people. A team at Mozilla tried the experiment and found it especially true on those who binged YouTube videos throughout the day, and those who mindlessly browsed apps like Instagram. There's a similar extension for Firefox called Grayscale for Tabs. It doesn't offer the same customization options as the Chrome one but gets the basic job done. Download: Grayscale the Web for Chrome (Free) Download: Grayscale for Tabs for Firefox (Free) 3. Intention (Chrome, Firefox): Get Nudges to Stop Time-Wasting Times https://giphy.com/gifs/fWTxxS0hHbdaw9BUz6 Intention wants to stop you from visiting distracting websites. Download and install the extension to set up those time-waster sites you visit most often, like Facebook or YouTube. It also lets you view "your top sites" which lists the five portals you visit the most often, based on your browser history. This is a cool feature since you might suddenly become aware of a distraction that you didn't think about. When you visit one of the websites blocked by Intention, you'll get a popup message while the site loads in the background. This message tells you how many times you've visited it, and nudges you to make a better choice by closing the tab. If you do want to see the site nonetheless, you can unlock it for a limited time: 1, 5, or 15 minutes. All your visits are tracked to show how much time you are wasting. Sometimes, you might visit a social network for productive work. In such cases, the Options tab lets you classify a visit as a productive session, but only after you write the intention of your visit. It's a nice mindful way to focus while working from home. You can set Intention to auto-run during your work hours, so you don't have to switch it on and off every day. The developer also says that privacy is a priority, so they never have and never will sell your data. They request access only to the sites you want to block, and also do not log your browsing history. Download: Intention for Chrome | Firefox (Free) 4. Tab Limiter (Chrome): Limit the Tabs to Limit the Distractions Social media and other online distractions are doing their best to seduce you into browsing on their websites. You're exerting willpower when you try not to get distracted, but willpower is a finite resource. That's why extensions that relieve you of willpower, like Tab Limiter, can help in staying productive. The idea behind Tab Limiter is simple. You say how many tabs can stay open in one Chrome browser window. You can also set a limit on total tabs in all windows, just in case you were thinking of cheating by opening a new window to browse tabs. After you hit the limit, if you try to open a new tab, you will immediately get an alert saying, "You decided not to open more than 20 tabs", and the tab closes. Of course, you probably want to restrict it to a smaller number for a focused, productive work session. It's an excellent way to curb those whims of, "Oh, what was that video? Did I send that message on Facebook? I'll just check for a minute." Download: Tab Limiter for Chrome (Free) Download: Lean Tab Limiter for Firefox (Free) 5. Mindful Internet Use (Chrome): Breathing Exercises and Motivational Quotes to Avoid Time-Wasters You're stressed, you want a quick break, you go on Facebook, and before you know it, you've spent 20 minutes doing mindless browsing. Instead of simply blocking time-wasting websites, Mindful Internet Use (MUI) wants you to reflect. That's often the best thing you can do in such situations. It launches a two-pronged attack to force you to do mindful browsing. First is a breathing exercise. You'll have to take a deep breath, hold it for a few seconds, then release it; and do this cycle for at least four times. Then MIU will give you a motivational quote from its collection of pick-me-ups. Both techniques are designed to calm you down, clear your mind, and are tried-and-tested tips to block time-wasting websites. If you mindfully decide to continue to the website, set how many minutes you want to spend on it, after which MIU will automatically close the tab. Download: Mindful Internet Use for Chrome (Free) Block Distractions on Your Phone Too On your computer, the bulk of the distractions live in your browser. After all, that's how you access social networks, YouTube, news websites, email, etc. The extensions and addons in this article will put a stop to such interruptions. But what about your phone? So many apps on your phone are sending notifications to break your concentration. But just like extensions for browsers, there are apps that help you focus. You can block apps that cause distractions, and Forest will make the earth green if you stick to your task.

As fantastic as the internet is, browsing the web can often be annoying. Here are a few extensions and addons to fix common internet annoyances. We're talking about annoyances like autoplaying videos on websites, banners to accept cookies on a page, chat popups, and sticky headers taking up space. These distractions and recurring tasks take up too much mind-space and suck the fun out of browsing. It's time to get rid of these internet irritants once and for all. 1. I Don't Care About Cookies (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Opera): Get Rid of EU Cookie Policy "I Agree" Button Ever since the EU passed the GDPR Law, you must have seen these annoying pop-ups. They take up a large amount of the screen, telling you that the website stores cookies and you have to press the "I agree" button to proceed. I Don't Care About Cookies detects the message on any website and auto-presses the button for you. You won't see that annoying pop-up anymore. It works on all browsers except Safari. You can also install it on Firefox for Android. Of course, this means you are granting permission to sites for storing cookies. Before you install the extension, you might want to learn about how cookies affect your online privacy. But if you are clicking "I agree" every time anyway, then download the addon for a less intrusive browsing experience. Download: I Don't Care About Cookies for Chrome | Firefox | Opera | Edge (Free) 2. Hello Goodbye (Chrome, Firefox): Hide Live Chat Support Popup Windows A new trend among websites is to add a little popup chat tool to entice customers. These are often bots, but even if it's a real human, the chat bubble is annoying when all you want to do is browse. Hello, Goodbye blocks these live chat support popups by default. When a chat window is blocked, you'll see the extension get a layover called "Help." This means it's actively working on the site you're on, and you can disable it with a click to see the chat window. Hello, Goodbye is open source for anyone to check the code and claims it doesn't use any trackers to infringe upon the user's privacy. If you don't want to use the extension, you can add its list of chat and sales widgets to any adblocker you use. Download: Hello, Goodbye for Chrome | Firefox | Edge (Free) 3. AutoplayStopper (Chrome): Stop Autoplaying Videos on Websites Auto-playing videos are the most annoying internet trend in recent times. Far too many websites now start playing a video as soon as the page loads, and often it isn't even related to the article you're reading. AutoplayStopper is here to put an end to it. The extension does exactly what it says, killing all HTML5 video before it has a chance to run. You'll see a thumbnail, and you'll have to press the play button to start the video--- just as it always should have been. AutoplayStopper has a few smart features that make it better than other ways to stop autoplaying Flash and HTML5 videos. You can whitelist certain websites, and you can allow a whole session on a website. So if you're browsing YouTube, only the first video will be blocked, but after that, the rest will autoplay as you open them. Download: AutoplayStopper for Chrome (Free) 4. Sticky Ducky and ZapFixed (Chrome, Firefox): Remove Sticky Elements Like Headers, Social Sharing Buttons Many websites always show their headers, footers, social sharing buttons, and other elements no matter how much you scroll. It's distracting for a browsing experience, and often entirely unnecessary. If you value screen space, Sticky Ducky will remove all those extraneous and unwanted objects. While doing this, Sticky Ducky keeps the website's original formatting and design, so it's not like one of those "reading mode" apps. Instead, it's a simple script that alters the CSS elements of the page temporarily. And of course, those elements are not completely gone. You can see those headers or buttons by hovering over where they'd appear normally, by scrolling up once (the best option on touchscreens) or scrolling to the top of the page. You can also add some sites or specific web pages to a whitelist that will always allow these elements. Download: Sticky Ducky for Chrome | Firefox (Free) ZapFixed is another similar tool available only for Chrome users. In our tests, it worked better for media and news sites than Sticky Ducky. However, it's a little temperamental and you sometimes have to run it twice or thrice before it'll work. Download: ZapFixed for Chrome (Free) 5. Content Blocker (Chrome): Remove Elements to Customize Favorite Websites There are a few websites you visit more often than others, right? Social media, shopping, some news outlets, a sports website, or your favorite tech blog like us. You might love 90% of it, but don't care for 10%. Content Blocker will let you remove those 10% of elements that you never use and don't want to see. Visit the website and click the Content Blocker icon in Chrome's extensions bar. The whole page will get a red overlay, with each element now letting you interact with it. 'Close' any element you don't want to see, just like pressing X to close a window. Keep going till you've customized the page to how you like it. If at any point you want to go back to the original page, click the button to undo all changes. This is a fresh start each time, so make sure you're using it only when you really need it. If you just want to check the full page once, open it in an incognito window where Content Blocker won't switch on. Download: Content Blocker for Chrome (Free) 6. NSFW Filter (Chrome, Firefox): Block NSFW Images Anywhere on the Web https://giphy.com/gifs/cXjgLjy3fwRKtBeXah It's happened to all of us at some time, right? There's an inappropriate image on the screen, inadvertently or not, at just the wrong time when someone else glances at it. The internet doesn't always warn you before serving up Not Safe For Work (NSFW) images, so this filter will fix the problem for you. NSFW Filter uses computer vision algorithms to scan all images open in your browser tab, and detect which ones are NSFW. And it'll simply block them, there's no way you or anyone can see them after that. The extension is open-source and runs within your browser, with no data collected from the user. In our tests, the NSFW Filter works quite well, although a few pictures still manage to beat the system at times, especially when it comes to thumbnails. Still, it's about a 90% success rate, which is great. Download: NSFW Filter for Chrome | Firefox (Free) 7. No, Thanks (Chrome, Firefox): All-In-One Annoyance Blocker, But Paid No, Thanks combines many of the aforementioned features into one browser extension, and adds other ways to deal with annoyances. It costs €9.85 annually unlike the other free addons, but it might be worth it given what it can do: Block and auto-close all kinds of newsletter pop-ups Block chat, feedback, and contact boxes in the corner Block 'Install our app' boxes and toolbars Block 'Allow notifications' pop-ups Block 'Allow us to know your location' requests Block and auto-close all kinds of surveys and opinion pop-ups Block website ratings, 'website protected by...' and similar boxes Block toolbars offering website translation Block 'Scroll to top' buttons Block big 'Login / Register' pop-ups Block video boxes in the corner Block 'Pay' and 'Subscribe' boxes offering premium services Block pop-ups offering shopping, reading, and similar suggestions Automatically confirm you are 18+ years old when needed if you really are It might seem strange to pay for an extension like this, but if you think about it, you might be earning some much-needed peace of mind. And isn't that worth 10 euros a year? You can also pay and download the extension, and ask for a refund within 14 days if you don't like it. Download: No Thanks for Chrome | Firefox (Free) More Internet Annoyances The list of internet annoyances doesn't end here. You have to deal with spoilers. You must remember passwords. You need to recall which tab you liked that article on after you closed the tab. There's usually a way to get rid of every internet annoyance through an extension, app, or browser settings. You just need to find them.

Have you ever clicked on a link or bookmark and instead seen an error page? It can be extremely frustrating when a site won't load, so is there a trick you can use to access a busy website with heavy traffic? Do you know how to open a crashed website? What if it contains blocked content? Fortunately, there are a few ways to access web pages that won't otherwise load. What Do Website Error Codes Mean? Let's first find the root of your problem. Why won't a website load? It could be that the site's server is down, or that your internet isn't working properly. Maybe, high traffic caused this temporary problem. But it could be permanent too. Check out Down for Everyone or Just Me, which will tell you whether the problem is local or everywhere. If the report says it's just you, this could be an issue with your device or your ISP. Try turning your device on and off again: this sounds ridiculous but can sometimes work. If the page can't be widely accessed, this indicates the site itself has an issue. Seeing an error code can help---that is, if you know what it means. What Does "403 Forbidden" Mean? You don't have permission to access this page. This might mean you've accidentally tried to log in or see private content, so check the URL. If need be, alert the site's admin. Otherwise, you could try a Virtual Private Network (VPN) or proxy server, which we'll come back to. What Does "404 Page Not Found" Mean? The page no longer exists, i.e. it's a broken link. The page might have been moved or permanently deleted. Alternatively, the URL is incorrect, so check the address before doing anything else. All is not lost, so stick with us. What Does the "500 Internal Server Error" Mean? This issue isn't down to you, so can't be corrected your end. Again, there is something you can do about it, but as this means there's a problem with the host server, your best option is to wait. What Does the "503 Service Unavailable" Mean? The site you're trying to visit either has excess traffic or is in maintenance mode. The website will likely work again soon. Otherwise, you should learn how to open overloaded websites. 1. How to Access Websites With Google Cache Google Cache is a quick way to view troublesome pages. Search engines cache content when indexing websites, so by accessing it, you can see a snapshot of what Google saw the last time it crawled the site. Many main webpages are cached daily, but older articles that aren't updated sit unchanged in the cache folder. You can access Google Cache by entering the name of the page or site you're trying to visit into the search engine. Click on the down-arrow by the relevant search result then on Cached. Images can occasionally be problematic, so you could filter the resulting page by clicking on Text-only version in the gray bar at the top. You can otherwise view a specific page by typing cache: into the search box, immediately followed by the address of the webpage you want to access. Google obviously isn't the only search engine doing this. For instance, you can use Bing's Cached by clicking on the down-arrow. The cache feature also tells you when the snapshot was last taken. You can then infer whether an update will have replaced any material. 2. How to Access Online Content With The Internet Archive This is better known as The Wayback Machine, a non-profit library of pages from times long past. It's like taking a trip in a time machine and browsing the internet. The Internet Archive takes "captures" of websites on a regular basis---depending on the popularity of the site and how often it's updated. That means some pages are harder to access, but a trip to the Wayback Machine is rarely wasted. Enter a URL, page heading, or keywords in the Archive's search function. Find the page you're looking for and it'll tell you when captures were taken. You can browse through calendars and decide what you want to look at. This could be the very latest, right from its first instance, or somewhere in between. You'll probably see when sites have changed formatting themes and read news from yesteryear. This will even work when a website is experiencing high traffic or is in maintenance mode. Beware, loading captures can take some time, so patience is definitely required! Nonetheless, it can act as a good busy website opener. 3. Do Browser Extensions Stop You From Accessing Websites? Browser plug-ins can really enhance your online experience, including Chrome extensions which protect your security. But some might also be stopping certain sites from loading. First, check parental controls aren't turned on and are stopping you from accessing a page. Service providers in the U.K apply some of these legal but frustrating restrictions. If you're the adult in this situation, you should know the relevant details to unlock content, then you may need to talk to your mobile network server to lift regulations. Some security suites offer parental controls, so you might have to tamper with these through your antivirus or firewall. Otherwise, some sites will restrict access if you have an ad blocker installed. Uninstall or switch off these plug-ins before trying to load the page again. 4. Do You Need A VPN to Access Restricted Content? Don't let the above issue put you off using plug-ins. Most won't negatively impact browsing. In fact, using a VPN extension can speed up site load-times, and by installing one, you could access region-restricted material. So what can you do if your ISP, employer, or country blocks the content you want to enjoy? A VPN masks your address, so it looks like your device is in another region. Check out our list of the best VPNs. Don't worry; you don't always have to pay to get a decent one! 5. How to Access Sites That Won't Load Using A Proxy You don't always need a VPN to access blocked pages, even if it's restricted. Instead, you can use a proxy server. This sounds complicated by it can be really simple. Proxies act in a similar way to VPNs by masking your exact location. However, they do so by acting as a middleman and direct traffic through a third-party. You don't need to download a proxy, though. Try searching for a restricted site through Startpage.com, which piggybacks on Google searches but protects all your data. When you want to access blocked content, search for the relevant page, then click Anonymous View on the side of every result. And yes, you can add Startpage.com as a Google Chrome extension, to make the whole experience even faster. The Best Ways to Access Web Pages You don't have to be tech-savvy to force websites to load. Google Cache and The Wayback Machine are ideal tricks to access busy websites, while extensions and proxies can help you get around blocks. But you can still bypass restrictions without using VPNs and proxies.

Google Chrome may come packed with robust features and a huge collection of extensions, but it still has its flaws. Besides its numerous privacy issues, Chrome is also heavy on system resources, resulting in sluggish browsing or a depleted laptop battery. What if you could switch to a more secure, lightweight browser, while still retaining the technology that runs Chrome? Chromium is the open-source browser project behind Chrome. A lot of developers have forked Chromium to include unique features pertaining to privacy, multi-media, and security. If you want to make the switch away from Google Chrome, these are some best Chromium browsers that offer a refreshing browsing experience. 1. Vivaldi Browser Vivaldi is the brainchild of Opera's former CEO, Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner, who wasn't happy with the direction Opera was headed. It brings back some discarded features from Opera like annotations and notes, which offers real browsing advantages for students, to name one demographic. Vivaldi's user interface sports a color scheme that changes based on the current webpage. It offers the ability to change themes, position tabs, and supports some of the most flexible customization options that you can't find in any other browser. Since Vivaldi is a Chromium-based browser, you can easily install extensions from the Chrome Web Store. Vivaldi also lets you annotate web pages and use mouse gestures for faster navigation. Plus, any Chrome user would love its Tab Hibernation feature---this lets you store unused tabs and save them for later. Download: Vivaldi for Windows, macOS, Linux | Android (Free) 2. Opera Opera has been around for more than a couple of decades and has pioneered a lot of popular browser features. In 2013, Opera decided to discard its own Presto engine in favor of Blink, a browser engine developed as a part of the Chromium project. Opera comes with a convenient, free VPN service. Not to mention that it even includes a built-in ad blocker that helps speed up your browsing experience, while also protecting your privacy. If you want quick access to messengers and social media, Opera has that too. You can quickly open Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, Vkontakte, and Instagram directly from Opera's sidebar. This means you'll no longer have to check your phone while browsing the web. For more amazing features, you might want to consider adding these Chrome extensions that make Opera even better. Download: Opera for Windows, Mac, or Linux | Android (Free) 3. Opera Neon In 2017, Opera launched an experimental new web browser based on Blink. It's a radical re-imagining of what the web browsers of the future will look like. The futurism is pretty evident from the fact that the first time you launch it---you're greeted with a background that blends in beautifully with your desktop wallpaper. The tabs are represented by vertically-stacked circles instead of the usual rectangular tab bar. Besides the cosmetic changes, it comes with some great usability features as well. It features a split-screen mode and a built-in screen capture tool. Opera Neon also puts special emphasis on multimedia-related features. The built-in video and music player lets you pop out a video or listen to music while browsing. Keep in mind that Opera deliberately hasn't included support for extensions, as Neon is a concept web browser right now. Download: Opera Neon for Windows or macOS (Free) 4. Brave Browser Brave is an open-source web browser created by the co-founders of the Mozilla project. Unlike Chrome, it aims to block website trackers and remove intrusive advertisements, making for a much safer browsing experience. But wait, don't ads help publishers pay their bills? It's true---blocking ads is ethically wrong, but Brave has found a way to satisfy both the user and the publisher. The Brave Rewards system lets you give back to the sites you frequent most. Brave Rewards come in the form of Basic Attention Tokens (BAT), which you collect by browsing the web and watching Brave Ads. Brave keeps track of the websites you visit the most, and then pays those websites every month using the tokens in your virtual wallet. Download: Brave for Windows, macOS, or Linux (Free) 5. Microsoft Edge Although Microsoft Edge was originally built with Microsoft's own browser engine, it got rebuilt as a Chromium browser in 2019. Its fast response time and clean look make it a definite competitor to Google Chrome. While Edge doesn't block web trackers altogether, it still gives you more control over the way your data gets collected. It also allows for private browsing, and comes with Microsoft Defender Smartscreen to warn you of any potential threats. If you read news online, you should think about using Edge---its Immersive Reader feature eliminates all distractions from the screen, allowing for easy article reading. Download: Microsoft Edge for Windows, macOS, Linux | Android | iOS (Free) 6. Opera GX Opera GX is Opera's newest browser. Unlike the standard Opera browser and Opera Neon, Opera GX is specifically made for gamers. On your sidebar, you'll find links to your favorite messaging apps, as well as Twitch. Better yet, the video pop-out feature lets you watch YouTube or Twitch videos in the corner of your screen as you browse. The most unique feature of Opera GX is its interaction with your computer. You can use the RAM limiter, network limiter, and CPU limiter to optimize your PC's performance, and ensure that your browser isn't slowing it down. Download: Opera GX for Windows (Free) 7. Epic Privacy Browser Epic is a simplistic, lightweight Chromium browser with a focus on privacy. You don't even have to enable private browsing mode to start searching---Epic always uses private browsing. In addition, Epic also proactively removes cookies, browser history, and cache upon exit. It even disables other private data that gets sent to Google, such as address bar suggestions and URL tracking. Download: Epic Privacy Browser for Windows and macOS (Free) 8. SRWare Iron SRWare Iron is another Chromium browser that aims to eliminate the privacy-compromising features in Google Chrome. To accomplish this, it takes a different approach---instead of adding new features, it actually strips down privacy-related functionality from Chrome. Iron removes Google-hosted error pages, Google Updater, DNS pre-fetching, address bar suggestions, and more. That said, this browser is a great choice if you don't want a new browser that's radically different from Chrome. SRWare Iron looks exactly like Chrome, and you can easily sync your Google account, as well as add extensions. Download: SRWare Iron for Windows, macOS, Linux | Android (Free) 9. Comodo Dragon Browser Similar to SRWare Iron, the Comodo Dragon browser disables the privacy-compromising features in Chrome. It removes address bar suggestions, the bug-tracking system, and Google user tracking. The built-in PDF viewer, Google Safe Browsing, and Google Translate also get the boot. Additionally, Comodo Dragon lets users configure their computers to use Comodo's DNS servers, which performs additional checks to verify the security of websites. Download: Comodo Dragon for Windows (Free) 10. Torch Browser Torch Browser puts heavy emphasis on multimedia-related features. Its built-in Media Grabber lets you save audio and video files from the web, while the Torch Player lets you play videos before they finish downloading. Torch also features a built-in torrent client, making it easy to manage torrents from inside the browser. Download: Torch Browser for Windows (Free) Choose Your Favorite Chromium-Based Browser Whether you're looking to enhance your privacy or just want a fresh, new design, there's a Chromium-based browser for you. The only major problem is that some of these browsers can take a while to update to the latest version of Chromium, which means that you could easily miss out on critical security fixes.

In the early days of the internet, websites didn't care what browser you used, because most pages were static. But today's dynamic websites often adapt to the operating system, browser, or screen size your device uses. They typically do so through a bit of text called the user agent. So, let's look at what a user agent is, what it does, and how you can make your browser pretend to be another browser or another device. What Is a User Agent? A user agent is a string (line of text) that your browser sends to websites when you access them. It basically serves to tell the website that you're using the Chrome browser on Windows 10, for example. If you'd like, you can see your user agent by visiting a site like WhatIsMyBrowser. User agents are important because sites can use them to modify the content they send to your browser. For example, if you visit most modern sites in Internet Explorer 6, you'll see a message that you need to upgrade your browser for proper compatibility. User agents also come into play when browsing on a mobile device, so websites know to show you the mobile-friendly version of a page. As it turns out, your user agent isn't permanent. It's easy to change if you know where to look, and some extensions let you change it in just a few clicks. How to Change Your User Agent Let's look at how to change your user agent in major browsers. This will let you trick websites into thinking you're on a different type of computer or browser. Change Your User Agent in Chrome Open Chrome's Developer Tools by right-clicking anywhere and choosing Inspect, hitting Ctrl + Shift + I, or by pressing F12. At the bottom of the resulting panel, you should see a section with the tabs Console, Network conditions, and What's New. Press Esc to show this if you don't see it. On the Network conditions tab, uncheck Select automatically and you can then choose a new user agent from the list. Refresh to update the page with the new agent. Note that this setting will revert back to normal when you close the developer panel, and only applies to your current tab. For more control, check out Google's official User-Agent Switcher for Chrome extension. This lets you easily switch your user agent, including setting certain sites to use a different agent all the time. Change Your User Agent in Firefox The process to change your user agent in Firefox is clunky, as it requires you to manually paste a new user agent string. You're better off using an add-on to easily change your user agent. User-Agent Switcher by Alexander Schlarb is well-reviewed and easy to use. Change Your User Agent in Microsoft Edge Microsoft Edge uses a similar setup to Chrome for changing your user agent. Press F12 or right-click on an empty spot of the page and choose Inspect element to open the developer tools window. Along the top bar, select the Emulation tab---you may need to click the dropdown arrow to show it if it's hidden. Here, change the User agent string box to trick the website into thinking you're something else. You can also change Browser profile from Desktop to Windows Phone to view the mobile version of webpages. Like Chrome, this only applies to the current tab while the developer tools panel is open. Unfortunately, there are no extensions that easily change your user agent for the current version of Edge. When Microsoft's revised browser launches, this will hopefully change. Change Your User Agent in Safari You'll need to enable the hidden Develop menu in Safari before you can change your user agent. To do this, visit Safari > Preferences and go to the Advanced tab. There, check the box labeled Show Develop menu in menu bar. Next, select Develop > User Agent and pick the option you'd like. Safari even lets you choose Other to specify your own user agent string. Request Desktop Site on Android and iPhone While there's no quick toggle to change your user agent in the mobile versions of Chrome and Safari, you can easily make websites think your phone is a computer. On Android, open Chrome and tap the three-dot Menu button in the top-right. Check the Desktop site box and it will reload to show you the full version. Image Gallery (2 Images) On Safari for iOS, tap the aA button to the left of the address bar and choose Request Desktop Website. You'll find the same option in Chrome for iPhone by tapping the Share button at the top-right, followed by scrolling down and choosing Request Desktop Site. Image Gallery (2 Images) Reasons to Change Your User Agent Now you know how to trick websites into thinking you're on another device. But why would you change your browser's user agent when you can just install another browser? Here are some situations where changing your user agent could prove to be fun, useful, or convenient. 1. Website Development If you're developing a website (or learning about website development), it's important to make sure your site looks good and functions properly in a variety of browsers. While swapping your agent can't accommodate every possible real-world situation, it lets you get some basic testing done in a fraction of the time. Perhaps you can test Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Internet Explorer just fine on your own. But what if you don't have a Mac to run Safari, or don't have a tablet to test mobile versions of the page? Further, if backward compatibility is important for your site, swapping your user agent to IE 8 is a lot easier than installing a copy of ancient browsers manually. Whether for efficiency or because you don't own some of the devices needed to test your site, seeing how your site looks in a variety of browsers is easy using this method. 2. View Mobile Sites on Limited Connections On a lot of sites, the mobile version offers a slimmed-down amount of content to reduce data usage for the mobile users. While we looked at how to view the full desktop site on a mobile browser, it's not as common to see desktop pages offer their mobile versions. By changing your user agent to act as a mobile browser, you can force this change the next time you're using your phone as a mobile hotspot or working on a limited connection. Browsing mobile versions of pages means you only get the basics and aren't wasting data on multimedia or other large items. 3. Get Around Browser Restrictions While not as common as it once was, sometimes you'll come across websites that tell you Firefox doesn't work with the page, or you must use Internet Explorer, or other similar warnings. If you know the site works fine in whatever browser you're using, you can swap your user agent to oblige the website without actually changing browsers. Remember that changing your user agent doesn't actually modify the software you're running---it only changes what your browser reports to the website. Thus, this doesn't work if a website is truly IE-only because it uses archaic ActiveX controls or something similar. However, you're unlikely to come across such sites today. 4. Better OS Compatibility Another uncommon reason for switching your user agent appears in reviews for user agent switching extensions. Some people explain that they use these services to get around sites that block entire operating systems. While there's really no good reason for a site to block an entire OS, you could run into a page that complains about you using Linux. If this happens, you can just tell it you're using Internet Explorer and the site will think you're on Windows. This could also come in handy if you're using an out-of-date operating system. Those still using an outdated browser on Windows XP will likely see warnings on most websites that the browser is no longer supported. As Windows 7 is left behind, this will also happen as major browsers drop support for it. We recommend jumping ship to a modern operating system as soon as possible. But in the meantime, you can try swapping your user agent to squeeze a little more life out of your current system. 5. See a Different Perspective and Have Fun Are the above options too boring for you? If so, you can still use agent switching just to have a bit of fun. If you've used Windows all your life, you can jump around some sites and see if they look any different when using Mac or Linux. Or change your user agent to an ancient version of Internet Explorer, then see how many sites still support it. What kind of messages do they display, and how many block you from using the outdated browser? Some browser-switching agents even allow you to pose as Googlebot, the robot Google uses to crawl and index the web. It could be interesting to see what content sites serve to the bots! Seeing the web from a different perspective could be enjoyable once in a while, even if you can't get much practical use out of it. Trick Websites With a New User Agent We've looked at how to make your browser pretend it's something else by changing your user agent. While it's not something you'll probably need to do often, it comes in handy at times. Keep in mind that the user agent isn't the only way to identify your browser, so sites may still be able to tell what you're actually using. Even though it is fun to trick websites, it's not a true measure of privacy.

A lot of Mac enthusiasts prefer using Safari over Chrome, thanks to its lower battery consumption. Nowadays, Safari is better than ever before, but as with all browsers it has some quirks that need fixing. Fortunately enough, you can smooth out most of the browser's rough edges by making a quick visit to Safari's settings. Some need a little more work, but we'll cover those step by step. Ready to upgrade the Safari browsing experience on your Mac? Let's go! 1. Enable a Link Preview in the Status Bar When browsing around the web, you come across all sorts of hyperlinks. Some links take you exactly where you want, while other links can redirect you to phishing websites that could steal your personal information. Thus, it's a good idea to preview links before actually going to the websites behind them. Safari doesn't show link previews by default, but you can enable this with just a couple of clicks. Click on View in the menu bar and select Show Status Bar to do so. Once enabled, you should see link previews at the bottom-left of the window. 2. Show the Entire URL in the Address Bar By default, Safari shows only the main domain name in the address bar. While this makes Safari look a more minimalist, it also hides useful information including your exact location on a website. To always show the full URL, open Safari > Preferences and switch to the Advanced tab. Check the Show full website address box there. Now, Safari should display the full URL so there's no doubt. 3. Use Reader View Automatically for All Websites Whenever you come across a messy webpage in Safari, you can simply click on the Reader view icon to declutter the webpage and view it in an easy-to-read format. What if you're spoiled with the simplicity of Reader view and want to use it on all websites automatically? That's possible with the following steps: Open Safari > Preferences. Switch to the Websites tab and select Reader from the left pane. Configure the currently open websites to use Reader view automatically by clicking On in the dropdown menu. To set this for all other websites, select On in the dropdown menu at the bottom beside When visiting other websites. Once enabled, all supported websites will load in Reader view automatically. 4. Stop Plugins to Save Power Browser plugins like Flash and Java aren't common on the modern internet. However, you might still come across some sites that use them for videos, ads, or other content. To avoid wasting battery power and resources on these plugins, you can tell Safari to use plugins only when you need them. To do this, open Safari > Preferences and switch to the Advanced tab. Check the Stop plug-ins to save power box and your browser will automatically suspend unnecessary plugins. 5. Block Auto-Playing Videos Don't you hate it when you're browsing a website and a video starts playing automatically without your consent? It's a pain to fumble around your open tabs to find the offending page and close it. You could mute that tab, but the video will keep playing, which wastes resources. To resolve this problem, Safari lets you block all auto-playing videos. To do so, open Safari > Preferences and head to the Websites tab. Here, select Auto-Play from the sidebar on the left. On this page, you can configure websites to either Stop Media with Sound or Never Auto-Play videos. 6. Disable Website Notifications Sometimes, browser notifications can be useful. For instance, when you have Gmail open, the site can send you a push notification to alert you of new messages. But some pages abuse this feature to deliver ads or other unwanted content. If you feel bombarded with unnecessary notifications from websites, Safari provides an easy way to get rid of them. Open Safari > Preferences, switch to the Websites tab, and choose Notifications on the left. Here, you can check out all the websites that have asked for permission to show alerts in the Notification Center. You can choose to Allow or Deny permission for these existing websites. If you'd like to disallow all websites from sending you push notifications, uncheck the Allow websites to ask for permission to send notifications box. 7. Enable Picture-in-Picture for Videos Did you know that the handy picture-in-picture (PiP) feature is available in Safari? This lets you pop out a video to a small window that you can move anywhere while keeping it on top of other windows. To use PiP in Safari, start playing a video, such as something on YouTube. Then click and hold the volume button in the Safari address bar and select Enter Picture in Picture. To exit this mode, click the Exit button next to the Pause/Play button and the video will pop back into Safari. While the feature works well, the only problem is that it doesn't work with all online video services. For shows from Amazon Prime Video, for instance, you'll need a little help. PiPifier is a native Safari extension that lets you use PiP mode on almost any HTML5 video. Once you download it from the App Store, open Safari > Preferences > Extensions and check PiPifier button. After it's enabled, you should see a pop-out button in your toolbar. When you're playing an HTML5 video, just click on this button to play it in PiP mode. Make sure to play and pause a video once before you click on the button. Download: PiPifier (Free) 8. View Favicons in the Tab Bar You'd probably agree that it's easier to identify tabs by their favicons instead of just the page title. This is especially the case when you've got lots of tabs open. In macOS Mojave, Apple finally brought the ability to display icons in tabs. To enable them, open Safari > Preferences and select Tabs. Check the box for Show website icons in tabs. 9. Utilize Quick Website Search Safari's address bar lets you search many websites directly. For instance, you can search Wikipedia by typing "Wikipedia [query]" in the address bar. This helps you save a few clicks and navigate faster. Even better, this supports a range of websites. To check out a list of all supported sites, open Safari > Preferences > Search. Click on Manage Websites to take a look. 10. Set the Default Search Engine Not everyone is a Google fan. Since you probably use the search function in Safari every day, setting up the default search engine is another minor change that can make a big difference. You can choose from Google, Yahoo, Bing, or DuckDuckGo as your default. To modify this, open Safari > Preferences and select the Search tab. Next to Search engine, select an option from the dropdown menu.

You have a lot of great web browsers to choose from, so you might opt to use different browsers for various purposes. But juggling several apps and managing your information across them can get confusing and frustrating. Chances are that you use Google Chrome at least sometimes. You might have overlooked one of its most useful features: Chrome browser profiles. Let's look at how you can use Chrome profiles to your advantage, even if you're the only user on your computer. What Are Google Chrome Profiles? A Chrome user profile allows you to separate all your browser details into distinct units. Each profile includes its own extensions, settings, browsing history, bookmarks, saved passwords, themes, and open tabs. Profiles are launched as separate Chrome windows, and each window only uses the details for its particular profile. Thanks to Chrome Sync, you don't have to spend time configuring your profile on every new machine you use. As long as you have this on and stay signed into Chrome, any change you make on one machine (like installing a new extension) will apply anywhere else you use Chrome with that user profile. How to Add a New Chrome Profile It's easy to add a new profile to Chrome anytime. To do so, click the Profile icon at the top-right of Chrome, which shows your Google account profile picture. If you're not signed in or don't have a profile picture, it looks like a generic silhouette. You'll see an Other people header in the window that appears. Click Add underneath this to set up a new Chrome profile. To make the browser profile, you'll need to enter a name and choose a profile picture. You can change these later and the profile picture is only used inside Chrome, so don't worry about it too much. You can check the Create a desktop shortcut for this user if you like. We'll also look at how to pin a profile shortcut to the taskbar in a moment. How to Switch Chrome Browser Profiles Once you've created the new profile, it will launch in a new window immediately. To switch browser profiles, click your profile picture at the top-right of Chrome again. Select a name under Other people to launch a new window with one of those profiles. On Windows 10, if you created a desktop shortcut at the time of creating a new profile, you can right-click it and select Pin to taskbar to add a shortcut for that specific profile. Even if you don't have a desktop shortcut, you'll notice that Chrome places a new icon in the taskbar for each profile you launch. Right-click one and choose Pin to taskbar to keep it handy. As you can see below, it's easy to keep a separate icon for each browser profile so you can launch it when needed. How to Edit and Remove Chrome Browser Profiles To remove a profile, click your profile icon at the top-right and hit the Gear icon next to Other people. In the resulting window, click the three-dot Menu button that appears at the top-right of a profile and choose Remove this person. Doing this will erase their browsing history, saved passwords, bookmarks, and form data, so make sure you're certain before hitting Remove this person again to confirm. To edit your profile, click your profile icon followed by the name at the top. This will bring you to the profile setting page, where you can change your name, toggle the desktop shortcut option on, and change your profile picture. Chrome Browser Profiles to Start Using Now To see how Chrome user profiles can make your life easier, here are a few profile type ideas that you should try. While they might not all work for everyone, you'll be surprised by some of the benefits they offer. 1. Work Profile Instead of designating Chrome as your "work" browser and something else, like Firefox, as your "personal" browser, you can take advantage of a profile to keep work in its own container. Maybe there's a Chrome-only extension that you need for work---that's a perfect fit for your work profile. And you don't have to set the entirety of Chrome aside for only work purposes! Another huge benefit is that you can keep distracting content out of your work profile. Not having one-click access to social media or other time-sapping sites will help you stay on track. You might block some websites in Chrome on your work profile that are open for other ones. This should help you get into "work mode" more easily, and also prevents your work bookmarks from spilling over into your personal browsing. 2. Hobby Profile Since user profiles hold their own unique bookmark collections, it makes sense to keep separate profiles for different hobbies. You no longer need to spend hours organizing your mess of browser bookmarks into bundles of folders and sub-folders. Instead, you could keep a blogging profile where you store bookmarks related to writing topics, SEO, and similar. A cooking profile makes a good place to store recipes and instructional cooking videos. If you're working on a long-term project (such as a thesis paper), you could also use a separate profile for collecting research bookmarks. 3. Social Media Profile Bookmarks aren't the only unique aspect of each profile. Each one also maintains its own history and set of cookies. If you're not familiar, cookies are tiny files that sites can use to identify you. One common use of cookies is recognizing when you return to a site. For instance, when you log into a forum and check Remember Me, the site stores a cookie on your system to track who you are. Now consider a social site like Twitter. Imagine you have three Twitter accounts: one for work, a personal account, and another for a game you're developing in your free time. Juggling all of these can be a pain. And that's not even considering all of the other accounts associated with each endeavor (Twitch, Facebook, GitHub, cloud storage, etc.). By keeping separate profiles, you can stay logged into all relevant sites on a per-task basis. That way, if you have multiple accounts with a service, you don't have to log in and out all the time. You'll know that everything you need is ready when you sign into the appropriate profile. 4. Travel Profile Image Credit: tanuha2001 via Shutterstock A travel profile is one you might not use all the time, but it's useful in two major ways. First, you can store travel-related bookmarks without cluttering up your other profiles. This lets you save as many resources, guides, pictures, and other travel info as you want. Second, you may be able to grab flight tickets at cheaper prices. When you shop for tickets online, sites sometimes use cookies to track whether you've seen a flight before and then bump prices up when you come back later. Using a dedicated profile, you can avoid this issue and only open it when you're ready to buy. You can also get around this by using incognito mode, but the travel profile method offers the bookmark collecting bonus. 5. Extensions Profile Most people know the pain of Chrome slowing down over time. One likely culprit of this is having too many installed extensions. Every extension needs some CPU and RAM to function properly, with some requiring more than others. Remember that each Chrome profile has its own set of installed extensions. This helps prevent clutter and overload, making sure that each profile only has the extensions needed for that context. Aside from separating extensions by purpose, you can also keep a profile with all your favorite extensions and only open it when you need a specific one. That way, you don't have to bog down your regular browsing all the time. Remember that you can disable extensions when you're not using them, too. Take a look at some great Chrome extensions if you need some ideas on what to put here. 6. Secure Profile As a counter to the above, it's also a smart idea to keep a "clean" profile with as few additions as possible. Many extensions require a lot of permissions, and unfortunately Chrome extensions going rogue happens from time to time. This, combined with social media sites tracking you all over the web, means that you probably shouldn't access sensitive info in the same profile as all that. Set up a dedicated profile that you only use to log into financial sites and similar to reduce the chances of your activity being compromised. If you want to go further, you can dive into Chrome's advanced settings to disable website permissions (even JavaScript) for maximum security. Don't Forget About Incognito and Guest Windows While they're not proper browser profiles, we'd be remiss if we didn't mention Chrome's incognito and guest modes, too. Incognito windows (Ctrl + Shift + N) allow you to browse the web from a throwaway browser profile. They're great for quickly seeing how a website looks without any extensions and while not logged into anything. They also don't save any data from your session, making them useful when you don't want to leave traces behind. Guest mode is available by clicking Guest under the Other People header in Chrome's profile menu. This provides you with a dedicated browser session that has no access to the data in other profiles. It also can't change any settings, making it most useful when someone else needs to use your computer. Considerations When Using Chrome Profiles Before we wrap up, there are a few important considerations to keep in mind with Chrome profiles. When you make a new profile, it's not tied to any Google account by default. Click your profile picture and hit the Turn on sync button to sign into a Google account and sync your data to other devices, if you wish. To make each Chrome profile visually distinct, we recommend applying a unique Chrome theme so you don't mix them up. Google's own Chrome themes are a good pick since they're simple and attractive. Finally, keep in mind that profiles are not a secure way to keep user data separated. Anyone can access another profile by following the steps above, which lets them access everything in your browser. Use a separate user login with a password for security. Master Chrome Profiles for Maximum Efficiency After learning about user profiles, you'll hopefully appreciate Chrome a lot more. The idea may seem insignificant at first, but they really are worthwhile on a day-to-day basis.

If you're a Mac user, then your go-to browser is likely Safari. And because all browsers have their own sets of unique features, it's important to get familiar with what Safari has to offer. Like many apps, the neatest features may not be obvious. So to help you make the most of your Safari experience, here are several tips and tricks that you can put to good use when browsing the web. 1. Enable Picture-in-Picture for Every Site Picture-in-Picture was one of the best new parts of Safari that arrived with macOS Sierra. Being able to watch a video that's floating over everything else is really useful. It works on a lot of popular video streaming sites. On sites like Vimeo, you'll find the Enter Picture-in-Picture button in the bottom toolbar. But on YouTube, right-click and then right-click again to open the shortcut menu. From there, select Enter Picture-in-Picture. The video will pop right out. You can then drag it to any corner of the screen. To exit Picture-in-Picture, click the small Exit button to the left of the play button. 2. Customize the Toolbar Having a functional toolbar with the buttons you use most is key to using Safari. If you never use the Home button, for instance, you can remove it. And if you want a button for the Sidebar, you can add it. To make changes, right-click on the toolbar and select Customize Toolbar. Then drag the buttons you want from the popup window into the toolbar or those you don't want from the toolbar to the window. You can also arrange the buttons as you like. Click Done when you finish. 3. Search Between Tabs Many people are used to opening a lot of tabs when browsing or working on the web. Safari helps you manage this tab overload by neatly stacking related tabs in the Tab Overview page. To access it, click View > Show Tab Overview from the menu bar. When you're on this page, press the Control + F keyboard shortcut and you'll see a search box at the top. You can then quickly search all your tabs. To exit the Tab Overview page, just click any of the tabs on it. 4. Turn Off Notification Popups If you visit a lot of blogs or news sites, you may see a prompt to subscribe to new posts. Rather than denying the request every single time, you can disable this feature altogether. Click Safari > Preferences from the menu bar and select the Websites tab. On the left, click Notifications. Then, at the bottom, uncheck the option for Allow websites to ask for permission to send notifications. You can also click the dropdown box to the right of any website in your list to Deny or Allow notifications for particular sites. 5. Pin Tabs If you visit specific sites regularly, you can keep them close at hand by pinning them. When you pin a website, it stays docked on the left edge of the tab row. To pin a tab, just right-click on it and select Pin Tab. To switch to a pinned tab, click it as normal or use the Cmd + 1, Cmd + 2, etc. keyboard shortcut, depending on its place. For more shortcuts like these for pinning tabs, grab this Safari shortcuts cheat sheet. 6. Mute Tabs Frustrating auto-play videos are rampant on the web. And many times, you're not sure exactly where audio suddenly starts coming from. Luckily, Safari tags a tab that's playing audio with a little speaker icon. What's better is that no matter where the audio is playing, you'll see a speaker icon in the address bar as well. Click the speaker icon in the tab or address bar to mute the tab. You can also right-click the speaker icon in the address bar to Mute Other Tabs than the one you're viewing. 7. Arrange Tabs When you have several tabs open at once, it can be difficult to find the one you need at the moment. Instead, use Safari's Arrange Tabs feature. Right-click one of your tabs, put your cursor over Arrange Tabs By, and then click either Title or Website. Your tabs will then auto-arrange according to your choice, making it easier to find the one you want. 8. Enable URL Previews in Status Bar You can see the URL of a link in the status bar while you hover over it with your cursor. Click on View from the menu bar and select Show Status Bar and you're set. This is a handy security function, as it allows you to double-check that links actually go to where they claim. 9. Customize the Favorites Screen The Favorites screen is what shows up when you open a new tab, as well as when you click the address bar. This is thus your welcome mat for the web. You can easily customize the screen to add shortcuts to your most frequently visited websites. Visit a site and then right-click the plus sign button on the left of the address bar. From the dropdown, select Favorites. And on the Favorites screen, you can drag icons to rearrange them. 10. Save Pages as PDFs Exporting a web page as a PDF doesn't require a special extension when you use Safari. Visit the page and click File > Export as PDF. Then, just choose where you want to save the page and hit Save to export. 11. Share Pages Using AirDrop In addition to sharing files, AirDrop is a great way to send web pages across all your Apple devices. Say you're on a site and want to open it on your iPad instead. Click on the Share button and select AirDrop. Then select your other device to open it there. 12. Enable Handoff to Make Browsing Better Handoff and Continuity are two slick technologies that let you seamlessly switch between macOS and iOS. Maybe you have a page open in Safari on your iPhone that you want to open on your Mac, for example. To enable Handoff on Mac, open System Preferences and select General. Toward the bottom, check the box for Allow Handoff between this Mac and your iCloud devices. On iPhone or iPad, open Settings and choose General. Select AirPlay & Handoff and turn on the toggle for Handoff. When the feature is enabled, you'll see a Safari shortcut at the left edge of your Mac's Dock. When you click it, it will open the page from your iOS device in Safari. 13. Check Out Reader View Want to make reading cleaner? Open an article on a website in Safari and click the Reader View button that's on the left of the address bar. All the page's formatting, ads, and distractions will vanish in favor of a minimal, beautiful, easy-to-read layout. 14. Use iCloud Tabs iCloud Tabs is a genius feature that lets you access and control tabs that are open in Safari on your other Apple devices. After you click on the Tab Overview page (see #3 above), look at the bottom to see your other devices and tabs open on them. From there, you can either close the tabs on those devices or open a tab from another device right on your Mac. 15. Take Advantage of AutoFill For sites you visit often that require a username and password, you can speed up the login process with AutoFill. The AutoFill feature also works with your details from the Contacts app, credit cards you choose to save, and other form data. To enable AutoFill, click Safari > Preferences from the menu bar. Select the AutoFill tab and check the boxes for the items you want to include. You can edit the info using the corresponding buttons. 16. Personalize Your Pages You may not realize it, but you can customize every page you visit in Safari. When you land on a page, right-click the address bar and select Settings for This Website. Then, check boxes for using the Reader View and enabling content blockers if you like. For the remaining settings, just click and you can adjust page zoom, auto-play, popup windows, your camera and microphone, screen sharing, and location details. 17. Use Look Up Safari has a handy little feature called Look Up that lets you get more details on a word or phrase on a page you're visiting. Select the text on the page and either right-click and pick Look Up [word or phrase] or long-press on your trackpad. You'll then see a popup window giving you a definition and other options across the bottom, depending on the word or phrase. So you may see iTunes Store, TV Shows, Siri Knowledge, and other sources as well.

Last weekend, two screeners of upcoming Netflix movies leaked ahead of their official premiere. "The Power of the Dog" and "The Guilty" are now widely shared on pirate sites, something that has triggered a series of takedown requests. Interestingly, the Toronto International Film Festival, which could be where the films leaked from, is particularly active. Screeners are advance copies of recent movies that are generally sent out to critics and awards voter for review. Some of these copies end up in the hands of pirates and are subsequently published online. This includes screeners of potential Academy Award nominees, which usually appear around December. Netflix Screeners Leak Over the past two years, this trend was broken. In 2020, the first movie screeners surfaced in October and this year the Netflix movies “The Power of the Dog” and “The Guilty” leaked even earlier. While the leaked films are labeled as screeners, they don’t appear to be the typical award show releases. Instead, release group EVO hinted that they were sourced from a film festival. The name of the festival was kept private but in our earlier report, we mentioned the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) as an option. TIFF is in full swing and both Netflix titles are on the ‘screening’ program there. This could all be a coincidence but after the films leaked, TIFF was quick to hire a takedown service to have links to the leaked movies removed from Google’s search results. TIFF Issues Takedown Requests With these types of prominent leaks, we always keep an eye on online enforcement activities. Initially, we expected that Netflix would be quick to issue a series of takedown requests but, thus far, the Toronto Film Festival has been the most active. Shortly after the leaks became public, the renowned anti-piracy outfit Web Sheriff sent a series of takedown notices on behalf of TIFF, asking Google to remove hundreds of URLs from its search engine. These links point to leaked screener copies of “The Power of the Dog” and “The Guilty.” The takedown notices are not direct evidence that the leaks originate from TIFF. After all, the festival secured permission to broadcast the titles, so it could be simply be protecting its ‘rights.’ That said, this week’s notices only cover the leaked screeners and they are the first takedown requests TIFF has sent in nearly a year. No Official Comment Yet The above makes it more likely that the film festival is inadvertently the source of the leak. We reached out to the festival requesting a comment on our findings and its potential link to the pirated screeners but the organization didn’t immediately reply. When screeners of “Falling” and “My Salinger Year” leaked last year we identified the annual Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) as a potential source. The leaks appeared shortly after they were screened at the festival, but this potential connection was never officially confirmed

Authorities in the Chinese province of Hebei have reportedly launched a campaign against cryptocurrency mining and trading. According to a quoted announcement by the region’s cyberspace administration, a number of government agencies are working together to prevent the use of the region’s computing power in the crypto activities which the government considers illegal. Cyberspace Watchdog Targets Crypto Mining and Trading Operations in Hebei Hebei province in Northern China has become the latest Chinese region to undertake measures to clamp down on cryptocurrency mining and trading, media reports revealed. South China Morning Post (SCMP) wrote that the regional cyberspace administration has started a campaign against cryptocurrency mining and trading, citing various reasons ranging from environmental and financial concerns to national security considerations. Government agencies and state-run companies in the province which surrounds Beijing have been asked to inspect their information systems and put an end to any use of their computing power to mint digital coins by the end of September, the newspaper detailed. Furthermore, local universities and research institutes have been instructed to scale down the capacity of such systems to match only their academic needs. According to a report by the state-controlled broadcaster CCTV, as published by Sina, Hebei’s internet and telecom office has joined forces with the provincial departments of education, public security, financial supervision, and communications among others, as well as the Shijiazhuang branch of the People’s Bank of China to carry out the “rectification actions against virtual currency mining and trading activities.” Chinese crypto journalist Colin Wu, also known as ‘Wu Blockchain’ on Twitter, spread the news on social media on Tuesday, linking to a Wechat post. “Cryptocurrency mining consumes an enormous amount of energy, which is against China’s ‘carbon neutral’ goal,” Hebei’s cyberspace administration has been quoted by Reuters as stating. “Its exchange and transaction are highly disruptive to the nation’s financial order, and the financial risk is big,” the agency added, according to the SCMP. The proliferation of virtual currency, the watchdog warned, will affect economic and social development in the People’s Republic and threaten its national security. Once the current campaign is over on Sept. 30, government agencies in Hebei will continue to regularly monitor the situation and impose penalties on those who illegally mine and trade digital currencies, starting from October. The province’s cyberspace administration also said that internet and financial regulators should enhance the collection of reports from the public about such cases. China banned cryptocurrency trading back in 2017 but Beijing authorities did not directly interfere with cryptocurrency mining until earlier this year. In May, the State Council, the cabinet of ministers, announced a crackdown on the crypto-related activities following President Xi Jinping’s pledge that the country will achieve carbon neutrality in the next four decades. The government offensive has already affected mining operations in a number of provinces, including Sichuan, Xinjiang, Qinghai, Yunnan, Inner Mongolia, and Anhui. Gansu in Northwestern China launched its crackdown last week. The province received a closure notice for crypto mining facilities from the State Grid Corporation of China in July.

Cryptocurrency cannot be adopted as a means of payment in Uzbekistan, a high-ranking official from the country’s central bank has recently stated. Speaking to local media, the regulator’s representative also noted that unlike cryptocurrencies, the national fiat is backed by the bank’s assets. The statement comes in spite of Tashkent’s crypto-friendly moves in the past. Cryptocurrency Cannot Be Accepted for Payments in Uzbekistan, Monetary Authority Says Cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin cannot be recognized as legal tender in Uzbekistan and that’s unlikely to ever change, a central bank official told Spot this week. Speaking to the local news outlet, the Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank of the Republic of Uzbekistan (CBU) Behzod Hamraev said: As an economist, I can assume that it [cryptocurrency] will never be equal to world currencies such as the dollar, euro, yen, ruble. The representative of the monetary authority pointed out that 28 trillion Uzbekistani sum (the nation’s fiat money) are currently in circulation and they are all backed by the central bank’s assets. “You can even see an inscription of the regulator’s obligations on the banknotes, and cryptocurrency is not backed by anything,” he added. The government of Uzbekistan incorporated a ban on the use of cryptocurrency for payments into its legislation back in 2019. According to current law, the sum remains the only legal tender in the Central Asian country. A decree issued by the National Agency for Project Management, a regulatory body responsible for the oversight of the digital economy, emphasized: Crypto assets cannot be used on the territory of the Republic of Uzbekistan as a means of payment. At the same time, the decree also introduced regulations governing the licensing and operation of cryptocurrency exchanges. Crypto trading was legalized in 2018 but in December 2019, authorities effectively banned residents from purchasing cryptocurrencies on the trading platforms while they were allowed to sell their crypto holdings. Then, in January 2020, Tashkent announced it planned to set up a national mining pool as a priority, establish a licensed cryptocurrency exchange where miners will be permitted to sell their digital coins, create a blockchain valley and introduce crypto tax exemptions. The regulated digital asset platform, Uznex, operated by the South Korean entity Kobea Group, was launched later the same month. The latest statement from the Central Bank of Uzbekistan regarding the status of cryptocurrencies comes after El Salvador became the first country to adopt bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender alongside the U.S. dollar. It also follows a similar statement by Dmitry Peskov, spokesman of Russian president Vladimir Putin, who recently said Russia isn’t ready to accept the coin as a means of payment.

State Bank of India (SBI) has reportedly blocked payments to cryptocurrency exchanges using its Unified Payments Interface (UPI). Payment processors have been told to disable the bank’s UPI for crypto merchants. Payment Processors Instructed to Disable SBI UPI for Crypto Firms State Bank of India, the country’s largest bank, has reportedly “blocked the receipt of funds by crypto bourses on its UPI platform,” the Economic Times reported Wednesday, citing sources in the payments industry. Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is an instant real-time payment system developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to facilitate interbank transactions through mobile phones. The UPI payment system is regulated and supervised by India’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). According to the publication: The bank has told payment processors to disable SBI UPI for crypto merchants. This means SBI bank customers cannot transfer funds via UPI to crypto exchanges to buy cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin. An SBI spokesperson was quoted as saying: “It is the policy of the bank not to comment upon matters relating to the subject matter.” Several banks in India have been clamping down on fund transfers to crypto exchanges. The NPCI, however, said in May that it will not block payments to crypto companies using UPI. Instead, it advised banks to make their own decisions whether to allow transactions involving cryptocurrencies based on their own risk assessment. Now that SBI has made its decision, many other banks may be reluctant to onboard crypto merchants on their respective UPI platforms, the publication conveyed. One of the largest Indian cryptocurrency exchanges, Wazirx, has already been impacted. CEO Nischal Shetty told the publication: “We’re trying to discuss and put forward our points to SBI. Wazirx follows KYC (know your customer) norms and AML (anti-money laundering) policies. Being the largest crypto exchange in India, millions of Indians are currently affected due to this move by SBI.”

Interactive Brokers, one of the largest online brokerage firms, has announced today it is offering cryptocurrency trading services in alliance with Paxos. Users of the platform now have a complete suite of cryptocurrency trading options, along with traditional trading offerings like stocks and bonds. The company recognized the importance of digital assets for traders to help them achieve their financial objectives. Interactive Brokers Debuts Crypto Trading Interactive Brokers, an online brokerage with more than one million customers, has introduced cryptocurrency to its suite of trading options, plans for which its CEO announced back in June. Now, users of the Interactive Brokers platform will be able to trade for different crypto assets: bitcoin, ether, litecoin, and bitcoin cash. With this inclusion, Interactive Brokers acknowledges the rising importance of the cryptocurrency asset class for diversification in today’s financial market. About this, Milan Galik, CEO of the company, stated: In giving our clients access to cryptocurrency trading, we recognize the need to meet the growing investor demand to trade cryptocurrency alongside other asset classes in a convenient and low-cost way. The firm wants to consolidate as the go-to broker to acquire cryptocurrencies at low fees. The company announced they would only collect a maximum of 0.18% of trade value, with a USD $1.75 minimum per order, without added spreads, markups, or custody fees. This could open the doors to a large number of investors that put their trust in Interactive Brokers, and that hadn’t had exposure to this kind of asset through traditional brokerage offerings. Paxos Powered Trades To achieve its objective of bringing cryptocurrency trading to its platform, the brokerage partnered with Paxos, a New York-based cryptocurrency services firm. The solution used is called Paxos Crypto Brokerage, which allows the company to manage the volume and complexity of the trades coming from Interactive Brokers and other customers. On this, Charles Cascarilla, CEO and co-founder of Paxos, stated: Paxos provides the regulated blockchain infrastructure to ensure enterprises can enable crypto safely and with reduced risk. Our collaboration with Interactive Brokers allows experienced investors to have fast, reliable access to the digital economy for the first time. The company is now configured to become a complete rival of Robinhood, the fee-free financial platform, as it now offers a fully comparable trading options stack.

Hey, welcome to Invitehawk.. Enjoy your stay and hope you have a good time here.