There are a few ways to get rid of your history with Chrome.
1. Delete Everything
Click the wrench icon in the corner, then go to "Options"
Once there, click the "Personal Stuff" tab and "Clear Browsing Data..."
This gives you a bunch of selectable options for clearing your history, cache, cookies, etc. This will erase your entire history if selected, so if you only want to clear out a little bit, read on.
2. Delete only the last day's history
This is handy if you don't want to get rid of all your address bar auto fill data (since it pulls from the history) but you still want to clear your history for the day.
Again, go to the wrench, and click "History" or use the shortcut CTRL + H.
Once there, click the "Delete history for this day" link.
With services like Pandora and Last.fm to handle your music genre needs, and new services like tinysong to take care of specific songs, what good is an MP3 collection?
There are of course situations where local media is the only solution: traveling, and high fidelity. But these situations are being steadily eliminated. Airplanes now offer internet access, wireless internet speeds are increasing, and stream quality is improving.
But some folks (maybe most) just like to collect things. There's something about ownership that I believe is the biggest obstacle to the cloud media business model, but our minds can already grasp owning something as abstract as an MP3 file, we'll eventually be able to grasp streaming media (or synced media...more on this in the next paragraph) with the same clarity.
The cloud is the future of where we "keep" our media belongings. Whether we have a subscription service, or own licences to individual songs, we'll no longer want the hassle of managing these files (i.e. moving them around, backing them up, making sure we have enough space) ourselves when there is a far superior approach. Devices will need to sync - ala the current napster subscription service so that stuff can be accessed offline, but managing and organizing a media collection will happen in the cloud.
So now that you're done throwing out your CDs (or perhaps they're just tucked away collecting dust, and you're not quite sure which shoebox you left them in) get ready to trash your music folder as well. This is precisely the sea change Google is preparing for with Chrome OS.
Good news if you're tired of Comcast, Cox, Charter and the ilk. A new challenger is throwing their hat in the ring. Google wants to up the ante with Gigabit internet service to your home, which is a welcome upgrade. This plays right into their OS, and the paradigm shift they want to create. To quote the Google blog:
"We plan to offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people. We'll deliver internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today,"
What else is important here is that perhaps as this service is rolled out, as it grows, maybe folks will actually have a choice in broadband internet services. Many people (like myself) only have one option. Follow this link to the Google blog posting for more info.
5. Adsweep
Yes, the bane of ad revenue hungry bloggers everywhere (but lets face it, even we use it) is now available for Chrome. Works great without the need to subscribe like you do with Ad Block Plus for Firefox. There are a few other ad blockers out there, but in my experience, this one is the best.
4. Wet Banana
First, awesome name. This allows you to interact with your browser much like you do an iPhone browser. Physics are added to the page, and you can drag and "toss" the page up and down. I'm really impressed with how smoothly this operates.
3. Feedly
I love love love love feedly. If you're tired of the sterile RSS reader environment, try feedly, and browse your feeds in a new and organic way. Feedly essentially takes your feeds and lays them out in a fun to explore page. It's brilliantly designed and works great.
2. Smooth Gestures
The closest thing there is to interacting with your browser like you're Tom Cruise in Minority Report. This really exemplifies the power of Chrome extensions by letting you quickly execute common browser tasks just by drawing shapes on your browser window. There is a small learning curve to this one, but once you're used to it, you'll never want to be without it. (Again there are other similar extensions, but I believe this one is the best, with the easiest setup and clearest instructions).
1. WOT (Web of Trust)
An extension that links every site to a ratings system so you can quickly see how trustworthy a site is. Very important for sites that offer software downloads. If you're a savvy browser, you should really contribute to the WOT, then go get your parents and friends to install it so you're not stuck cleaning out gigs of adware from their computer next time you see them!
Honorable Mention: Cooliris
Again, this completely changes the way you interact with your browser. You fly around a 3D media wall, and it's a pretty cool and fun way to find videos and photos. This is such a fun idea, but I believe they still have a little ways to go with the development, so I'm only giving it an honerable mention. There are lots of weird hangups here and there, possibly due to the fact that what they are doing is really pushing the limits of the Chrome extension platform. At any rate, I will be keeping an eye on this extension as development continues.
And for good measure, here's a little video about Chrome Extensions:
Click for large version. This is the best and most recent looking screenshot I've been able to find. Looks farily similar to what you see in the open source project announcement video. If you have other screenshots, feel free to drop a link in the comments!
The Chrome OS team has a great opportunity. With the iPad coming out in a couple months, they'll get a chance to learn from the mistakes of a device that has a lot of overlap. Though the tablet/netbook/internet appliance market is still very new and undefined, Google has a few advantages with their approach.
Free Apps for What?
I don't believe free apps really have much purpose on a device as big as an iPad. If you have an iPhone, think about the free apps you use: Pandora, Weather.com, Amazon.com, Maps, ScoreCenter, Flixter. They exist primarily because they work well on a small screen, or maybe because the iPhone doesn't support flash. This won't be the case on the iPad. You'll have a nice big screen, so why would you get a ScoreCenter app when you can just go to espn.com? Most free apps will be totally redundant on a bigger device. Chrome OS, with its browser-focused approach will have a huge advantage simply because they will support browser plugins. Content producers won't need to take the extra step of developing a special Chrome OS version of anything. If it works in a browser, it's ready for Chrome OS.
Devices of All Shapes and Sizes
While it seems that Chrome OS will only (legally) be available on new Google-approved devices, they probably won't stick you with only one form factor. The iPad takes a one size fits all approach, which I think works very well for a phone, but not so much for a transitional device like a iPad or netbook. Lets say you want an easy to use browser-based computer for the grandparents: you get the Chrome device with the big screen and full size keyboard, perfect for them. Lets say you want something to slip in your bag for on the go internet access: then maybe you're willing to deal with a smaller or on-screen keyboard. In other words, you'll be able to cater a Chrome device to your needs.
Where's my favorite show?
Online video of the non-YouTube sort is growing at a steady clip. Hulu, Netflix, and others offer very compelling reasons to get a Chrome device over an iPad. Again, they run on browser plugins (Flash, Silverlight) that iPad does not support. That's not to say Hulu and Netflix won't create iPhone and iPad apps, they could, but hey, the web apps already exist.
Google isn't specifying a release date just yet, but in their blog posts and videos (such as the announcement video in my last post) they are saying one year. So barring any major development delays, Chrome computers could be available by the end of 2010. As software development goes, it could take much longer (remember Vista?) but I get the feeling if this OS stays a priority for Google, they won't leave us hanging for too long.
