All posts tagged: browsers

Google Earth’s Flight Simulator Is Now on Browsers: Here’s How to Play

Google Earth’s Flight Simulator Is Now on Browsers: Here’s How to Play

Published by skeptic

One of the hidden features in the Google Earth desktop app is a fun little flight simulator that lets you fly all over the Earth using maps generated by the app. And Google has just announced that the flight simulator is also now available in your web browser of choice for all to enjoy. The addition of the game is part of a larger push by Google to add pro-level features to the website interface, so you can skip installing the desktop app. Some of those features include elevation profiles, new import types, extra data layers and the flight simulator.  Most of the above features are for professional and hobbyist use, but the flight simulator is just there for fun. It’s been around since 2007 in the desktop app, and Friday marks its first appearance in the website version of Google Earth.  It’s not as in-depth as some other flight sims, but you can’t argue with the breadth of places where you can fly. Google Earth How to play the flight simulator in Google Earth It doesn’t take a …

How to Share a Link to a Particular Phrase

How to Share a Link to a Particular Phrase

Published by skeptic

This is very handy when you want to share an excerpt of writing in context, a concept that is totally lost if you just take a screenshot with a highlight. How This Works This feature is made possible by a web standard called Text fragments. It’s been built into browsers for years now; it’s just not the kind of feature that made a lot of headlines at the time. The feature basically creates a URL that includes enough information for your browser to find the highlighted text portion. If you copy a URL made this way and paste it into a document so you can study the link’s structure, you can see how this works. In the simplest cases, the URL will include the entire highlighted portion. That works fine for short fragments, but for long passages, the URL gets ungainly pretty fast. When you’re linking to longer text fragments, the URL includes a reference to the beginning and end of the excerpt. Either way, the URL tells your browser not only which page to …

How to Edit, Merge, and Split PDFs With Free Online Tools

How to Edit, Merge, and Split PDFs With Free Online Tools

Published by skeptic

More than 30 years after Adobe came up with it, the PDF file—portable document format—remains essential for archiving, sharing, and publishing. It’s a file type that can be opened by just about anyone on virtually any mobile or desktop device, while preserving the formatting, colors, and layout of the original document. Given the ubiquity and popularity of the PDF, it’s no surprise that commercial PDF software tools are in high demand. But you don’t necessarily have to pay to process these documents, especially for basic editing operations. A host of PDF tools are available on the web that will let you quickly and easily manipulate your documents for free (with more advanced features and usage limits available for a price). There’s nothing to download, nothing to install, and nothing to pay, and they’re perfect for small-scale edits. We’ve picked three of the best online PDF app suites below, together with three common tasks you can do with them. While these sites are all well established and reputable, use some common sense with the documents you …

The Best Browser Extensions to Get More Out of YouTube

The Best Browser Extensions to Get More Out of YouTube

Published by skeptic

From wedding speeches to music videos, from DIY tutorials to movie clips, from celebrity interviews to remote wilderness adventures, it’s all on YouTube. Per YouTube’s official figures, more than 20 million videos are uploaded every day to the platform. Over the years, YouTube has added a bunch of extra features to improve the viewing experience for its users, but you can enhance it even further with some well-chosen browser extensions. No matter how you use YouTube, there should be something that you can benefit from here. We’ve focused on extensions for Google Chrome here, which should also work on Microsoft Edge and any other browser based on Chromium (including Opera and Vivaldi). We’re also going to steer clear of extensions based primarily around blocking ads, in the spirit of supporting content creators on YouTube. Improve YouTube Improve YouTube delivers a host of features. Courtesy of David Nield Improve YouTube is one of the most comprehensive and longest-running YouTube extensions, and it brings with it a host of features. For a start, you can use it …

I built a fully searchable research database from my browser’s reading list using one extension

I built a fully searchable research database from my browser’s reading list using one extension

Published by skeptic

If you have ever tried to use your browser’s built-in bookmarks as a research tool, you already know it doesn’t take long before it turns into a mess you’d rather ignore than sort through. Links pile up with no real organization, search is basically useless, and anything you saved more than a week ago might as well be gone. Sometimes I hide my bookmarks, just because I don’t like the mess. Luckily, you can easily turn that list of links into something you can actually use when you need it. Related I Tried 5 Google Chrome Bookmark Alternatives, and This Is My New Favorite This is your best option if you want better management for your Chrome bookmarks. Moving past basic reading lists Stop hoarding links and start organizing them Jorge Aguilar / Make Use Of If you look up at your browser’s bookmark toolbar, you will probably see a jumbled mess of forgotten logins, archived sites, and vague links that lead to destinations you can no longer remember. If you are constantly saving articles, …

How to Disable Google’s Gemini in Chrome

How to Disable Google’s Gemini in Chrome

Published by skeptic

If you use Google’s Chrome browser for desktop, there’s probably a Gemini Nano AI model running on your computer right now and taking up about 4 GB of space. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but if you didn’t know about it and don’t want it, there’s a way to turn it off. The file started auto-downloading for Chrome users in 2024 after Google built Gemini Nano into the browser. But a report by That Privacy Guy this week and the ensuing reception it received highlighted how unaware many users were—perhaps a result of a flood of AI services and features across the tech industry that have been difficult for users to keep up with. To uninstall the Gemini Nano file, open Chrome on your computer, in the top right corner click the “More” menu represented by three vertical dots, then go to Settings, System, and then toggle “On-device AI” to be off. The Privacy Guy article noted that if you directly uninstall the Gemini Nano file in the directory, Chrome will silently, automatically redownload …

Mozilla Used Anthropic’s Mythos to Find and Fix 151 Bugs in Firefox

Mozilla Used Anthropic’s Mythos to Find and Fix 151 Bugs in Firefox

Published by skeptic

Amid a raging debate over the impact that new AI models will have on cybersecurity, Mozilla said on Tuesday that its Firefox 150 browser release this week includes protections for 271 vulnerabilities identified using early access to Anthropic’s Mythos Preview. The Firefox team says that it has taken resources and discipline to adjust to the firehose of bugs that new AI tools can uncover, but that this big lift is necessary for the security of Mozilla’s users, given that the capabilities will inevitably be in attackers’ hands soon. Both Anthropic and OpenAI have announced new AI models in recent weeks that the companies say have advanced cybersecurity capabilities that could represent a turning point in how defenders—and, crucially, attackers—find vulnerabilities and misconfigurations in software systems. With this in mind, the companies have so far only done limited private releases of their new models, and both have also convened industry working groups meant to assess the advances and strategize. In practice, though, cybersecurity experts have a range of views on how consequential the new capabilities will …

Mozilla Used Anthropic’s Mythos to Find and Fix 151 Bugs in Firefox

Mozilla Used Anthropic’s Mythos to Find and Fix 271 Bugs in Firefox

Published by skeptic

Amid a raging debate over the impact that new AI models will have on cybersecurity, Mozilla said on Tuesday that its Firefox 150 browser release this week includes protections for 271 vulnerabilities identified using early access to Anthropic’s Mythos Preview. The Firefox team says that it has taken resources and discipline to adjust to the firehose of bugs that new AI tools can uncover, but that this big lift is necessary for the security of Mozilla’s users, given that the capabilities will inevitably be in attackers’ hands soon. Both Anthropic and OpenAI have announced new AI models in recent weeks that the companies say have advanced cybersecurity capabilities that could represent a turning point in how defenders—and, crucially, attackers—find vulnerabilities and misconfigurations in software systems. With this in mind, the companies have so far only done limited private releases of their new models, and both have also convened industry working groups meant to assess the advances and strategize. In practice, though, cybersecurity experts have a range of views on how consequential the new capabilities will …

Opera Adds Browser Connector Feature to Integrate AI Chatbots Into Browsers

Opera Adds Browser Connector Feature to Integrate AI Chatbots Into Browsers

Published by skeptic

Opera announced Thursday the launch of a new tool that allows users of its browsers to include more AI chatbots in their browsing experience. Browser Connector is a free feature for Opera One and Opera GX browsers that allows users to integrate AI tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude into their live browsing sessions via Model Context Protocol. MCP is an open standard developed by Anthropic that allows for a secure two-way connection between AI models, external data sources and tools such as search engines. (Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in 2025 filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)   Last month, Opera introduced MCP compatibility to Opera Neon, its subscription-based agentic AI browser. Opera says the new feature will allow a user’s AI of choice to provide real-time context of open tabs and active content. “With Browser Connector, Opera ensures users aren’t bound to a single company’s ecosystem, but are instead free to combine the best tools for their specific …

Google’s AI Mode Update Tries to Kill Tab Hopping in Chrome

Google’s AI Mode Update Tries to Kill Tab Hopping in Chrome

Published by skeptic

You’ll never have to worry about the dozens of tabs open on your desktop again. In fact, you’ll never even have to leave AI Mode, Google’s chatbot-style search tool, at all. That’s the idea behind Google Chrome’s latest update. Starting today in the US, if you click a hyperlink in AI Mode on the desktop version of Chrome, the link opens right there—with Google’s search chatbot still present as a sidebar on the left side of the screen. Previously, when you clicked on a hyperlink in one of Google Search’s AI Mode outputs, it opened a new browser tab in the same window. You clicking on that link effectively ended the search journey, and AI Mode stayed behind, right where it was, in the old tab. This update to AI Mode means that once you begin a search using that tool in Chrome, the search tool essentially becomes an always-on aspect of your user experience. In an example interaction that Google shared, a user enters a long query into the AI Mode search bar. They …