Bostonian Adam

Tag: MS Edge browser

  • Sharing tech news and resources – July 2022

    I wanted to share a few articles regarding tech news and also a few interesting links I found around the internet. First, I posted a few quick notes in bullet points and then I list out a few articles/blog posts I found that I wanted to share with you and give my thoughts.

    • I was on GitHub this week and noticed an article on their The ReadME Project, about turning the tables in your job interview where you ask the interviewer some important questions that I found interesting and useful. You can read the article, Interview the interviewer, on GitHub.com.
    • Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge have both had updates recently to fix exploits, so as always, make sure all of your web browsers are updated to the latest version to keep safe.

    Gmail has a new view

    Google’s Gmail has a new integrated view coming, which tries to make it easier to switch between Gmail, Chat and Meet. I was able to see this new view with one of my Gmail addresses and don’t worry, there are no big changes to your Gmail. You can read more about the new view and see images of it in the article, Updated timeline for the new integrated view for Gmail, on WorkspaceUpdates.GoogleBlog.com.

    Google Keep

    Google Keep is my favorite app to keep notes on my cell phone and a new update brings a feature that lets users drag and drop images saved in Google Keep to a third-party application. This info was found in the article, Google Keep now lets you drag and drop images to other apps, on AndroidCentral.com.

    NES games in 2022?

    I love playing video games so seeing this next story was really cool. GitHub posted on their LinkedIn, how some people are still creating games for the original NES (Nintendo Entertainment System). The post included a link to a Reddit post where the author explained what they tried and also gives links where to find the kits to do the same. The original NES was the first console my brother and I had, so hearing about this brings back good memories. This is really cool to see and I wonder what talented people may make with these kits.

    Need to erase data on your hard drive?

    The Washington Post has an article talking about how to delete data from your hard drive that I found interesting. I am no computer hardware expert so I can’t say these are the best ways to do just that, but do note that one of their approaches is to actually take the hard drive out and physically smash it to pieces. You can read the article, Deleting files is not enough. Here is how to properly erase hard drives., on WashingtonPost.com.

    Google Chromebook

    I bought a Google Chromebook a few years ago when they were on sale on Amazon.com and I’m glad I did. It has been useful for when I went out of town for personal or business trips. I highly recommend getting one for basic computer use (checking email, going online and visiting websites, editing text documents and completing other basic tasks). I found an article where the writer switched to a Chromebook for a week and gave their thoughts, you can read the article, I switched to a Chromebook for a week. Here’s what surprised me as a Windows user, on DigitalTrends.com.

  • New Edge browser feature saves resources when gaming

    In June, the Microsoft Edge web browser had an update where it released a new feature called “Efficiency Mode,” which helps improve power usage by saving computer resources (CPU usage). This is especially useful when running high resource applications on your PC such as playing a video game or even when you’re running applications that hog resources, such as Adobe Photoshop.

    How to turn on Efficiency Mode

    Follow the below steps to turn on “Efficiency Mode” in the Microsoft Edge web browser:

    1. Go to the browser settings (click the three dots icon in the upper right) and click “Settings” which is near the bottom of the vertical menu that appears
    2. Now on the “Settings” page, on the left side, find “System and performance” and click it
    3. On the right side, under “Optimize Performance” you can turn on “Efficiency Mode” by enabling the first two settings as in the screenshot below, and you’re done

    Screenshot

    Screenshot of Edge's settings, Optimize Performance section

    A competitor to Opera GX?

    If you didn’t know, the Opera web browser has their own separate version specifically for gamers, named Opera GX, which lets you set limits on CPU, RAM, and network usage. I do wonder if the Edge web browser, with this new feature, will challenge the Opera GX browser specifically for use during gaming? Opera/Opera GX are also based on Chromium, as Edge is. I’ll have to try out both for myself when I game, but if you use one or the other web browser while gaming, let me know how it goes.

  • Disabling tab hover cards in MS Edge

    In a previous blog post I listed the steps for disabling tab hover cards in Chrome but now I must share how to do the same in the Microsoft Edge web browser. If you’re using MS Edge and not sure what a tab hover card is, move your mouse cursor to a tab, leave it there for a second and a rectangular box will appear displaying the website’s “title” and then below that will be the website’s favicon and domain name. See the below screenshot of what a tab hover card looks like for this website’s homepage.

    Screenshot of a Tab Hover Card in the Microsoft Edge browser
    Screenshot of a Tab Hover Card in the Microsoft Edge browser

    Steps to turn off tab hover cards in MS Edge

    1. In Edge’s address bar, type in (or copy/paste): edge://flags/#tab-hover-cards
    2. On the right side, change the drop-down from “Default” to “Disabled”
    3. You will have to click the “Restart” button at the bottom in order for this change to take effect and you’re done

    If you ever need to turn it back on in the future, just follow the same steps above and change the drop-down.