Most people using Google Chrome or other Chromium
based browsers probably don't realize there's actually quite a few experimental features that
are hidden in the "flags" menu it's called, and you can actually change them and enable them
if you want. So in this video, I'm going to go over 13 of these hidden settings that you at least
want to know about. You might not necessarily want to enable all of them, it'll be down to
preference. One thing to note is that these flags and settings change over time since they're
experimental, so just be aware of that if you see something a bit different. So let's just get into
it. I think the first several most people probably will want to enable, I wouldn't see why not. And
then most of the others are definitely going to be for preference, so you can decide. Starting off
with number one, we have "parallel downloading," which can potentially increase the download
speed of... downloads. And how this works is it will allow multiple connections to the server
when downloading a file, and like separate parts and then combine them, so you could potentially
get faster speeds. When I tested it with a certain download, with it disabled, I was getting around
seven megabytes per second, and with it enabled, I was getting around 20 megabytes per second,
way faster. I have read that it creates three parallel connections, which does check out with
the result that I got. Next up, this is one of my personal favorites, and I don't see a reason
not to enable it, and that is "tab audio muting UI control." So you may already know that if a
tab in Chrome is playing audio in the background, it will have a little speaker icon in the tab.
What this flag does, if it's enabled, allows you to simply click on that little speaker icon
and mute it right away. So it saves you a click. So it's just a little bit extra convenience. This
actually has been a flag for a very long time, and I really don't know why they haven't implemented
it by default yet. Moving on, this next one is pretty cool, and it's called "camera and mic
preview." And what this does is when a website requests to use your webcam and microphone, like
for a video call or something, it'll actually show you a little preview of the video feed
coming from the webcam. Whereas normally, yes, it'll give you the option to select a webcam
and allow or deny it. This one will actually show you a preview of each one as you select it.
You can be sure that the site is actually going to be using the correct webcam when you join the
video feed or whatever. Next up, we have another related flag that I think is really cool, and it's
called "one-time permission." And with this one, again, when a website pops up a request to use
your microphone and camera, this will give you an additional option to "allow only this time."
So before, you would grant a website access to your webcam, and then it would just have access.
Whereas this time, you can do it only temporarily, and then you can grant it permission each time.
Specifically, you would see the options for allow this time, allow on every visit, or don't allow.
And I think this one pretty much speaks for itself for why it's cool. Now on the topic of Chrome,
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being said, let's continue. Alright, starting with this next flag, most of these are just going to
be down to personal preference. And this first one is called "Omnibox Google Drive Document
Suggestions." Now the name is actually a bit deceptive, so let me explain. If you just read the
text, it kind of makes it seem like all this does is makes it so Google Drive files show up when
you type things into the search bar, but that's not exactly only it. Apparently, it turns out that
what this one also does is if you disable it, it will prioritize URLs auto-completing when you go
to type something in as opposed to search terms. Whereas if this is enabled like it is by default,
there's a chance if you go to type something in, even if it's a website that you visit very often,
it might just start auto-completing search terms, even if you want to go to a website. And what I
had found is it was really bad at predicting what I was typing in. Even if I was visiting a website
that I visited often, it would not auto-complete that and I'd have to end up typing in the entire
URL. So I think it makes most sense to just have this disabled. Alright, onto the next one, we have
"Smooth Scrolling." So you might not realize that Google Chrome by default has smooth scrolling
on, although it's very subtle. It's not like the annoying, super delayed smooth scrolling some
browsers have. And actually the default setting doesn't bother me. However, you can try disabling
this and you should probably notice a difference and you might actually prefer it without the
smooth scrolling. I think it does actually feel a little bit more responsive. It might be
easier to scroll through things faster. However, it doesn't necessarily look as nice. So I think
it's just one to try and see what you prefer. Alright up next, I'm going to combine several
flags into one because they all have to do with just the design of the scroll bar on the right.
The first one is called "Overlay Scroll Bars" and you can see what this does. It makes it so
there's no track actually that always shows like by default on a scrollable page. So with this, it
just shows the scroll bar thing on the right hand side. And when you move your mouse close to it,
it actually expands a bit wider, so it's easier to grab. But what's also notable is the scroll
bar will disappear until you move your mouse close to it or you start scrolling. So I guess
that's the reason it's called the overlay. And another important thing to note about this one is
since the track is not there, it's only the little bar. If you click anywhere else above or below the
bar, it won't jump to that like it would with the regular scroll bar. So if you find yourself very
frequently accidentally clicking somewhere other than the scroll bar and accidentally scrolling
someplace, then you might prefer this because you specifically have to click exactly on the
scroll bar to drag it. You might prefer that. The other two related flags I can mention are
"Fluent Overlay Scroll Bars" and "Fluent Scroll Bar." These just have a slightly different design.
You'll notice that with the Fluent Overlay Scroll Bars, interestingly, this one actually does
not show up even if you move your mouse close to it. I don't know if that's a bug or what. You
actually have to start scrolling with your mouse wheel and then it will appear. And then it is kind
of a similar thing where it'll expand once you do move your mouse closer. Then the Fluent Scroll Bar
is very much like the default one. It always shows the scroll bar. It's just a little bit different
design. You might prefer that. Alright, this next one is definitely going to be preferential,
and that is "Chrome Refresh 2023." So you may have noticed in 2023 they did a redesign
of Chrome. I actually think it looks okay, but it looks very different than what it used to.
And if you preferred strongly the previous design, you can simply disable this flag and it'll go
back to looking the way it did before. For now, at least, they might remove this eventually.
But again, if you really liked the last one, this is one to look at. This next flag is one more
for advanced users, and that is "Allow Invalid Certificates for Resources Loaded from localhost."
A few things for context, if you're not aware, localhost just means that you're connecting to
something on that same computer. It's also the same as the address 127.0.0.1. The other thing for
context is you may have seen how if a website has a SSL certificate that is not in the computer's
trusted store, it'll pop up a big warning page, and then you can proceed if you want. You can
click that. It's just an extra step. But if you are someone who is hosting a program
on the computer that uses a web interface, and happens to use its own SSL signed certificate,
it pops up a warning page, and it can be kind of annoying. So if you know what you're doing, and
this is the case, I don't want to go too much into the technicals of it. If this is something that
can benefit you, you probably already know it. And it basically just makes it so if you're connecting
to a localhost web server, and it's not secure, it ignores the screen. It goes directly to it,
though it does still say not secure at the top left. Alright, this next flag is more going to be
useful for testing purposes, and it's "Force Color Profile." And this one actually helped me realize
something when I was making this video. What this does is lets you select the color profile or color
gamut that Chrome will use, as opposed to just the default setting, which uses the Windows default
color gamut. And the reason this is important is if you happen to have a high color gamut
monitor that supports like Adobe RGB or P3 or something like that, if you have a monitor like
that, you might already know it. And you didn't actually go into the Windows settings and set
a profile that matches your monitor, actually, you're probably getting less accurate colors
without even realizing it. Now to actually show you what I mean, you can test this for yourself
right now. There's a website I'll put a link to in the description. It's basically a site for
testing wide color gamut images on your monitor. And the test you can do, is first make sure the
Force Color Profile is set to default. So you don't want to change it yet. And look on this test
page and see if you can tell a difference between the wide gamut and regular sRGB images. Like this
W, if you know that you have a wide color gamut monitor and you don't see the W in this image,
that means that you do not have a correct color profile set on Windows. Then what you can do next
as further confirmation is go into the Force Color Profile and set it to a wider one, such as Display
P3, and then enable that and relaunch it. And then if you do see the W and a difference between the
images, that means that your monitor is capable of displaying accurate either wide gamut images or
not, but you do not have a correct color profile set in Windows. And I made a whole video talking
about this. I'll have a pop out if you want to go more into detail about it. But basically the
result of this, if you don't have a correct color profile set in Windows, it means that your
monitor is just going to be showing the maximum saturation it is capable of at all times. Which
might look pretty, but if a image has an embedded color profile that specifically is saying, "No,
you should be using sRGB. This is the proper way it should look," then your monitor doesn't know
how to display that. So it still displays it at maximum saturation, and that's why you wouldn't
notice a difference in the images. As for how to get the proper color profile, if you don't want to
watch my whole video, an easy way you can try is to look on your monitor manufacturer's website and
the product page for that monitor. They might have a download section with like drivers and the user
manual, and they may also have a color profile you can download and use with Windows. And one thing
to be clear of, if you do change it to Display P3, and then you do see the W, that doesn't mean, "Oh,
well it's fixed now. I'll just keep it on display P3." That means that you should probably do it
in Windows, so it works on your entire computer across all your programs. Just be aware of that.
Alright anyway, moving on, this next one is a lot simpler, and this is called "Tab Scrolling."
And this is going to be more useful for people who have tons of tabs open at the same time. And
this one, depending on the setting you choose, simply makes it so instead of the tabs growing
ever and ever smaller as you open more of them, it will actually make it so they overflow and become
scrollable sideways. And there's a few options. You can make the minimum size medium, large. You
can also make it not shrink the tabs ever at all, they always only scroll. You have a lot of options
here. Alright, this next one actually has to do with a relatively new feature that's been in
Chrome by default called Reading Mode. And what that feature does is if you're on a webpage, like
with a news article or something, you can click the reading mode and it'll ideally just show the
text of the article. So it might be easier to read with less clutter. And what these two possible
flags do is basically controls how Chrome will do the condensing of that article. So if you notice
that it doesn't really work very well on certain pages, you might want to change one of these
flags to enable a different method. For example, you could try the one flag called "reading mode
with Screen2x", which apparently uses some kind of machine learning AI method, or you could
do another one that's rules-based algorithm. I don't know which one of these is actually default,
but you can just try each one and see which works better if you have any issues. Alright finally, we
have a flag called "Chrome labs," which makes it potentially easier to control which experimental
features you have enabled in Chrome that you might not have been aware of. So basically the Google
Chrome team, they test out features by kind of enabling them on random people's browsers, and you
might not know about them. So if you enable this, you might see a beaker show up at the top
right. And I know this shows up in the beta, but it might not necessarily actually show up to
everyone on the regular version. It didn't for me. But if you do see it, it'll look like this,
where you can toggle on and off certain features that you might not like, and you didn't know why
something changed and looked like that. That might be one of those. You can just turn it off and on.
So hopefully you found these pretty interesting and you got some cool new features that you didn't
know were possible in Chrome. Definitely let me know what you think down in the comments, which
is your favorite. And if perhaps I missed some, or maybe it's in the future and there's a new
one that wasn't here that you want to tell people about. Thanks again to Ground News for sponsoring.
Be sure to visit Ground.News/ThioJoe, link in the description, and get 30% off unlimited access or
try it for less than $1 this month only. If you want to keep watching, the next video I recommend
is the one I talked about before with making sure that your monitor is working with the correct
color profile that it should. I'll put that link right there you can click on. Thanks so much
for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.
