Google Chrome Life Hacks That Will Help QAs And Others In Their Work

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Around 2.65 billion people use Google Chrome. We don't know how many of them are QA engineers, just like we don't know the percentage of users who work in IT companies in other positions and use Chrome in their work on a daily basis.

But we are almost sure that many do not know all its capabilities. And they don't know about extensions that will improve your productivity x10.

So, let's try to unravel some of the secrets of Google Chrome, shall we?

1. View inaccessible web pages from Google cache.

If, for some reason, the site is down or unavailable, but you still need to access it, you can use the cached version of the site, but only if the site is in "production" and can be seen by the Google search engine. To do this, you need to enter the link in the address bar and insert "cache:" before it, after which the cached version of the site will open if it exists. 

For example, cache:https://www.google.com 

Note. You can also open a recently deleted web page or view a previous version of the web page in this way.

2. Play media files in Google Chrome.

Media files from the local disk can be played in the Google Chrome browser window without launching other apps. Just drag and drop a music track, video, image, text file, or PDF file into the browser window, and the file will automatically play. 

3. Chrome keyboard shortcuts.

The Google Chrome browser has a massive number of hotkeys that save you time and make you more productive. Opening tabs and windows, navigating between them, and clicking on links is easy and familiar with the mouse, but using Chrome shortcuts is much more convenient. Follow this link to see the complete list of shortcuts. 

4. Speed up your browser with the built-in task manager.

The Google Chrome browser also has its own task manager. The browser creates a separate process for each tab. The Task Manager helps you determine the amount of memory allocated for tabs. It helps you identify resource-intensive tabs and close them without restarting the browser completely. To open the Task Manager, click the More Tools - Task Manager menu or press Shift + Esc.

5. Using hidden features.

The Google Chrome browser has a number of hidden features that can be enabled or disabled, but such settings are not on the surface. To access the hidden settings, enter chrome://flags in the browser address bar. 

The most useful hidden features of Google Chrome: 

• download resumption function (in the event of a network outage, the process of downloading a large file will be resumed from the point at which it was interrupted);
• fast closing of tabs and windows (this feature allows you to disconnect the Chrome JavaScript handler from the graphical user interface, which can increase the speed of closing tabs);
• FPS counter (allows you to track the frame rate per second when hardware acceleration is enabled);
• disabling tabs (a helpful feature that can significantly save RAM. If this option is enabled, Google Chrome can work with only one tab at a time, while you can still create many tabs. The browser will update the last visited address when switching to a new page);
• automatic saving of passwords. 

6. View the list of DNS queries.

Sometimes, situations arise when you need to configure DNS using a browser rather than a personal computer, track routing, and find out the IP address of a website. The Google Chrome browser has its own list of DNS polled by the browser. In order to access the list of DNS queries, you need to enter chrome://net-internals/#dns/ in the browser's address bar. 

7. View network information

You can access the list of network information at chrome://net-internals. You can use this page to get information about network events generated by the browser. You can also export information from this page. 

8. Get information about the disk space used by the browser

You can get information about the disk space used by the browser at chrome://quota-internals.

9. View HTML code and CSS styles for a web page element.

One of the ways of inspection is to right-click on the element on the page and select the Inspect menu item. This will open the Elements developer toolbar, where the necessary HTML code will be highlighted, and the CSS styles will be shown in the bottom panel.

10. Geolocation emulation.

Very often, users face a situation where the website of a particular service requests information about their geographic coordinates. Based on them, the service provides the user with up-to-date data. But there are situations when the user does not want to show their accurate coordinates or needs to test a website or service in different cities/countries. You can use the built-in geolocation emulator in Google Chrome to do this. To access it, you need to open the menu More tools - Developer tools or press the F12 key or the key combination Ctrl + Shift + I, then click on the three vertical dots in the upper right corner of the developer tools, select the menu More tools - Sensors. In the Geolocation item, you can select one of the listed cities to emulate geolocation or enter geodata manually. After that, you can close the developer tools, refresh the page, and allow the site to receive our coordinates.

11. Using a browser as a mobile device emulator.

This is a convenient tool for testing in different screen resolutions and checking the display of the site on mobile devices. To access it, you need to open the menu Other Tools - Developer Tools or press the F12 key or the key combination Ctrl + Shift + I, then click the Toggle device Toolbar button or use the key combination Ctrl + Shift + M. In the top menu, you can select the type of device to emulate, set the screen resolution manually, change the screen orientation from vertical to horizontal, and vice versa. The device emulation mode can be used by testers in the absence of the necessary device for testing the website layout. However, the device mode gives only a rough idea of how the site will look on a mobile device, so you still need to use an actual device to test the functional part of the site.

12. Review for the presence/absence of errors or warnings in the web page code and during any operation.

The Console tab is a convenient and popular tab among QAs. In this tab, you can see errors in the code found during script execution. This window also displays warnings and recommendations. Studying errors and warnings in the Console tab is very important in case of an operation failure. All messages displayed in the tab can be filtered.

An error also displays its location. When you click on the location, the Sources tab opens, where the error is displayed in the overall page structure.

13. View the execution time of specific requests and the requests themselves.

Using the Network tab of the developer menu, you can see the execution time of requests. You can also determine how much time it takes to load and process specific resources so that you can later find out where and how you can optimize the page.

     14. Stopping JavaScript execution

The JavaScript pause function is proper, for example, for testing hover states, pop-ups, and other intermediate states.

The easiest way to do this is to open the developer tools by pressing F12 or the menu Other Tools" - "Developer Tools" and select the "Sources" tab. After that, perform the required action and press the F8 key. In the stopped code, you can view the current values of variables, execute commands, and debug them.

15. Adding articles to your Reading List.

No Time to Read Now? Save Articles for Later!

To start, click the bookmark icon and choose Add to Reading List. When you're ready to catch up on your reading, click the Reading List button on the bookmark bar to see all your saved articles. You can easily categorize them as 'Read' or 'Unread' and remove them as needed.

16. Use Google Chrome extensions to optimize your workflows.

There are a lot of extensions. Both functional and not-so-useful. Today, we recommend you pay attention to Issue Creator for Jira Cloud.

It is a multi-tool from SaaSJet that becomes an indispensable assistant in the process of testing, creating bug reports, technical tasks such as Jira issues, etc.

Main features: 

• Adding annotations to a live web page.
• Take screenshots. Automatically add them to a Jira issue without saving them to your device.
• Video recording of the screen. You can attach it to the issue right away.
• Linking web page elements to a Jira issue.
• Tool web editor that allows you to feel like a front-end developer - change the placement of elements on the page, edit their appearance, etc.
• Want to experiment? Use the AI-prompt option to make the desired changes on the web page. Add a screenshot to the task, and clearly illustrate what you want them to do to your developers.

We hope you find all the tips and tricks of the Google Chrome helpful browser. As for the Issue Creator for the Jira Cloud extension, we're offering a 30-day trial for you to evaluate its potential. 

Good luck with your work!

[Andy Gladstone]

I use Chrome all day every day and just learned so many tips I never knew before! Thanks for the publish and sharing!

[Iryna Komarnitska_SaaSJet_]

@Andy Gladstone Thank you for your feedback. I'm glad you found the article helpful :)