How To

AdBlock vs. Adblock Plus: The Ultimate Comparison With Pros & Cons

by MAHESH MOHAN on March 18, 2018

AdBlock vs Adblock Plus

It’s no secret that ad blocking extensions like AdBlock, Adblock Plus, and AdBlock Pro are becoming increasingly popular today with over 200 million active users and it’s costing publishers billions of dollars.

In fact, as I write this blog post, both AdBlock and Adblock Plus have over 50 million users. I was actually not using an adblocker until few months ago as I rarely click ads. So, I argued with myself why should I install an adblocker when it doesn’t make any difference.

However, I tried AdBlock few months back — when YouTube ads became increasingly annoying — and immediately realized that it’s a must-have for me. The only thing is… it’s NOT the extension’s ad blocking capability that I find interesting. But it’s something else — which I will explain below.

Adblock & Adblock Plus: A Brief History

As you probably know, the two most popular ad blockers for Google Chrome are AdBlock and Adblock Plus. What’s the difference? Well, it sounds similar but they are two different extensions developed independently.

Apparently, AdBlock was inspired by Adblock Plus itself when it was just a Firefox only add-on. Now ‘AdBlock Plus’ is also available for Google Chrome, Android, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer, etc. and ‘AdBlock’ is available for Google Chrome, Safari, Opera, and iOS.

Adblock Plus is the most popular Firefox add-on with over 21 million users (it’s got the first-mover advantage on Mozilla Firefox) and AdBlock is the most popular Chrome extension (it’s got the first-mover advantage on Google Chrome).

By the way, both AdBlock and Adblock Plus claims that it’s the most popular ad blocker and both have over 40 million users. However, AdBlock has almost 2x more ratings than Adblock Plus on Chrome Web Store, so I guess it’s safe to assume that it’s the most popular ad blocker on Google Chrome. [Read more…] about AdBlock vs. Adblock Plus: The Ultimate Comparison With Pros & Cons

How To Create Custom Search Engines In Google Chrome To Boost Productivity

by MAHESH MOHAN on March 15, 2018

Google Chrome’s Omnibox (or the address bar) is not something new to you and me.It allows us to navigate to a webpage or search the web from the address bar. And yeah, it even acts as a search engine to browse your own search and Chrome browsing history.

But did you know that it’s much more than just an address bar? That it can easily boost your productivity by helping you create and add your own custom search engines?

If you’re a Web 2.0 fanatic then I’m pretty sure that you often use the search engines by the popular (and biggest) web 2.0 sites like Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, YouTube, etc. But the problem is, every time you want to use its search feature, you have to actually visit those websites and then use its search function.

Of course, Google Chrome automatically adds all those custom search engines when you visit those websites (even if you don’t want to). That is, when you visit Amazon.com and uses its search engine, Chrome automatically adds a custom Amazon search to its list of search engines.

Like this:

Google Chrome Custom Search Engines (Auto Generated)

It’s a nice feature, right? Well, not necessarily. The problem arises when you need tailored search results and a custom shortcut key (or known as the keyword in Google Chrome’s custom search engines).

3 Best Of The Best Remote Desktop Access Software That Are Free

by MAHESH MOHAN on March 14, 2018

The Best Remote Desktop Access Software

There was a time when I (and probably you) struggled with Microsoft Windows Remote Desktop software on a Windows PC to remotely access someone else’s computer. It was a terrible experience and never worked for me as it involved quite a few network settings and protocols — which I still don’t understand much.

And there were few free and premium remote desktop connection managers like LogMeIn, GoToMyPC, etc. at that time. But I was least interested in trying those remote desktop connection managers as it was of no use to me.

Then, with the advent of the smartphone era, I tried remote desktop apps for mobile like Splashtop, PocketCloud, LogMeIn, Join.me, and TeamViewer, etc. and almost all of them failed to impress me. It was simply not the kind of productivity apps that I wanted or even care about.

My impression completely changed when Microsoft and Google introduced their own Remote Desktop apps for web and mobile a few years back. The good thing is… both works perfect and is free without any restriction.

So here is a quick review (plus comparison) of the 3 (and only 3) best remote desktop access software that are free.

1. Chrome Remote Desktop

Chrome Remote Desktop is a Google Chrome app that lets you access all your computer(s) from another computer or from your mobile device(s). It can be used for a variety of purposes like to access your own computer from a remote location or to provide (or get) remote support or to securely access your files or software applications on your computer from a mobile device, and so on.

What I really like about Chrome Remote Desktop is that it’s linked to your Google account. So there’s no such thing as an extra user id or special codes to access your computer from another device of yours. And the installation and setup is pretty simple. All you need to do is install the Chrome Remote Desktop app on all your devices (computers, tablets, mobiles) and you’re good to go. [Read more…] about 3 Best Of The Best Remote Desktop Access Software That Are Free

How To Change Chrome Bookmark Favicons In Less Than 5 Minutes

by MAHESH MOHAN on March 12, 2018

Google Chrome

If you’re a power Google Chrome user then you probably know that we CAN’T change the favicons of Chrome bookmarks. But it’s possible in Internet Explorer and it’s super easy. Since Internet Explorer stores all the bookmarks in your PC’s Favorites folder (C:\Users\<Your User Name>\Favorites), you can change its favicon by using the “Change Icon…” option of each bookmark’s Properties (Right-click Bookmark > Properties > Change Icon…).

iCloud Email Address: One Productivity Tip You Probably Didn’t Know (Plus 3 Things About Gmail, Outlook.com, & Yahoo Mail)

by MAHESH MOHAN on March 11, 2018

Apple Cloud

I never blogged much about iCloud Mail or Yahoo Mail as I never find it useful or interesting — except the disposable addresses in Yahoo Mail.

A disposable address lets you create up to 500 temporary email address within Yahoo Mail. You can create a disposable address any time and delete it after use. It’s a good thing if you don’t want to reveal your “real” email address to anyone.

It’s a feature that is really missing in Gmail or Outlook.com but both Gmail and Outlook.com support sub-addressing though it’s not as useful as disposable addresses. Anyway, I didn’t want to switch to Yahoo Mail only to get that feature.

But a few years back I realized that an iCloud email address (@icloud.com) is also useful — and interesting — as it supports both sub-addressing and disposable addresses (sort of). [Read more…] about iCloud Email Address: One Productivity Tip You Probably Didn’t Know (Plus 3 Things About Gmail, Outlook.com, & Yahoo Mail)

101 Things After Starting A WordPress Blog

by MAHESH MOHAN on February 11, 2018

101 Things After Starting A WordPress Blog

You can’t start a WordPress blog in 10 minutes. And you can’t start one in 10 hours either. You know why? Because it takes countless hours to customize WordPress and get things done and make things look like the way you want (unless you are a WordPress geek).

And hey, I didn’t even count the time required to actually create content. That’s the real purpose of a blog, right?

First things first.

I’m going to assume that you have already purchased a domain name, web hosting plan, and have installed WordPress (either manually or automatically via your web hosting control panel). If not, you should. ;)

So, I have just installed WordPress at http://www.minterest.in (a demo WordPress site that I have temporarily created to write this very blog post).

And the idea is to reverse engineer Minterest (this blog) — by installing and customizing the WordPress theme and the set of WordPress plugins that I’m using on this blog. However, there are few limitations as the demo site doesn’t have (real) content.

I have tried to replicate as many things as possible from this blog on the demo site so that both look identical.

Don’t Miss: 27 Things Before Starting A WordPress Blog

The Best Dictation (Voice To Text) Software Is Here (And It’s Free!)

by MAHESH MOHAN on February 10, 2018

I’m a desktop kind of person who almost always prefer a computer over a phone — unless I’m away from my desk. I have already mentioned on several blog posts that I take a lot of time to create a blog post — from researching to writing to editing to formatting.

And that’s why I’m always trying to find a way to streamline my content creation process — to make it more consistent, stress-free, and efficient. Obviously, the biggest task involved in publishing a blog post is actually the writing process itself.

Once the first draft gets done, the rest happens like magic!

Don’t Miss: The Fantastic Ten Tools (Free) To Skyrocket Your Productivity

Over the past several months/years, I tried several dictation or voice to text software — including the super-popular Dragon Speech Recognition Software (but I tried it several years back) — and nothing really worked for me.

Not anymore!

Meet “Voice typing…” On Google Docs

I was an active Google Docs user until few months back and then almost stopped using it. A couple of weeks back I noticed that Google introduced “Voice typing…” to Google Docs. However, it’s not supported in its iOS (on iPhone and iPad) apps, yet. [Read more…] about The Best Dictation (Voice To Text) Software Is Here (And It’s Free!)