Chrome – Techodyssey

A Chrome Password Problem

I found a strange issue with Google Chrome and its saved password list. Chrome will save passwords and you can view the list of passwords that have been saved. If you change a password it will remember the new password and use it to log you into the site. However I found that if you view the password list it shows the previous password not the updated password.

To explain that a little more clearly, say you set up an account at a site with your username and a password of “abc123”. Then you realise that that isn’t a good password and so change it to “xyz321”. You can log out of the site and next time you try to log in, Chrome will autofill the username and password boxes with the current password. However if you look at Chrome’s settings – advanced – manage passwords, it will still show the original value of “abc123” in the password field.

I tried a few things, including resetting the Chrome profile, which is the Chrome help site’s fallback fix for everything, but they didn’t work. The only thing that did work was to delete all the displayed passwords for that site from Chrome’s settings screen. Then log in to the site again, Chrome still remembered the login credentials even though I had deleted everything that was displayed. Then the saved password list was updated and I could view the current password.

A rather strange issue I know. I should mention that I use the beta version of Chrome so that maybe part of the problem but hopefully this will help someone else.

YouTube, Cookies and Comments

Anyone who has commented on a YouTube video recently will be aware that the commenting system has changed. It has been integrated into Google+, not a problem for those of us already on G+ but a nuisance for everyone else. It should be an easy change if you already have a G+ account but some people have had problems.

Most problems seem to involve cookies. Cookies are small files web sites leave on your computer. They can be useful as a way of remembering your preferences and the like but they can also be misused. One of the ways to avoid potential problems is to control the way cookies are set. Chrome has an option to disable 3rd party cookies, that is only the site you are logged into can set a cookie. This may seem straight forward but many sites use 3rd party sites to add functionality, usually quite legitimately like WordPress and Gravatar. Unfortunately the link between YouTube and Google+ is broken by setting this option.

If you use Chrome and find you can no longer comment on YouTube but have already set up a Google+ account check your settings. Go to Settings – Advanced – Privacy – Content Settings, under Cookies check the last option (Block third party cookies and site data) isn’t checked.

Google Chrome in Korora

Korora comes with many repos already set up so you can just install many software packages from the Package Manager or command line. One of the repos that is set up is Google Chrome. A simple

dnf install google-chrome

will install the stable version of Google Chrome.

However if you want the beta or unstable version, I prefer the beta version, then you need to edit the repo file. Actually other versions like the beta will install with the specific command

dnf install google-chrome-beta

but they won’t be updated in future. Using your preferred text editor open /etc/yum.repos.d/google-chrome.repo. The last line is an exclude statement. You will need to delete or comment out this line. Alternatively you could edit it by removing the version you wish to install / update from that line.

Now you can use the beta or unstable version of Google Chrome in Korora.

Browsing

I haven’t been here for a while, I know, so here is something I’ve found recently. I have been using Firefox as my main browser since before it reached ver 1 but lately I felt it was getting slower. I have tried a few others, Konquerer, the default browser on KDE is quite good but had some problem with a couple of sites. I really liked Arora but I had become addicted to some of the add-ons in Firefox and Arora is a no frills browser.

Then I found Chrome by Google. Chrome is based on the open source Chromium and is easily the fastest browser I have used. It is still in beta, well it is a Google product, but I’ve found it quite stable.

Best of all it has most of the popular extensions that have made Firefox so powerful. Some of them are also still in development. I’ve had problems syncing with Xmarks, for example. I replaced the Gmail signature add-on I was using with Autopen which is much better. One disappointment is that Cooliris is only available for Windows at the moment. A linux and Mac version has been promised for a while but is still to appear.

I’ve had no problem getting You Tube to work and downloads seem to be handled better than Firefox too. One thing I would like to change is to have Chrome more integrated into the desktop. It doesn’t pick up display properties from the desktop but uses it’s own. Still I would recommend it, give it a try.