When Google first released its Chrome browser, I used it quite a bit. Over time, I found myself using Firefox more and more largely because it plays nicely with small screens. The screen on my netbook and my UMPC just don’t have enough screen real estate to waste it on Chrome’s huge header. I had really hoped there would be a full screen option for Chrome by now.
Today I accidentally discovered that you can give yourself an “almost” full screen experience. Check this out:
Here’s how I did it:
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In Chrome, browse to a good home page (Google’s home page or iGoogle works well as noted below)
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Click on the page icon to the right of the address bar in Chrome’s toolbar
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Click on “Create application shortcuts…”
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Select “Desktop” and click “OK”
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Go to your desktop and launch the “Application shortcut” that has the name of your new home page
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Maximize the window and enjoy “near” full screen browsing in Chrome
Tips:
- There are no navigation buttons available to you in this view. You can use the “Backspace” key to go backwards in your browser history. Alternatively, you can use the Alt key in combination with the left and right arrow keys to go backwards and forwards (respectively) through the history.
- You don’t get an address bar this way, but if you use a Google page as suggested above, you can do a Google search for any URL and it will always be the first hit.
- If you want to truly maximize your screen real estate, change your taskbar to not stay on top of other windows.
You can access back and forward button by going up to the little page icon in the top right hand corner and click the little arrow.