- Our web browsers are really pretty incredible tools,
they're almost like operating systems for the internet,
and we can modify what our web browser can do
and is capable of by adding extensions or web apps.
I'm gonna show you how to do that today on DottoTech.
(bubbly music)
Steve Dotto here, how the heck are you doing this fine day,
and today on the show I have one mission
and one mission only, and that is to show you how to find
and install browser add-ons or browser extensions.
Now this should not be something that causes you anxiety
but I know for a fact that a lot of people
get a little bit uptight when they're
considering having to add browser extensions
of browser add-ons in order to complete
some sort of a task on the internet,
so I will make it easy for you as we walk through it today.
Fair deal?
All right, let's dive into it.
First of all, a browser extension
or a browser add-on works almost identically
across all different browsers.
I'm gonna be showing it to you right now in Google Chrome,
but the exact same process happens
within Apple's Safari browser or within Firefox,
or within Microsoft's Edge browser,
it's the same process installing browser
extensions and browser add-ons.
And as I say what they do is they
add to the functionality, they add to the capability
of the browser, because browsers as they sit
have a certain number of features that are built into it,
but by adding extensions we can
make them work with other apps,
we can make them do other things,
especially work with other apps.
So for example, if you take a look here,
here is where all of my extensions live
in my web browser here in Chrome,
and you can see the ones that I use most often.
The first is LastPass, this is my password management tool.
So here I have access to all of my passwords
within the browser where I need them.
That's a perfect example of what an extension
should do for us in a web browser
so I installed the LastPass add-on
into my Chrome extension here,
I signed into my LastPass account
and now I have access for signing in to all of my accounts.
Now the reason that I recorded this particular video
was as a companion video for some educational videos
that we're doing to help teachers and students,
so we're gonna use some educational apps
as examples for installing extensions,
but this works for everybody that needs
to install a browser extension.
Now it all begins for us at something called
the Google Chrome Store, and all you have to do
is go to chrome.google.com.
When you're there you've got a search field
and you've got the most common
and most popular browser add-ons and extensions
listed out for you here.
Now, if you're looking for one specific one
or you're looking for an idea you can type it in.
So if you were for example wanting to
put in the same browser extensions that I have here,
if you wanted to add LastPass,
you just type in LastPass, do a search,
and there we have LastPass.
Now I've already installed it in my browser
but if I hadn't I would have this same
add to Chrome button.
So let's show you how to install
one of the extensions that we were
talking about in the other video that I was talking about,
and one of them is called Dualless,
which allows you to split your screen
if you have a single monitor here
it allows you to split the screen.
So I've typed in the search
and there is the browser extension.
And we'll have all of the links to all of the
browser extensions that we talked about in the video,
we'll have them all in our description as well.
But all we do here is we click add to Chrome.
Actually before you do that, let me cancel that,
instead of just straight adding it to Chrome,
by clicking on it you can go through
and you can read it and you can
see any demos that they might have,
any videos that they have that will demonstrate it
and you'll see a description of what the extension does.
And some of them are better written than others,
to be perfectly honest.
Some of them work really well
and other ones just kind of work so-so.
Some of them just work on the operating system,
like this one because this is just gonna split the screen,
other ones will create a connection
to another application that you run,
such as my LastPass that I was showing you moments ago,
or my Evernote web clipper which allows me
to clip content into Evernote.
So they work either just solo
or they work in conjunction with other apps.
Now typically speaking if you're gonna be
installing an extension that works with another app,
there might be several to choose from,
always look for the one that was created by the company
of the app that you're using,
because it's typically going to work better.
Regardless, once that's all done,
you click add to Chrome, it couldn't be easier,
and it asks if that's exactly what you wanna do,
you say add the extension, you give it permission,
and now it has been added to Chrome,
and do you see here in the very top
of my browser window that we can see
that Dualless has been added to Chrome.
You can use this extension by clicking on the icon
and typically speaking when you
install an extension it will be turned off
until you click on it and you turn it on.
Now in this particular case,
what this browser extension's gonna do
is it's gonna split my computer screen
into a couple of different windows,
so that I can show, if I'm screen sharing,
I can have my browser open in one window,
and perhaps the video conference open
in another window and it basically replicates
having multiple monitors at the same time.
It's a fairly useful utility,
and you can see here that I can go through
and I can choose, oh there it is
I split my window into two,
so you can see actually an open window that I have
for Google Meet open here
and we have the browser open on the other side.
So it gives you a good idea just how this works.
I want a different format, a different ratio,
it gives me that.
Let me try and get back to normal
so that I can continue with you.
So Dualless right here.
Oh, if you've made it, if you've got too many,
this is actually good, if you've got too many icons,
if you've got too many browser extensions installed
and you can't see them all 'cause you don't
have the screen real estate,
the little three dots here will allow you to go
and it'll allow you to navigate
to any ones that you can't see,
and I'll just go back to full screen.
So there you've got the ability to go through
and install extensions.
Now if you want to turn off extensions or remove them,
you go into, the easiest way to do that
is to go into, again, under the three dot menu
in the browser, go into your settings,
and in your settings you can choose extensions.
And when you choose extensions there
you can go through and you can
turn on or off extensions.
You can have extensions on your computer
that you haven't invoked, that aren't active,
and you can turn them on and off.
Now I have a ridiculous number of extensions
here on my screen because I'm constantly
testing out different ones,
but you can see the ones that are turned on
and the ones that are turned off.
And just by flipping this toggle
I can turn any extensions off that are on,
and on that are off, so you have total control,
and if there's something that you're
never going to use, you can click on remove.
Now before I leave this, and this works pretty much
identically on all the browsers,
I'm not gonna spend time showing you that right now,
but it works the same in Safari
as it does in Firefox, as it does here in Google Chrome.
Now before we leave, there's two other things
that I need to tell you about.
The first is there's also a type
of browser extension called a web app,
which is far more capable than these
simple little apps that we're talking about right now.
These apps that install here in the menu bar
do very simple, very basic things.
Over here on the other side of the menu bar,
we have the app screen, and you can install web apps
in the same Google Store,
but web apps are different than browser extensions
in the fact that they are actually fully capable
almost full applications.
So if we say, go into Google Drive,
if we invoke the Google Drive web app,
it actually has it's entire application
in the web browser window,
it's got it's own menus.
We click here and down pop menus,
so we've got a full navigation interface
and a full app interface within a browser itself.
So web apps are far more capable
but effectively they do a lot of the same things
as do extensions or add-ons,
and people will sometimes call one the other,
they'll call and add-on a web app,
and they'll call a web app an add-on,
but just recognize that truly web apps
are more capable versions of extensions or add-ons.
The second thing that I wanted to tell you
is what I've just shown you does not work in mobile.
Even though we use the Chrome browser
or the Safari browser on our smart phone
or on our tablet, we can't install
the same extensions on those platforms,
because the extensions relate to the operating system
as well as the browser itself,
so because we're in a mobile environment
we can't extend the functionality
the same way on a tablet or on a phone
as we can on our desktop.
So all of the different browser extensions,
all of the different browser add-ons that we show you here,
you can't use in your mobile version.
(woosh)
I hope you found this little tutorial today to be useful.
We will include links in the description below
to other documents that will help you
walk you through this if you need further information
on any of these topics.
Now I do have a few favors to ask.
First of all, if you've enjoyed the video
and found value, please give us a thumbs up,
and if you have any comments or questions
I look forward to reading them in the YouTube comments.
Additionally, if you've not yet subscribed to our channel,
what are you waiting for?
(click)
Click that subscribe button, ring that notification bell
and I will see you next time right here for more DottoTech,
until then, I'm Steve Dotto,
have fun storming a castle.