chrome

[pilvikki]

what a PITA! took me a while to figure out what it did to top loki into the infuriating incognito mode, but until now, I've already wiped out and reinstalled chrome twice. once it kicks in, I can't figure out how to lose it.

i'd even put up with the grey 'death screen', except my taskbar is gone, even if I open a normal window. it also starts playing up all kinds of stuff in general.

and then there's the address bar. the daft thing stretches so far over that my apps, or extension or whatever they are get pushed off screen and are inaccessible.


I really liked firefox, sniff, but the endless 'not responding' got really old after a while....

[yogi]

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I'm assuming you are not using Windows 10 here.

I'm having a difficult time trying to understand exactly what it is you are telling me because I don't have an incognito mode per se in my version of Google Chrome (Version 46.0.2490.86 m). There are various things you can do to hide your identity, such as use a proxy or a VPN service, but after spending some time checking out the settings I see no choice for going incognito. Thus, I don't know exactly to what you are referring.

Google Chrome, as well as many other programs, save a lot of configuration information in hidden places on your computer. The best shot you have at removing it all is to use the highly recommended Revo Uninstaller program. I'd also recommend that you do the removal in the Windows Safe mode: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/wind ... =windows-7 The Safe Mode looks strange and primitive when you use it, but your chances of successfully removing everything are enhanced therein. Reboot into the normal mode after you remove the offending software.

Download a fresh copy of Google Chrome when you reinstall it. It changes almost on a daily basis so that you can only be certain you have what is current by downloading a fresh copy. If all your problems still exist after reinstalling a fresh version, then the problem is probably not the browser. It is something else that needs to be troubleshot.

While I can't be certain about this, some of the things you are describing sound like a problem with your monitor screen resolution. Go to the START menu (lower left corner) and in the search box type "adjust screen resolution." Click on the link from the list provided and experiment with the resolution settings. Once the monitor screen is set to the correct resolution, then the browser windows should start acting normal again.

There are a lot of browsers out there which are "lite" versions and easy on system resources. Of course the Lite software may not have all the features you want, but they should not give Loki a heart attack. Then there are ones not so "lite" but different enough from what you are currently using to possible give you a better experience. Here is a list from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_browsers It's mind boggling even to us experienced geeks. In any case, I'd be happy to help you out in any way I can. And, if you find something good, make sure you report back to us with all the details. I'm always open to new ideas.

[pilvikki]

no..., still on 8.1. I was going to switch to 10 to see if that would solve some issues, but guess what.... my admin p/w does not work and I've no idea what the hell brought that on! it's almost as if I had some nasty virus, but cannot find anything no matter how I dig.

ok, the incognito feature is found where the hamburger button is at R hand corner. if you click that, you get an incognito (I have to stop and think of the spelling every time, lol) option, third down. I apparently have accidentally run either the cursor or my fat fingers across it.

I've readjusted the screen resolution, let's see how that's going to work.

thanks!

[pilvikki]

same version code as yours...

[pilvikki]

there's a new firefox version. I've always liked it, so i'll try that again. for now.

[yogi]

I found the incognito mode ... thank you very much for the heads up. It's easy enough to switch out of it. Just close the window and you are back to normal mode. Or, Press Ctrl+N (for New Window). From what I can tell Chrome incognito is ... well ... useless. All it does is prevent your browser from storing information about your session. People you visit still know who you are and nothing is encrypted. So, I don't get the point of it.

My default browser these days is Nightly. Nightly is the nightly build of what we all know and love to be Firefox. The nightly build channel updates the browser every day, including (to my amazement) Christmas. The updates are new features that you won't find in the stable release and you are more or less beta testing them. The downside, of course, is that somethings can break when the developers experiment. It's usually fixed in a day or two and I've never been without a browser using the Nightly build.

My Second choice browser is Maxthon, which I know you have tried in the past and discarded. It's an improved version of Google Chrome and would highly recommend it if you like what Chrome does.

My Third choice browser would be Google Chrome. I do all this website's administration using Google Chrome for no other reason than I can. I like to see what other browsers are doing, which is the main reason I use Chrome at all.

My Fourth choice browser is Opera. It used to be way up at the top of my list but they changed the way they do things a couple years ago. They dropped just below Internet Explorer when that happened. I'm currently using the beta version of Opera for administering my home LAN. It looks like they drifted back in the direction they used to follow several years ago and I may give it more serious consideration when I have time. Right now it's one notch above my last choice.

My Fifth choice of browser is Internet Explorer. If you love the way IE does what it does, it's not so bad. It's biggest failure is that it is a child of Microsoft who is pretty good at operating systems but sucks when it comes to browsers.

If you use Windows 10, you can install any of the above. In fact Internet Explorer comes with it, but oddly enough IE is not the default browser in Windows 10. They made a new one called Edge. Edge has some really interesting things and probably would be my browser of choice if it did not rely on the Bing search engine to do what it does. I can't find words adequate enough to tell you how bad Bing is, and it's a shame Microsoft is trying to tie the two together. Edge may grow into something worth using. It has a lot of potential. But I use Maxthon as my primary browser in my Windows 10 installation. One reason I do that is to stick it to Microsoft. I'm one of the Insiders who are evaluating their new releases, and I know they are tracking what I'm doing. I'm sure it pisses them off that I use Maxthon instead of Edge, but that's they price they pay when they force me to use Bing.

[Kellemora]

Ctrl-Shift-N opens a new window in Incognito mode, but all this does is tell the browser not to look at your bookmark and password file. So you have to enter your log-in information manually. It also does not send data from your personal file to the website you connected to, but it does send your IP address, it has to do that, so they still know who you are.

I have many web browsers on my computer, but currently prefer Google Chrome over all the rest.
The only think I do not like about Google Chrome is on Linux they embed PepperFlash with each update.
The last know working copy of PepperFlash was the May 12, 2015 version. So every time Google sends a Chrome update, we have to go in, delete PepperFlash, and install the May 12th version.
I don't know what we will do when that version is no longer recognized by the websites I visit which use Flash.
Some folks are getting used to using the cheapened lousy version of PepperFlash, but it still works much better than Adobe Flash Player.
Several on-line game companies have had to rewrite their game programs to work with the new Adobe Flash Player, while those of us using PepperFlash had no difficulties with game play. That is until they started trying to make the games work with the new Adobe Flash Player, which sucks canal water big time.
Adobe became tired of their own products years ago, and many believe their changes are an attempt to get companies to use something else so they can discontinue it. Hopefully HTML5 will drive Adobe into the history books where they belong.

[pilvikki]

well... I've tried every damned way of closing the ignoramus window, but it always takes the taskbar with it! meaning, when I eventually, after a big argument get into my regular window, there's no task bar. it's not hiding, it's just gone.

and... the address bat still stretches 9/10th of the way across, drowning out any add ons. not much point having them if you can't use them. there is that double arrow <-> that comes up at the end, but it will not do anything but blink.

I tried firefox again, but apparently I didn't manage to get roots out, which is, actually good as I can now pluck out the important bookmarks I thought i'd tossed with FF. i'll gather those up, and try the Nightly. i'm a night owl anyway! :)

thanks guys!

[yogi]

I can't find anything in particular about Google Chrome that would affect your viewing experience the way you describe it. The browser comes up in the normal browsing mode and you have to click on that link in order to get into the incognito mode. The incognito mode isn't doing anything more than not recording some information about your session. It still sends IP addresses, cookie information, and user agent strings to the websites you visit (which clearly identify who you are) but does not leave records on your PC regarding where you have been. To me this is silly, not incognito in any sense of the word. Be that as it may, I don't see how any of it would affect your task bar or your browser address bar. It looks suspicious if you only have this problem using Google Chrome. The solution there is to do what you are doing, i.e., use a different browser.

Mozilla Nightly will make you feel warm and fuzzy if you like Firefox. They release a stable version of Firefox every few weeks and most of the improvements are those worked out in the Nightly channel. Keep in mind that Nightly is an experimental version that you are testing for Mozilla. You may choose to send them data, or not, and as experiments go some do not work so well. You are agreeing to put up with the mistakes as well as be on the cutting edge of what is new when you go Nightly. Since I have a few browsers at my disposal, I'm not very concerned about Nightly breaking. As I said, it gets repaired in a day or two automatically. But, given the temperament of Loki, maybe something else would be more to your liking.

Speaking of Loki, if you are interested, I can pass along some DIY repair software that should fix any problems you have with Windows. Windows 8 is a problem all of it's own if you ask me, but it can be made to look factory fresh. The software I'm thinking of will take you a few hours to get through it all, but if you follow the directions closely I know you can do it. I'm also tempted to encourage you to upgrade to Windows 10 if Loki is up to it. If you like the way Windows 8 works, you will love Windows 10 - especially if you don't have to pay for it. Then again, don't upgrade unless you can go directly to the Pro version. As Gary can tell you, the lesser (Home) versions are lacking in many ways.

[pilvikki]

well... I did want to upgrade to 10, but for the sodding p/w issue; I can't run loki in admin mode without it. what happened there just infuriates me, for I wrote it down when I first set up loki - and have not used it since. the p/w I wrote down looks exactly like what I thought it was, but no go.

this is big problem otherwise, too.



and yes, I would be happy spending the time to fix loki's bad attitude!

[yogi]

Go here: http://www.tweaking.com/content/page/wi ... n_one.html and download the installer for Tweaking.com - Windows Repair Free.

This is an amazing program that will fix almost any problem you have with Windows, but it's not for the faint of heart. They use several applications that are built into Windows but nobody but us geeks know or care about. They should be done completely and in the order presented. Be sure to do the proper power reset even though it seems like a pain in the butt. It's complicated but they explain it well enough for anyone to do it.

Depending on how sick Loki is, the diagnostics and the cure might take a while. The last step is a long list of things that will be fixed after you do all the previous steps. You have the option to check and uncheck items in the list. I personally don't understand about half of what they have on that checklist, so I went with their default settings pretty much. I don't have Windows 8, and thus I unchecked all the stuff for that, but you do have Windows 8 and probably should go with the recommended settings. In any case, look over the list but don't worry about the stuff you have no clue about.

It's not really necessary, but I'd highly recommend that you make a backup image of your Windows 8 operating system before you start repairing it. If the repairs don't go well and you lock up your computer entirely, this backup image will get you back to where you were before you started. I don't mean to scare you here because the repair process is pretty well proven and safe. But it goes deep into the system's innards. Making an image Is that ounce of prevention that will avoid the pound of cure that could become necessary.

[pilvikki]

thanks!

i'll go for that as soon as I get a few hours of uninterrupted quiet.... hopefully before 2099...

[Kellemora]

I'm not all that computer savvy, even though folks think so.
When I get myself in over my head, I usually wipe the hard drive by reformatting, and then reinstall the OS and all the programs I use. Most of the time, this is the faster way to fix everything and start over fresh.
Once I get a system up and running properly, I do normally make an ISO of the system. But by the time I need it, it is so obsolete it is either useless, or I had to replace the computer and it won't work on a different computer properly.

Headaches with Windows machines, and the associated high cost, is one of the reasons I now use Linux exclusively.
My frau still uses Windows, and the new computer I bought for her, although it worked fairly well out of the box, we opted for the free upgrade to Windows10. Her new computer has been basically useless every since. The one and only thing she uses it for is her on-line stuff. She now uses Linux too when she has serious work to do, or needs access to our databases. The only way, other than using a USB stick to get info to her is for her to go to her Linux machine, fetch the file she wants to work on, then afterward upload her file to dropbox, download from dropbox to the Win10 machine so she can use it on-line or e-mail it to someone. For us Windows is a ROYAL PITA, Nuff Said!