If you’re using Google’s Chrome browser, it’s a bit more difficult. That’s because Google includes Flash as part of the browser itself. Thankfully, they’ve included it as a plug-in which can be turned off.

Type about:plugins in the URL bar and hit Return/Enter. A list of the plug-ins you have installed is displayed. Note that these are plug-ins, not extensions you install from the Chrome Store. Find the Adobe Flash Player plugin in the list and tick the Disable checkbox. After restarting Chrome, Flash will be off.

The downside is that Flash will be re-enabled the next time Google updates Chrome, which is quite often. You can download Flash blocker extensions, but I prefer to completely remove it and save myself the overhead of having yet another extension installed.

As you surf through the Chrome Store, things will start looking very familiar...

Google recently updated their Chrome Store, where you can download extensions and apps for the Chrome web browser and Chrome OS. It looks really nice, and for good reason. They basically copied the look and feel of Apple’s Mac App Store. Ugh…

Search from the address bar in Safari

Apparently I wasn’t alone, because a developer has recently released SafariOmnibar (direct download) for Safari for Snow Leopard and Lion. Run the Package installer and you’re good to go. As you can see in the image above, you’ll have the convenience of a single address/search bar.

Prepare for Pixelmator 2
For those who want full featured image editing but don’t want the price tag attached to Photoshop, Pixelmator is the perfect app. Pixelmator 2.0 will be available later this summer via the Mac App Store as a free upgrade for everyone who purchased any version of Pixelmator via the Mac App Store. For now, anyone who doesn’t have the app can purchase the currently available version of Pixelmator on the Mac App Store for $29 and receive a free upgrade of Pixelmator 2.0 once it is released.

Control your privacy in Google Chrome
I love Google Chrome, it’s a great Web browser with plenty of features and extensions. The problem is, it was made by Google; so you know they’re collecting all sorts of data while you’re using it. Ahad Bokhari has a great tutorial on how to protect your privacy while using Google Chrome.

Photoshop CS5 vs. CS5.5
If you work primarily in Adobe Photoshop, you may be wondering what the difference between PS CS5 (v. 12.0.4) and PS CS5.5 (v. 12.1) actually is. The answer is: absolutely nothing. John Nack explains on his blog.

Google stands by 15-minute refunds
Google offers a 15-minute time frame to receive a refund on apps purchased in the Android Marketplace. While many users complain that it takes that longer than 15-minutes to download and configure some apps, it’s still better than Apple’s refund time of zero!

View Instagram stream on your Mac
Screenstagram allows avid Instagram users to view their Instagram photo stream as a screensaver on any Snow Leopard Mac desktop or laptop.

40 Online generators for web designers and developers
Web forms, charts, button makers, AJAX plugins, fonts, color schemes, CSS menus, and more. Tripwire Magazine has a list of 40 great generators to save you some coding time.

Some of the most popular browsers from Mozilla, Google, Apple, and others

When Apple first released Mac OS X a decade ago, Mac users had little choice in web browsers. There was Microsoft Explorer, and Netscape Navigator, and… well, that was it. Soon after we were treated to a few more options, but nothing like we have today.

With Safari shipping on every Mac, and the world-wide popularity of Mozilla’s Firefox, you would think there wouldn’t be much room for competition in the web browser market. But the options have actually never been better for Mac users.

Mozilla:

• Minefield – The nightly code update from Mozilla, Minefield is generally two versions ahead of Firefox, and can be somewhat unstable.
• Aurora – A mostly optimized version of Mozilla’s next-gen Firefox code, this version is bound to still have bugs, but also contains the latest and greatest.
• Firefox Beta – Mozilla has yet to release a public beta, but it’s coming soon and available from the same download page as Aurora.
• Firefox – The most flexible and powerful web browser on any platform. Extensions make this a tech-geek favorite.
• SeaMonkey – Netscape Communicator died years ago, but Mozilla continues to offer essentially the same app in SeaMonkey, which contains a browser (based on the code from Firefox), an advanced e-mail and newsgroup client, IRC chat client, and HTML editor.

Google:

• Chromium – The nightly code update from Google. If you want to see what Google has up their sleeve for Chrome and don’t mind bugs, give Chromium a try.
• Canary – The bleeding edge version of Google Chrome that contains the latest, somewhat stable, code of Chromium.
• Chrome (Developer) – Based on Canary code, this version contains only the most stable code and features. I’ve been using it for nearly a year and find it to be the best version of Google Chrome to use.
• Chrome (Beta) – Chrome Beta contains the optimized and final code for Google Chrome. This version may still contain bugs, but they’re likely to be minor.
• Chrome (Stable/Final) – The general public (final) version.

Apple:

• Webkit – The opensource version of Apple’s Safari browser – you can download the nightly build to experience the most up-to-date version of the next Safari.
• Safari – The standard shipping version of Apple’s web browser.

The Rest:

• Rockmelt – Backed by Marc Andreessen (founder of Netscape) and based on Google Chrome, Rockmelt builds a plethora of social media features right into the browser.
• OmniWeb – OmniWeb was once the most popular alternative browser for the Mac, with one of its biggest claims to fame being the ability to set site-specific preferences.
• Camino – Based on Mozilla’s Firefox codebase, Camino offers a slimmed-down and streamlined Firefox experience.
• Opera – Opera offers so many options for customization that it’s likely to make you dizzy. Opera also offers a download of the new beta version here.
• TenFourFox – For users of older PPC Macs or Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger who want the Firefox 4 experience without the expensive computer upgrade.
• iCab – Carrying over from the days of Mac OS 9, iCab is still around.

Flock is still floating around, but has been discontinued. And there are numerous other specialty browsers out there, but that’s the main collection for Mac users. If you’re willing to spend the time to try them, there are some great alternatives to Safari out there.

Firefox 4 is the best battery life browser for Mac users

Microsoft has released a fairly extensive study of browser use on laptop computers and the effects on battery life. Not surprisingly, IE 9 comes out in the lead overall. As far as Mac browsers go, Firefox 4 takes the crown, followed by Chrome and Safari. Opera brings up the rear in the study.

I’m not sure about the usefulness of the information, as your use of the browser is only one aspect in terms of how long your MacBook’s battery lasts. And how many people use enough Watts of power just surfing the web? But the information provided is interesting nonetheless.

loads.in is a great site to test your web page load speed

In a day and age where a good majority of web surfers have high-speed Internet, web developers and designers still must concern themselves with page loading speed. Javascript, JQuery, Java, Flash, and large images can slow the load time of any given page. The best way to test the speed of your web pages is to use an off-site app to test it.

Loads.in is a great site to do just that. You simply type in the URL of your web page and wait a few seconds for the test to run. Once completed, a display of average load times is provided. From there, you can select cities in various countries from a list and retest your page. Additionally, you can choose to use IE, Safari, Chrome, or Firefox to run the test.

Google's new Chrome browser icon

The new logo should work it’s way down into the beta and stable release version soon. While I had nothing against the old icon, the new version is definitely more recognizable in the OS X Dock. The only problem I see with it now is that it looks too much like Google Picasa.

IE6 users account for less than 3 percent of U.S. browsers

As a web designer or developer, you’re probably sick and tired of working around the fact that your company wants IE6 compatibility with their website. But my question to you is, WHY do you continue to do it?

Unless your primary audience lives in China (34.5 percent) or South Korea (24.8 percent), you have little reason to care about IE6 users – which are probably people who don’t care about your site to begin with. In fact, half of that 12 percent can probably be attributed to servers or computers not actively used by humans.

Here in the U.S., less than 3 percent of the web browsing population uses IE6, and you can safely assume that those people probably are on dial-up connections, or do little surfing to begin with. After all, wouldn’t you grow tired of seeing all the “sorry, this doohicky site won’t work with IE6” error messages and just click that upgrade button eventually if you had a nice speedy cable connection? There’s most likely a reason they aren’t upgrading.

Just stop worrying about IE6 users and move on. The web browsing public is much more savvy today than they were just a few years ago. If they’re truly interested in your site, they WILL upgrade their browser.

To help encourage browser upgrades, the IE6 Countdown site even offers a simple HTML code you can place in the header of your HTML that pops up a banner encouraging an IE6 visitor to upgrade.