Browser tips

Secret settings and best extensions

CHROME Run a more thorough Safety Check

2023 was a bad year for Chrome’s security, with Google frequently rushing out patches to fix vulnerabilities in the browser. Although it’s impossible to predict which flaws may affect Chrome in 2024, you can do your bit to protect it using the revamped Safety Check feature in version 120 (released 6 December).

Previously rather basic and easy to miss, the improved Safety Check provides at-a-glance information about the browser’s current security status and recommends actions you should take to make it safer. To access the new tool, which is supposed to work ‘proactively’, click ‘Privacy and security’ in Chrome’s Settings and choose ‘Go to Safety Check’.

Here you’ll see three ‘Safety at a glance’ buttons, which let you perform specific checks. The left-hand button runs Chrome’s Password Checkup to identify compromised, reused and weak passwords; the middle button ensures you’re running the latest version of the browser; and the right-hand button lets you configure Chrome’s Safe Browsing feature to use Standard or Enhanced protection.

Below these buttons are ‘Safety recommendations’, such as blocking sites that send you lots of notifications, and reviewing extensions that were recently removed from the Chrome Web Store. It will also revoke permissions for sites you haven’t visited for a while, including access to your location and webcam.

If you don’t yet have the revamped Safety Check, you can activate it manually. Type chrome://flags into Chrome’s address bar and press Enter to load the Experiments page. Search for the entry Safety Check v2, select Enabled in its dropdown menu and click the Relaunch button

FIREFOX Always underline links on web pages

The usual ways to indicate clickable links on web pages are to highlight their text in blue and underline it. However, many websites no longer bother underlining, because they think it makes their content look messy – especially in long blocks of text containing several links. This causes difficulties for people who suffer from vision disorders such as achromatopsia and are unable to identify coloured links.

To address this problem, Firefox 121, released 19 December, added the option to force web pages to underline links, so they’re easy to distinguish from standard text. Click the browser’s three-line menu button and choose Settings, then General. Scroll down to the Browsing section and select the new option ‘Always