Google Chrome

Distraction-free tweeting? It can be done! Alas, a solution: Twipster is a browser extension for Chrome and Safari that brings the micromessaging site back to the bare necessities. Twipster completely transforms Twitter.com by replacing distracting backgrounds with a simple white backdrop and increasing text size to make tweets more readable.

With Twipster, Twitter becomes more responsive, too — you'll be able to read those pithy messages no matter what size the window is. The way you interact with tweets is unchanged. Twitter cards still expand to show a preview of the link or image attached, and you can still reply, retweet, favorite, email, and embed to your heart's content.

What's missing are the trending topics, who to follow, and photo and video nodes on the left. Tweets, following, followers, favorites, and lists have been moved to the top of the page.

Add the browser extension to Chrome or Safari, and Twipster will wipe away all of those unnecessary distractions automatically. Ahhh . . . clean and simple, just how we like it. Are you a Redditor, too? Check out these minimalist mobile apps for "the front page of the Internet."

Allow Google and Disney to guide you through a dark and mystical Kansas circus in Find Your Way to Oz, the latest Google Chrome experiment featuring elements of the upcoming film Oz The Great and Powerful re-created for the web in immersive 3D.

Like all Google Chrome Experiments, the project pushes the boundaries of HTML5 web technologies like WebGL and CSS3 to create interactive, animated online environments. Disney and Google Chrome teamed up with Unit 9, a digital media production company that specializes in storytelling through new technology, to take some aspects of traditional filmmaking and apply them to the Find Your Way to Oz project.

As you launch the experiment, the scene pans like watching a film, and the view can be controlled with arrow keys like a video game. Pretty incredible to see what the "open web" is capable of! Read the technical case study to find out how engineers, developers, and visual artists worked together to create this cinematic web project.

Looking up at the night sky evokes a kind of celestial wonder, and every time, we're left a little curious about the astronomical powers that be. Google Chrome's latest experiment, 100,000 Stars, lets aspiring space cowboys sail the night skies at any time of day and visualizes the majesty of the Milky Way like never before. It's a mesmerizing piece of 21st-century art — and the epic soundtrack doesn't hurt either.

The project takes users on a Street View-style expedition of our galaxy, pointing out the names of prominent stars along the way. All the info and imagery is provided by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), so it's like getting a personal tour from the experts themselves. Start the feature by clicking the "tour" button in the upper left or by using your own mouse to zoom in and out on your own.

Google Chrome's spectacular star experiment demonstrates the capabilities of WebGL, CSS3D, and Web Audio. If those words sound like gibberish, have a go at our tutorials on HTML and the new generation of web, HTML 5, and maybe, someday, you can create an amazing space exploration website of your own.

As pop culture savvy as you are, sometimes you stumble across a celebrity name and wonder "Who's that?" The guessing game ends with Summer (free), which is exactly what co-founder Oz Katz intended when he created the extension for Google Chrome. Context is important, Katz said in an e-mail, which is why the team at Summer decided to pursue the project.

"Humans are curious by nature and that's probably the reason why most of us start with one open tab and end up with about 15 . . . Our mission is to create a better, more engaging way for users to experience content by allowing them to simply get the information they want instead of manually searching for it across the web," he explained.

Say you saw the story about Eva Longoria and her new boyfriend, Mark Sanchez. If you've never watched football, then you wouldn't know that Sanchez is the Broadway-loving quarterback of the New York Jets or that he's one of only two quarterbacks in NFL history to reach the conference championship in their first two seasons in the league. That's where Summer fills in the blanks.

Once the extension is installed, a widget shows up on the right-hand side of media sites that support Summer, like The Washington Post, TechCrunch, People, our very own PopSugar, and many others. Blue brackets appear around names mentioned in the article, and clicking on those names opens the widget, displaying the person's bio, a YouTube video about them, their Twitter feed, or, in the case of Sanchez, their ESPN stats. Summer makes it easy to find information about important people or topics without navigating away from your current site.

The Internet is all about sharing information — that's why it was created in the first place! — but oftentimes we share details about ourselves without even knowing it, like what sites we visit and how often. Protecting online privacy is important, which is why Mozilla Firefox started an initiative called Do Not Track, a browser feature that prevents advertisers and marketing companies from obtaining data about users' online activities. Internet Explorer, Apple Safari, and Opera have already adopted Do Not Track, and as of this week, Google Chrome is making good on its promise to add the feature by the year's end.

Keep your online browsing history private and find out how to enable Do Not Track in Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, and Opera after the jump.

Google Chrome users got a nice surprise this morning: a newly revamped interface for their favorite browser. The new launch screen on Google Chrome has been divided into two sections: one dedicated to your apps, and another that showcases your most-visited sites on the web. You can switch back and forth between these screens by the tabs at the bottom of the screen or by using the arrows that appear on the left and right of your window.

The bottom right-hand corner of the window performs double duty as a place where you can see your recently closed tabs and as a trash can where you can drag and drop apps you no longer want to use.

OK Go's habit of creating clever music videos helped make them Internet viral video darlings, and they're certainly not going to start resting on their laurels anytime soon. The band's new video for the song "All Is Not Lost," a collaboration with HTML5, Google Chrome, and the dance troupe Pilobolus, gives viewers a kaleidoscopic dance performance of the song in both the video and the browser if viewed in Chrome. We recommend the Chrome viewing, as you can also create a personalized message to be embedded within the video and watch how the browser adjusts itself in tune to the music.

Beyond the video's incredible choreography and technology, the band uses the theme of the song to send support to the people of Japan in the wake of this year's earthquake and tsunami. Viewing the video in Chrome is a must, but we do have the "old-fashioned" music video of human dance kaleidoscope after the break.

Lady Gaga didn't just make an appearance on Saturday Night Live this weekend — she also tweeted about her latest video — the "Edge of Glory" Google Chrome ad. Lady Gaga has partnered with Google before during a widely watched Q&A at the SF headquarters, and now she's showing the power of Chrome and YouTube, and featuring a few of her fans — who submitted videos to her fan page — in the process. Did you make the cut? Find out, and see the whole ad after the break.

Mother's Day is on Sunday, but I can't help but share this adorable and charming ad for Google Chrome. Passed on to me by Sugar member Calamari, this ad shows that you can use Chrome, Picasa, and Gmail to create a 21st century baby book that your kids can (safely!) read when they're older. Check it out below!