Yesterday, I wrote about why I was deleting Flash from my Macs. I mentioned that you can use Google Chrome to display Flash content, as the Flash plug-in is baked into Chrome. You won’t need to worry about updating Flash, since Chrome auto-updates very often.
But perhaps I should add some more information, explaining how easy it is to switch from Safari to Chrome to view Flash content. Sure, you could copy a URL, switch to Chrome, and paste it, but there’s a shortcut.
To facilitate this, turn on the Develop menu in Safari. Choose Safari > Preferences, and click Advanced. At the bottom of this window is an option to display the Develop menu.
Now, when you’re viewing a web page, and want to switch to Chrome, just choose Develop > Open Page With > Google Chrome.
Unfortunately, you can’t set a keyboard shortcut for that menu, because the shortcut would have to match the exact version number of Chrome, which changes often.
There are lots of other options in the Develop menu, which you may find interesting, if you’re a web developer. If not, you can ignore the rest of the menu, and simply use this trick to quickly switch to Chrome when you want to view a Flash animation.
If you use LaunchBar, there’s a quicker way to open a web page from Safari in Chrome, without using the Develop menu. In Safari, press Command-L to select the URL in the address bar. Press and hold your LaunchBar shortcut; by default, this is Command-Space. This activates LaunchBar’s Instant Send. Type a few letters, such as CHR, to bring up Chrome. You’ll see something like this:
Press Return to open the URL in Chrome. You can use this same method, typing different letters, to open a URL in any other browser.
Shameless plug: for more LaunchBar tips, check out my book, Take Control of LaunchBar.