Browsing the web is a big part of our daily routines these days. If you’re anything like me, it probably dominates your work life and your personal time. The internet is a trusty tool for all of us, but there are ways to make it even more effective.
These come in the shape of browser extensions – freebie plug-ins that add extra features to your browser, such as blocking movie spoilers, sorting out your spelling and managing your manifold open tabs. Life can be so much easier if you install a few of these…
15. TabCloud
Have you ever had so many tabs open that you’re scared to leave the office or close your laptop lid, because there’s no way you’ll remember what they all are next time? Or perhaps you want to switch devices but can’t be bothered to open all these tabs again? Tab Cloud is the perfect solution in situations just like this.
This helpful extension lets you save your browser windows – and all the tabs they entail – and restore them at a later point in time, from the same device or a different one. It’s all saved to your Google account, and you can access your windows from anywhere.
You can save all your work-relevant tabs as one window and all your personal-time favourites as separate set. With Tab Cloud, You’ll never again have to faff around trying to remember which tabs you had open yesterday afternoon (or any other time).
14. Tiny Filter
Tiny Filter is a really handy one. Whatever you want to block you or your fellow device-users from seeing, this extension lets you set up the relevant filter. I recently used it to block Star Wars spoilers from showing up on my social media news feeds and the sites that I visit, but that’s just one of the possibilities with Tiny Filter.
If you want to stop NSFW content appearing on your Facebook feed, or swearword-stuffed articles from opening, or football results from popping up and ruining your enjoyment of Match Of The Day, Tiny Filter can help.
If you have children, you can use Tiny Filter to stop them seeing anything inappropriate. You just need to tell Tiny Filter the terminology you wish to block, set a password for the browser extension that your kids can’t guess, and then you’ll be sorted.
13. Wikipedia Quick Hints
If you’re the sort of person who goes to Wikipedia to look something up and ends up tumbling down an endless rabbit hole – wasting far too much time clicking on page after page of irrelevant drivel – then you need to install Wikipedia Quick Hints pronto.
Instead of letting you get trapped down this rabbit hole, Wikipedia Quick Hints allows you see a quick definition of a term by hovering over it with your cursor, negating the need to open another web page. It’s a time saver and really helps keep your focus on the initial task you popped onto Wikipedia for.
Other features include automatic zooming of images (when you hover over them) and the ability to ‘mark’ certain articles that you need to come back to later. Admittedly, this one’s useless if you’re not a Wikipedia user, but it’s an absolute lifesaver if you’re a regular to the site.
12. IE Tab
It’s very annoying when you find yourself in Chrome, Safari or Firefox but get told you need to use Internet Explorer to access a certain page. Admittedly, this is happening less and less these days, but it’s still a pain in the bum when you’re asked to switch over to IE to complete a basic task.
IE Tab is your best way around this. It lets you open a fake Internet Explorer tab within Google Chrome, which seems to trick most websites that demand IE into believing you’ve actually switched browser. It saves you a fair amount of hassle in the process.
Personally, I use IE Tab for video websites like Now TV that require Silverlight (unavailable on my main browser, Chrome) in order to work. Comes in very handy.
11. Grammarly
How’s your spelling and grammar? If your answer to that question falls somewhere between ‘could be better’ and ‘ruddy awful,’ you might want to install the Grammarly browser extension. Almost anywhere you can write on the web (including Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Tumblr), Grammarly is capable of scanning your text and spotting errors.
Grammarly is smart too. It doesn’t just spot misspelled words that don’t exist. It also builds your vocabulary by discouraging vague words, steering you away from 250 common grammatical errors, and even telling you when you might be using a word in the wrong way (e.g. it can clock whether you’re using commonly confused words like ‘affect’ and ‘effect’ correctly).
For the truly paranoid folk out there, Grammarly also offers a paid service that scans for an extra 150 grammar mistakes. The paid version can also tell if you’re plagiarising from another source, and offers suggestions about citation.
10. Pocket
Pocket is an extension/app designed for busy people who don’t always have time to read the articles and web pages that intrigue them. Rather than ending up with a list of bookmarks that stretches on forever, or an inbox full of links you’ve sent to yourself, Pocket lets you easily store content that you want to come back to.
It works for articles, videos and web pages, and allows you to sort them into whatever categories you want. For example, you could have a recipes folder, a funny YouTube clips folder or a folder dedicated to holiday ideas. You’ll never forget where you saw a link again.
Pocket stores everything you save to as many devices as you like. You could see something on your phone, stick it in Pocket and come back to it on your laptop later on. It also saves offline versions of everything, so you can even browse content when you’re away from the internet.
9. Mighty Text
Mighty Text is incredibly convenient for users of Android phones. It allows you to sync your computer’s browser to your phone number, meaning all your texts, calls and picture messages are accessible within your PC.
Mighty Text makes it easier to send quick replies without switching your focus from your computer to your mobile, saving you from productivity-diminishing pitfalls. No longer will you respond to a text and end up accidentally playing Angry Birds for half an hour. As a freelancer with a limited attention span, I find this very helpful.
Also, receiving texts on your PC means that if someone texts you a link, you can access it immediately on your PC rather than faffing about reading it on your mobile or emailing it to yourself.
8. Project Naptha
Project Naptha can save you from one of my major bugbears on the internet – that frustrating moment when you realise the text you wish to copy and subsequently paste is embedded within an image, a PDF or a screenshot, and therefore can’t be selected by your cursor.
Before Project Naptha, I would have had to transcribe this text, wasting my time by physically copying out something that feels like it should be easy to grab. Now, with Project Naptha, it finally is.
You just need to hover over the text you want within your browser (regardless of the type of image or files it’s in), wait a few seconds, and you’ll be able to copy and paste it with ease. You can even translate words. You may not have to use Project Naptha often, but being able to interact with text like this is much more user-friendly than the standard way in which browsers work.
7. One Tab
Tabs can be the bane of your online life. It can really throw a spanner in the works of your productivity levels when you look up to the tabs bar and see nothing but a row of tiny icons. Lots of us need to use multiple websites at once, though, so it sometimes seems like there’s no way to avoid this chaoticlooking outcome.
But OneTab offers a solution. When you find yourself with too many tabs open at a time, you can just click on an icon in the top right, and it will convert all your tabs into one simple list. From here, it’s easier to keep track of all the things you have open.
You can reopen the ones you’re actually using and close the rest, or you can keep the list to one side and come back to it later. Not only is this a handy tool to sort the wheat from the chaff, but it also reduces the amount of memory you’re wasting.
6. Ghostery
If you’ve ever worried about how many companies and websites are storing information about you while you browse, Ghostery is the perfect browser extension for you. It lets you see what its developer terms ‘the invisible web’, revealing the sites that are tracking your habits and keeping records on you.
The results of using Ghostery are highly enlightening. I opened a page on a favourite website of mine, and found that more than 30 entities – mainly advertising companies – were storing information based on my presence. I didn’t even click on anything on the page; I just opened it! Creepy.
Winningly, Ghostery also allows you to prevent companies from storing information about you. If you’re not particularly keen for ad companies to know your every move, you can politely tell them to sod off. Ghostery essentially saves you from having to visit the cookies information page on every site you visit, which is a genuine time saver that can make you feel more secure online.
5. Gmail Offline
This one’s really handy for those who travel around a lot and/or work between several different locations. Gmail Offline automatically synchronises your incoming mail and completed pre-queued actions whenever you have an internet connection.
This means you can download all your emails when you’re in a coffee shop connected to the wi-fi for five minutes, compose your responses while you’re offline, and they’ll all be sent as soon as you get connected again. Easy peasy. This makes it much easier to work on public transport or other areas of inconsistent internet signal.
Gmail Offline also allows you to search your old emails while offline, assign folders to messages and archive stuff you don’t need any more. All this means that even when you’re offline, you can be working away. It’ll all be finalised when you connect again.
4. The Camelizer
If you ever feel you’re being mugged off by a website that’s upped its prices since the last time that you checked, the Camelizer is the browser extension you need. It can determine whether the price has actually changed or if you’re just being paranoid. More often than not, you’ll probably find your suspicions were correct.
What’s more, when you realise that the product you’re after used to be much cheaper, you can give the Camelizer your email address along with your desired spend, and ask it to notify you when the price matches what you’re willing to pay. This ensures you’ll never miss a bargain again.
Ingenious, simple to use and completely free, the Camelizer is well worth downloading the next time you’re thinking of spending money online. It’s especially worthwhile when it comes to buying tech products from major retailers.
3. The Great Suspender
Here’s another browser extension that wants to help with your out-of-control habit of opening tabs and never closing them. The Great Suspender prides itself on automatically suspending tabs you’re not actually using, saving you from splurging bandwidth unnecessarily. It doesn’t close them, but it just stops the wastage.
When you pop back to a tab that’s been suspended, you can reinstate it with a click when you’re good and ready. This means that memory doesn’t get gobbled up, and your computer won’t slow down like it does when you have a zillion active tabs on the go at once.
You can choose how long it takes for a tab to time out and select tabs that you don’t want to be suspended, no matter how long you don’t visit them, meaning you’re in control at all times and you won’t lose any data.
2. Office Editing For Docs, Sheets & Slides
A free alternative to Microsoft’s own Office Online app (which you have to pay for), Google’s Office Editing For Docs, Sheets & Slides is a great way to peruse documents without having to download them all and waste your storage space.
It works with Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations. You can edit files through it too, which puts this extension far above the collection of view-only equivalents on the market.
This extension is convenient in a number of situations, not least if you don’t have Microsoft Office on the laptop or PC at hand. Also, it’s perfect if you’re sent lots of files but don’t have the space to store them. It saves you from clogging up your computer with stuff you don’t actually need, which is hugely helpful by anyone’s books.
1. StayFocusd
A browser extension to live by, StayFocusd is ideal for those who need to be online for their work, but who get easily distracted by their favourite websites on a daily basis. It lets you control your own browsing habits and keep yourself on-task despite all the internet’s distractions.
The idea is to tell StayFocusd your most productivity-sapping online haunts and use it enforce to a strict daily time limit. You can set a half-hour limit on Facebook procrastination per day, for example, and StayFocusd won’t let you go over that. It’ll show you a countdown at all times, so you’re doubly aware of the time you’re wasting.
If you’re really struggling, there’s also StayFocusd’s ‘Nuclear Option,’ which blocks absolutely everything non-work related for a pre-specified amount of time. It’s impossible to switch off StayFocusd during a nuclear session, meaning you can’t cheat the system all that easily.
Put simply, StayFocusd is an absolutely ideal tool for anyone who struggles to be productive, and it won’t cost you a penny to add it to your browser. What more could you want?