Mark Oakley rounds-up the Chrome extensions that make a difference
Google Chrome has become the go-to web browser for much of the Internet-using world. Such is its dominance, it is now used by over half of all desktop users. For the longest time, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was the browser of choice for desktop users but as Microsoft dabbled close to the Edge, so Google Chrome surpassed all its rivals.
Chances are, then, that you’ll be using Chrome, but are you making the most of Google’s browser? Here are 31 of the add-ons that will genuinely make a difference to your browsing experience. Find all of them over at the Chrome Web Store, of course.
Performance
Data Saver
Space. The final frontier. These are the… sorry, wrong kind of space.
Data Saver uses Google’s own servers to reduce data and compress web pages that you visit before downloading them, optimising your system performance while browsing. There is a very slight drawback in that HTTPS pages or any sites accessed in Google’s Incognito Mode are not compressed (for security reasons, naturally). Data Saver can also be used on Chrome for Mobile.
The Great Suspender
Not only does this extension have arguably the best title of any featured here, The Great Suspender is also a RAMsaver for tab warriors everywhere. The add-on works by automatically suspending unused tabs after a set time (tabs can also be suspended manually), ultimately freeing up memory and stopping Chrome from getting itself in a processes-fuelled stupor.
Suspended tabs are retained after closing and reopening Chrome so a bunch of tabs don’t just load up after a browser restart and it’s also recently updated its whitelist function for sites that you want to be kept permanently active.
Tab, Tab, and Tab Again
Tab Snooze
One for those among us who are tab-happy, Tab Snooze will close unnecessary tabs and, with one click, bring them back when you need them. This lets you focus on what’s important and generally dials things down a level.
TabCloud
Another tab-focused extension, TabCloud is great for users working across several systems as it lets you save and restore open tabs across multiple desktops, saving them to the cloud for ease. Tabs can even be dragged across windows.
Productivity
Save To Google Drive
Guess what this does? Quite clearly, this add-on lets users directly save browser content and screenshots to Google Drive accounts. Just right-click, select the ‘Save to Google Drive’ option and you’re good.
Google Mail Checker
Google Mail Checker is nothing more than an icon appearing on your browser to let you know whether you’ve got mail, or not. If you have, click on the icon to open your Google Mail inbox. It does little else but for users who are eager to know if that all-important email has arrived or not, this is a useful way of keeping on top of activity without having to move away from your browser.
Alternatively, you could try Checker Plus for Gmail, which provides desktop notifications (including voice notifications) for new mail, and allows you to read, listen or delete emails without opening up Gmail.
Google Calendar
With this add-on button on your browser toolbar, you can easily click to see upcoming events from Google Calendar without leaving the page. You can also instantly add events from any web page you’re visiting by clicking the orange plus sign that appears if there is a relevant event.
Chrome Remote Desktop
You can’t always work from the same space, and Chrome Remote Desktop is a fairly obvious, but no less useful, tool that lets you access your system using another computer connected over the Internet. Crucially, web access is via completely secure connections and those connections can either be short-term, ad-hoc or on a long-term basis. This is also fully cross-platform.
Google Similar Pages
In our thirst for more information, collecting the kind of stories that we want in one place has become one of the current major themes of web browsing. Helping us to do just that is Google Similar Pages, a fairly simple add-on that sends a search query to Google to see if there are any similar pages to what you’re currently viewing.
You can preview and explore those pages on the fly and the idea is that the entire web browsing experience is speeded up as a consequence. Ideal for any web research you have to carry out.
Stay Focused
Noisli
It’s increasingly difficult to hold your focus on something in the modern world when you have so many potential digital distractions. While there are many apps aimed at helping you to maximise your attention on what you’re doing, Noisli does so by trying to block out the noise.
The add-on builds in the website’s ambient noise features into the Chrome browser, playing preset ambient noises or ones that you’ve created yourself while you’re at work, giving you quick access to those sounds. There’s a timer and volume control and while this kind of thing is entirely subjective as to how well it works, anything is worth a try in the cacophony of noise.
Readability
This is an extension I really believe in and it’s an idea that’s been passed down through various writing programs over the years. Readability takes away formatting on web pages, turning content into a simple, plain page. From there, if you don’t have time to read it now, you can select Read Later (saving pages to a personal reading list) or Send to Kindle.
Page appearance is configurable in terms of font size and colour and as someone who appreciates how it can sometimes be incredibly difficult to filter out the noise from everything that we look at online, Readability is right up my street.
StayFocusd
Keeping your focus on your work, particularly for home-workers, can be incredibly difficult. If you find yourself trying to avoid work by wasting your time on pretty much anything else, StayFocusd could be your saviour. It allows users to set time limits on your various online distractions – social networks, for example – and once that time limit is reached, you’re shut out.
It’s very configurable so access to certain websites can be blocked and web access entirely can even be restricted, if you have no willpower whatsoever.
Minimalist for Everything
Minimalist for Everything can help to give more control over what you can and can’t see when browsing the web. Want to say bye to Google’s navigation bar? It’s done. Need to hide parts of Gmail? You can do that easily. These are just the tip of a sizeable iceberg of options.
The extension is easy to use highly configurable and a quickaccess control panel is also available.
Go Secure
AdBlock Plus
One of the most popular adblockers of all, AdBlock Plus is so often downloaded because it does what it sets out to do, and it does it well. Users can go to the preset filter lists to block out unwanted adverts, filter out malware and social media adverts, or it’s equally possible to set up custom filters, blacklists and whitelists. Block out pop-ups, Facebook ads, webmail ads and much more.
It’s worth pointing out that AdBlock Plus won’t make you completely ad-free – it does allow “non-intrusive” small adverts in recognition that websites ultimately rely on advertising to keep them going. This can actually be disabled within the extension’s settings, although the developers would probably prefer you to leave this alone.
LastPass
LastPass is the only password manager you’ll need to keep your online passwords in one, secure place. Save all usernames and passwords to LastPass and it autologins to your sites and syncs your passwords everywhere that you need them. The only password you need to remember is your LastPass master password.
LastPass uses AES 256-bit encryption implemented with PBKDF2 encryption keys and as all sensitive user data is encrypted and decrypted locally on the user’s machine, only encrypted sensitive information is ever synced.
Panic Button
This extension is a bit of an oddity. Panic Button is basically a way of instantly hiding what you’re looking at online. One click and the add-on hides and saves all opened tabs so if there’s anything that you don’t want people to look at, you can get rid of them right away. That ‘saves’ bit is crucial as once you’re happy to go back to normal, another single click restore all of the tabs again. This also comes with password protection so only you can restore your tabs if necessary.
HTTPS Everywhere
This extension comes courtesy of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in conjunction with the Tor Project, and it automatically switches thousands of sites from insecure ‘HTTP’ to secure ‘HTTPS’. The aim of this is to protect you from web surveillance and account hijacking, with the EFF clear in its mission of defending every web users rights in the digital world.
It’s worth noting that this is currently in beta so some issues might occur if there are bugs in a site’s HTTPS support.
Wise Words
Google Translate
I literally could not survive without Google Translate. I have to translate wide passages of web content for various bits of work that I do and this is a fantastic, highly capable translation tool that will handle anything you throw at it. Translating any web page instantly, directly from the web browser, this is quick, stable and satisfying. It just works.
Google Dictionary
Install this add-on and you can find definitions of a word online by just double-clicking it, with the definition instantly appearing. Foreign language can also by translated into your own language or also link to further content at Wikipedia.
Grammarly for Chrome
Acting as your own personal spelling and grammar checker, adding this free writing app to Chrome vets your writing on Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and pretty much anywhere you write on the web. The add-on also has a contextual spelling checker, detecting words that are spelled correctly but used in the wrong context.
Take Note
Evernote Web Clipper
You’ll have no doubt heard about Evernote, one of the most popular note-taking tools there is. Evernote Web Clipper is a very useful add-on that lets users save web content directly from the Chrome browser into Evernote accounts. You can save full web pages, highlight key passages of text from a website or article and share clips or create URL links. The content can also be synced across multiple devices.
As a means of collating and curating content that you love, Evernote is truly marvellous. Evernote Web Clipper is just a great extension of that.
Save To Pocket
Found something while you were browsing that you haven’t got time to look at now but you think you’d like to focus on it later? Put it in Pocket.
The Save To Pocket extension automatically syncs to your phone, tablet or computer, so that you can view it at any time, even without an Internet connection. Features include one-click saving of any page with the toolbar button, a right-click menu to save any link, plus quick adding of tags.
Instapaper
Instapaper is useful for anyone carrying out research online as it saves web pages to read later on your mobile devices of choice, the Chrome extension saving articles directly into your Instapaper queue by saving the current tab to your Instapaper account.
Awesome Screenshot
If you use the web often in your work, say you need to capture and annotate web pages, or bits of pages for whatever reason, Awesome Screenshot is your new best friend. Captured screengrabs can be saved locally or stored at awesomescreenshot. com by default. The “awesome” part of this is that you can annotate the screenshots with shapes, arrows and text comments, plus blur certain parts of the screenshot for hiding sensitive information.
Feedly Mini
You know they’re are all sorts of RSS readers, and you’ll have probably heard of Feedly. It is the world’s most popular RSS and blog reader after all, with over 15 million users.
For this reason, it’s hard to look outside of Feedly Mini, the Chrome extension keeping you connected to your Feedly account and letting you easily save, tag, share or subscribe to any content you come across. From Feedly Mini, you can email and tweet pages and share pages via Facebook.
What A To-Do
Any.do
What tasks do you have to do today? Worry about them no more – well, the thinking about them anyway, you’re still going to have to do those tasks yourself – as Any.do is the to-do list extension to head to. Accompanying iOS and Android apps let you take your to-do list on the go and you can drag and drop items, attach notes and even transform Gmail messages into tasks.
Todoist
An alternative, very popular to-do list and task manager, Todoist is used by over six million people, helping them to keep track of projects. Stay motivated and productive no matter where you are, collaborate with others, share projects, assign tasks, and add comments all within the tool while instant notifications keep everyone up-to-date whenever changes are made.
Video Star
Google Cast
Google Cast will send content to a Chromecast device, enabling users to find and play content on Chromecast directly from the Chrome browser.
When you’re on sites that are optimised for Chromecast, like Netflix or YouTube for example, options appear that let you play video on a TV via Chromecast, using a computer as a remote. Using this extension users can also cast any Chrome tabs to a TV.
Stay Connected
Pushbullet
Pushbullet lets Android users send and receive SMS messages from a computer, including replying to messages from apps such as WhatsApp and Kik. It also lets users share links and files between devices and with friends, plus see all of a mobile’s notifications on a computer, syncing them between the two.
MightyText
Another SMS extension, MightyText will send messages from a PC or Mac using your Android phone number. You can also sync your mobile’s photos and videos instantly to MightyText, see app notifications on your computer, and even get low battery alerts on your system too.