The estimated reading time for this post is 7 minutes
A browser without extensions is like a smartphone without apps. Yes, it can get the job done, but there’s so much more it could do.
About Extensions
Extensions are like apps that make your life easier. Extensions can empower your browser and give instant access to information and services. A useful extension can provide shortcuts, give you information, save you from embarrassment and enhance your Internet abilities. Like apps, extensions are designed to bring power with minimal effort.
Unlike a toolbar, extensions don’t take up additional screen space. But like apps, you don’t want to add too many. Extensions can slow your browser speed. Frustrated when a page takes a long time to load? It may be an extension bogging it down.
Chrome, Firefox and Safari allow extensions (called Add-ons in Firefox), which is why many people prefer to use these browsers. In the early days of The Wonder of Tech, I covered Firefox Add-ons in Fun With Browsers!, but now it’s time to cover Chrome Extensions.
How to Get Extensions
In Chrome, go to the Chrome Web Store and search for extensions you might like (or head to Firefox Add-ons and Safari extensions if you use those browsers). You can check them out by name, category or by what’s hot. Most extensions are free so be sure to take time to explore to find ones you’ll find especially useful.
Make sure to check the reviews. No matter how much you might crave an extension, if the reviews are negative you should probably resist the urge to download it.
When you find one you want, click on the Add to Chrome button at the top of the page. The extension icon should appear on your toolbar to the right of the address field. Now anytime you sign into Chrome on any computer, the extension will appear.
You can rearrange the order of your extension icons by dragging and dropping them on your toolbar.
Extension Settings
To access your extensions, go to Settings (the three stacked lines icon in the upper right corner of your toolbar), click on Settings and then Extensions in the left sidebar.
You can adjust your extension settings, enable or disable them, or delete them.
Fantastic Chrome Extensions
Here are the promised 15 fantastic Chrome extensions, in alphabetical order:
AdBlock
This extension blocks ads from appearing on websites. If you’re the type of person who fast-forwards through commercials when you watch TV shows, you’ll love AdBlock.
Adblock Plus
Adblock Plus also blocks advertising on websites but this plugin lets you enable ads for websites that depend on advertising for their existence and use ads in a non-intrusive way. This feature not only supports websites but also encourages the use of non-intrusive advertising. You can find out more about this optional setting from the Adblock Plus website.
Check out the Adblock Plus video showing how the extension works:
Awesome Screenshot
When you want to take a picture of your screen, Awesome Screenshot makes the job easy. With Awesome Screenshot you can take a picture of your entire screen or a part of the screen. You can crop, annotate and edit your image before you save it. You can save your images to your computer, Google Drive or to the Awesome Screenshot website so you can share your screenshot using a link.
Here’s a video showing how to use Awesome Screenshot:
See my review of Awesome Screenshot Smile! It’s Awesome Screenshot Time!
Buffer
Scheduling a post to social media has never been easier than with the Buffer extension. Click on the Buffer extension icon to share websites with your friends on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. My full review of Buffer: Buffer: The Twitter Tool You Should Be Using.
Evernote Web Clipper
The Evernote extension allows you to save web clips directly to an Evernote notebook. When you find an important website you could bookmark it, but then you can’t read it offline and you’re in trouble if the website is ever shuttered. With Evernote you can take a screenshot of the website that is saved directly into your notebook so you can access it offline or on other computers or mobile devices. Here’s a video showing Evernote Web Clipper in action:
http://youtu.be/oFOiCOmgXmc
My full review of Evernote: Evernote: A Powerful Organizational Tool!
Google Dictionary
Double-click on a word and Google Dictionary will provide you with the definition of the word. This extension will even translate foreign words into your native language (or another language you choose).
Google Translate
When you come upon a website in a foreign language, Google Translate will recognize the language and ask you if you wish to translate it. Click Yes and within seconds Google will show you the page in your native language.
HootSuite Hootlet
Not every website has social media sharing buttons. When you want to share a website, use HootSuite Hootlet to share directly to Facebook, Twitter, Google + or other social media sites. Check out a full review of HootSuite by guest author Manickam Vijayabanu: HootSuite – An Impressive Social Network Scheduler
InvisibleHand
InvisibleHand is a powerful extension that can save you both time and money. When you shop online, InvisibleHand searches other retail sites for lower prices. A yellow banner appears at the top of your screen showing you the search results, whether InvisibleHand has found a better price or not. Clicking that banner will show you prices for the item, including shipping and handling, at other websites. See my full review of Invisible Hand: InvisibleHand – For Economical Online Shopping!
My Permissions Cleaner
This extension will alert you when someone is requesting permission to access your accounts on social media, email and other registered website. Clicking on the extension icon will start a scan to tell you who has which rights to your accounts. Check out my full review of My Permissions Cleaner: Clean Up Your Permissions!
OneTab
If you’re a tab hoarder, you might have dozens of tabs open in your browser constantly. While switching between tabs may seem convenient, each open tab uses memory and can slow your computer down. Switching between open pages can become challenging as the tabs get smaller with each open page.
This extension collects your open tabs and puts them into a single pages, speeding up your computer and making it easier to navigate to each page. OpenTab can save 95% of the memory used by your browser.
Photo Zoom for Facebook
No need to waste time clicking on a Facebook photo, this extension enlarges photos on Facebook when you hover your mouse over them.
Rapportive
Find out who has been emailing you in a sidebar with Rapportive. Rapportive replaces the advertisements in the sidebar of your Gmail with information about the sender of a message. Connect to them on social media and see their latest tweets in Rapportive. My full review of Rapportive: Rapportive – Peeking Behind the Email Curtain!
WiseStamp
Wise Stamp allows you to add a custom signature to the end of your emails. By getting the Wise Stamp extension, you can use one signature for all of your email accounts that includes your logo, links to your social media accounts and latest blog post. My full review of WiseStamp: Dress Your Email for Success with WiseStamp!
Extensions For Bloggers
If you’re a blogger, these extensions will help you with writing, posting and monitoring your blog:
Alexa Traffic Rank
The Alexa extension will help you judge the popularity of a website by showing you the Alexa ranking of a website when you hover your cursor over the extension icon.
WordPress Stats
This extension shows you at a glance your WordPress states. The number of visits to your website appears in a red circle on the extension icon in real time so you don’t need to refresh your Site Stats page throughout the day. The counter mysteriously disappears on my toolbar at about 7 pm EST but is still helpful during the day.
Related Content by Zemanta
Add the Zemanta extension to give you suggested images and related posts for your article as you write your draft in your WordPress dashboard. Your blog doesn’t need to have a plugin to use Zemanta, you can use the Zemanta extension instead to have the same information displayed as you write your blog post in visual mode.
See also, The Best Chrome Extensions from Make Use Of.
Bottom Line
Using extensions can save you time, money and aggravation as well as providing you with useful information. Check out extensions to see which ones will help you make the best use of your browser.
Do you use extensions? Which ones are your favorites? Share your favorites in the Comments section below!
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Hi Carolyn,
Awesome list indeed, and the first thing I did was to bookmark it 🙂
I just use 3-4 of these extensions mentioned but I love them. I think all of them seem so good and relevant. I would surely go and install the One Tab one as that is a major problem I face and it makes my computer rather slow. Also, I loved your WiseStamp review last time and yet need to get down to it – so thanks for the reminder about it here again.
I’ve heard about AdBlock and Awesome Screen Shot a lot, but need to try them out. Even Evernote is something I need to try out as many people are using it and loving it. I guess one week I need to just take off and try out all of these wonderful extensions. 🙂
Thanks for sharing these with us. Have a nice week ahead 🙂
Hi Harleena, I’m so glad you like this list. When I’m on someone else’s computer without these plugins, I definitely miss them. I’m constantly surprised by how many ads are on the Internet!
I bet you could load all of these extensions and set them up within 10 minutes, Harleena. Not 10 minutes each, 10 minutes for all of them together. You add them to Chrome and they just start working. You do have to log into WordPress Stats but all of the other ones start working more quickly.
OneTab is amazing. I am definitely the type to keep a lot of tabs open which can use memory and slow my browsing. OneTab has been an amazing solution for me to manage my tabs better without having to change my browsing style.
Let me know if I can help you set up WiseStamp, Harleena. I bet you’ll design a beautiful signature!
Hi Carolyn, great list of extensions. I use some of them to help me with my browsing but i try to stick with 4-5 because after this number the browsing and the browser itself will be really really slow.
Hi Radu, Yes, an extension can slow down your browser but extensions such as OneTab can actually make your browser faster, if you keep a lot of tabs open.
You’re exactly right, extensions can be a trade-off. AdBlock and InvisibleHand work constantly in the background so can be a drag. If you don’t mind ads or you don’t shop a lot online, you don’t want these extensions.
The key is to add the extensions that will serve you best.
Thanks for stopping by to share your thoughts, Radu!
Hi Carolyn
Thanks for the info – some extensions I hadn’t known about e.g. “Awesome Screenshot”
My favorite extension is “Clearly” because of the way you can use it to clip info straight to “Evernote” and then sync to your phone.
I use both “Clearly” and “Evernote” to gather all the research for my articles.
Prosperity
davethescribe
Hi Dave, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! Thanks so much for letting us know about Clearly. I will have to check that out.
I tried other screen shot extensions but I like the editing features of Awesome Screenshot.
I hope you find some useful extensions here, Dave!
Hi Carolyn!
GREAT article. You started with the best add-on ever: AdBlock!! I have been using it for a while now. It removes a lot of pressure to me… I can’t imagine myself browsing the web without it 😉
I already love OneTab before even testing it out. And I will definitely try almost all of the other ones you have recommended.
Keep up the good work!
Hi Julie, Thanks so much! I’m so glad you discovered some useful extensions for Chrome.
Yes, aren’t you shocked when you see a page without AdBlock on it? The Internet looks like a very different place. But I know of at least one friend of mine who doesn’t use AdBlock because she actually likes seeing the ads. Hey, what ever works, right?
OneTab is great, I hope you enjoy using that and some others you found here today. Thanks so much for taking the time to leave your comment, Julie!
Great list of extensions and quite a few that I’m already using! I might have to peek at a few of those others and see if I might find them useful as well. Thanks!
Hi Bren, I hope you find some useful extensions here today. These are my favorites that I use on Chrome.
Enjoy!
I have to check out One Tab– I usually have a million open so that sounds really helpful.
Hi Josh, I think you’ll really like One Tab. I have a memory monitor on my computer and I was constantly running low on memory because of my open tabs. Now I can manage my memory much better while still keeping the tabs open. Multitasking at its finest! 😉
Hi Carolyn,
A great list! The dictionary (with pronunciations) and Evernote is going to greatly speed up my note taking process.
Riley
Hi Riley, Yes, Google dictionary is a very handy extension, especially for writers. Evernote is a useful service and the extension makes it even more so.
Enjoy!
Hmmmm….my address bar goes all the way across the top of my page so that I only have room for four icons. Maybe they will come up w/ a Reader extension, huh?
Good info, I do have translate, buffer, feedly & RSS feed reader; with that and $2 still get me a cup o’ Joe?
Hi Bill, No, not at Starbucks. 😉
You don’t need to add the icons to your toolbar. That happens automatically when you click on the Add to Chrome button. Your address field will adjust to make room for the icons, I promise.
So glad you’re using some extensions already, Bill! I hope you discover some more here that you like.
I love Chrome Extensions. I can’t live without these and love how convenient they all are. Most of my time I spend playing games, but there are so many apps from financial to work-related apps to help you each and every day. I didn’t know about some of the ones you mentioned. Thanks Carolyn. Good review because I didn’t know about extensions for a long time and I use Google Chrome as my web browser. How silly is that!
Hi Sonia, Wow, you’re very disciplined! I don’t think I could have game extensions because I would get way too distracted. They would always be there on my browser, beckoning me to play.
I’m glad you found some new ones here, Sonia. I hope they prove very useful to you!
So you mean to tell me that with Ad Block, those commercials that play during a show will not be seen? OMG, that’s the best invention ever. I’m in heaven and wish I would have read this before I watched AMC today! 😉
I use 6 of these myself Carolyn, yep! I try not to overload these because like you mentioned, it can slow down the speed of your browser. I wish I could figure out how to shrink the search area because even though you have the arrow that will show to pull it in, it won’t move. But then again if I did that I would make room for more extensions and I don’t need any more really. Okay, accept that Ad Block.
Thanks Carolyn and dying to hear what you thought of today’s episode! It’s just not the same!
~Adrienne
Hi Adrienne, Sorry, you will still see ads on Hulu Plus, but you won’t see ads on websites such as Facebook. With Hulu Plus you can tailor the ads to what you want to see, plus you have the choice of watching one 30 second commercial and then seeing the uninterrupted show. Or you could buy a subscription on iTunes, but that’s more expensive than Hulu Plus and then you only get one show.
You’re right, All My Children isn’t the same show, but I’m so glad it’s back. Who knows, it may be even better!
Try AdBlock and see if you like it. If you miss seeing the ads, you can always delete it from Google Chrome in settings. 🙂
I have been using different browsers since a log time however and due to the growing popularity of Google Chrome I have given it a try and I liked it for its simplicity and speed. Now after having come across this post I have also discovered that Chrome is not only an excellent browser but a must have for developers for it permits us to install all the important plugins mentioned in this post as well as many more that should be of great importance.
Thanks for the post and for the useful list of the plugins you provided.
Hello Diseñador, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! Yes, there are many great extensions for developers on Google Chrome. You can search the Developer Tools section of Google Chrome to find helpful extensions for you!
Hi Carolyn, I have just checked the Developer Tools section in Google Chrome and I have found out that there may extensions that are really worth to try. Thanks for the post again.
Hi Deseñador, I’m so glad you found the Developer Tools helpful. Thanks for letting us know.
I’m always hesitant about using different extensions. It’s nice to have a list of reliable recommendations. Thanks for providing. I’m actually going to get WordPress stats right away. Some of the others I’ve used and some I’ll investigate more. Thanks for making our jobs easier! 🙂
Good job Carolyn.
Barbara
Hi Barbara, You’re right, it’s important to be careful when trying out extensions. I read reviews carefully to make sure that extensions are highly rated. I have used all of these extensions for quite a while, except for One Tab, which I discovered when researching this article. But now that I have been using it, I don’t know how I did without it!
WordPress Stats is very handy to see your traffic at a glance. It has helped alert me when a post is going viral and also once when I had a broken link. The extension is very handy so you keep track of your traffic without having to visit the stats page and refreshing it on your blog.
Enjoy your extensions, Barbara!
Thanks for the tips! I’m new to Chrome. Can’t wait to try these out. 🙂
Hi Lynn, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! Yes, if you’re new to Chrome, you’re in for a treat. The Chrome Web Store is packed with free stuff to enhance your browsing experience. I hope you find some extensions that work well for you, Lynn!
I am actually not using any extensions at all. But, I used to use all kinds, and especially extensions related to online marketing and design. Now, I am only using Safari and it doesn’t have that many great extensions. On the other hand, I have been thinking of installing Chrome, because of the Facebook PowerEditor and it’s only available for Chrome. If I install it, I’ll be back for your post for sure to see which ones I am going to install 🙂
Hi Jens, I haven’t used Facebook Power Editor but I can see where that extension may prove very useful to you in your business.
Yes, Chrome and Firefox have many more extensions than Safari, but Safari also has some useful features built into its browser.
Yes, if you do install Chrome, be sure to check out extensions to see which ones may be a good fit for you.
I already have some of these Chrome extensions like Alexa and WP states. I think I should add the “My Permissions Cleaner”. I usually forget about the permissions that I have granted in various social media sites.
Hi SMS, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! Yes, My Permissions Cleaner is very handy and alerts you when a service has a new permission to one of your accounts. You can also see easily who has permissions and revoke them all at once if you want to.
Both in Chrome as in any other browser, addons are not very recommended. Leave the browser heavy, very slow. Unless, of course, if you have a powerful machine, which is not my case
Hi Harry, You are absolutely correct, adding extensions to a browser can result in a loss of speed. You should carefully consider whether the loss of speed is worth the functionality that the extension brings to you.
I sometimes use these Chrome extensions on a six year old desktop computer running Windows Vista and notice that pages take longer to load, but I still find these extensions worthwhile. I prefer the slower load time to using Chrome without these extensions. It’s a judgment call based upon your patience, your computer’s capabilities and your personal preferences.
Thanks so much for stopping by to share your opinion and insights with us, Harry!
Carolyn,
Wonderful round up about extensions. 🙂 Absolutely these are awesome and most time it simplifies our life. Ad block plus, Evernote, are great and still need to try Evernote and others.
Thanks to mention about my guest post for – Hoot suite 🙂
Hi Vijay, Thanks again for your great HootSuite article! I’m glad you found some useful extensions here. Enjoy!
Carolyn, great post as usual. I must try out Adblock…would make my life online much simpler. In terms of add ons that slow down browsing, I’ve found that the Skype Chrome addon really causes issues. I’ve had to completely remove it from my browser unfortunately.
Hi Frank, Yes, a bad extension can give you headaches so it’s important to use only the ones that work well and are useful. Even if reviews are good, sometimes an extension just doesn’t play well with others on your computer. You were wise to remove Skype Chrome when you discovered that it had issues.
Great article! I am going to have to try Alexa and Zemanta, so thanks for the knowledge share. I am concerned about Rapportive since they were acquired by Linkedin. They say that they will continue the service, but I am skeptical.
I have been using both Rapportive and Smartr Inbox together to get the best results. Falcon is awesome too! Great piece, thanks again!
-Arron
Hi Arron, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! I hope Rapportive does continue their service, but many services get discontinued, especially by Google so we never know what the future holds. Thanks for your suggestions of Smartr Inbox and Falcon, Arron!
Hi Carolyn,
Thanks for the list. I would like to add some more in Bloggers section:
Eye Dropper
MOZ Bar
SEO Status and PR Checker etc.
Hi Naser, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! Thanks for letting us know about your favorite extensions for bloggers. I haven’t tried any of these before and I appreciate you letting us know about them.
Carolyn – I have been using Chrome ever since it came into existence I think, and I have so many extensions installed, and even some which are so redundant that I have to remove them now 🙂
The ones mentioned by you are incredible, the blogger extensions are really useful for me and of course for every blogger I am sure. I wasnt aware of the adblock, I will surely try that one out now.
Great list and appreciate you bringing them out to our attention.
Hi Praveen, Great point, you should review your extensions every so often and delete the ones that you aren’t using. No need to bog down your browser with extensions that aren’t useful to you.
So glad you liked the article, Praveen, and that you discovered AdBlock.
Thanks for this post. There were quite a few I had never heard of.
I knew of Alexa but never remembered to install it, thank you
Have used Evernote, dictionary and translate before and now I’m going to try out a couple of these.
First one will be photo zoom, sounds like a great idea
Thanks again
regards
Dave
Hi Dave, Yes, as a blogger you really should have the Alexa rank extension in Chrome to check out the ranking of websites you visit and help improve their Alexa ranking.
I hope you like Photo Zoom, Dave. I find it very handy to enlarge photos quickly and easily.
I’m already using most of the extensions but few are new for me. Thanks for sharing. Buffer may be helpful for me to promote movie celebrities posts widely.
Hi M&C, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! Yes, Buffer is a very useful tool to share posts on social media and this extension will help you use Buffer.
Hi Carolyn
I really like the look of Zemanta. I’ve just installed that and the WordPress stats one which looks very useful.
I’d not heard of Zemanta but I can see it’s going to be very useful Carolyn so thank you for pointing me in their direction!
I have a few of the other extensions like Buffer but I find if I have too many my browser really slows down so I try and limit the number of new ones I add.
Brilliant list Carolyn. I like the adblock extension too and I’m going to check that one out tomorrow.
Hi Tim, Yes, Zemanta is a wonderful service for bloggers, but I prefer to use it as a Chrome extension instead of a plugin to keep my blog speedy quick. WordPress Stats is very handy to see your traffic at a glance.
You’re wise not to add too many browser extensions, Tim, to keep your browsing speedy quick! 🙂
Wow, I love this post, Carolyn,
This is the kind of post people like me need. I didn’t know much a bout those extensions and some of them sound really cool. Screeshot, Invisiblehand, OneTab, hum, sounds like I really want these, and going to get them.
I used to have a screen shot tool that I actually paid for but now that I have avast it’s telling me that this thing is not safe, so I’m scared to use it. I do screen shot from my keyboard bu this seem much better.
Great stuff and will share!
Hi Sylviane, Yes, Awesome Screenshot can make your life much easier by giving you much more control over your screenshots.
I am so glad you found this article helpful, Sylviane. Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us!
Hi Carolyn,
Great List indeed!
As I was reading the post I was going through some of them on the settings. I loved Awesome Screen Shot a lot and the video explained how to use it. I was looking for something like that for a while and I never knew that there is an extension like that. I already added it to my toolbar. Now I just have to make use of it.
I also loved the One Tab extension as I always open so many tabs and you are right it does slow my computer down. I also liked the WiseStamp extension.
Honestly all 15 of them look really fantastic as the title of your blog says. I just need the time to explore each one of them and see what exactly I need. I bookmarked this post as a reference.
Thanks Carolyn for sharing this great and educational post. I am really excited to know about these extensions. Great Job!
Be Blessed,
Neamat
Hi Neamat. Yes, Awesome Screenshot is much easier than the Print Screen function in Windows because you can choose where to save the screenshot and you can edit it before you save it. Very handy!
I’m glad you liked these extensions, Neamat. Thanks for letting us know!
Thanks Carolyn !! You made my day by posting such a list of useful addons, Frankly speaking, I was not aware with couple of..Best one for me would be Adblock, I would get rid of that nasty pop-up stuff.
Thanks again Carolyn, You are bookmarked 🙂
Hi Steve, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! Yes, AdBlock is a very helpful extension. I am so glad you found this article useful. Thanks for bookmarking it! 🙂
very nice list caroline, im using many of the above extension to save my time like from ads and form other idiots sutff, Adblock is one of the essential and important to block all annoying ads.
Hi Kay, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! I’m glad you enjoy using extensions too. They are great time savers and make browsing the Internet much more pleasant.
Great tools I use alexa tool and page rank tool. As this is really helpful for me in determining the quality of a blog.
Hi Prakash, Yes, Alexa is a very useful tool to help you judge the validity of a website. Having the extension instead of the Alexa toolbar also helps save precious screen space!
Hi Carolyn,
The only thing I know about extensions is hair extensions. Really..no lie! Reading through this was a great opportunity for a better education on what this is all about.
I can see the benefits of it, but need to give it a closer look to see which ones would work for me.
I don’t like to overload my blog, but will look into this.
Thanks for teaching me something new today…….
Donna
Hi Donna, Lol, well browser extensions are very, very different from hair extensions. It’s important not to get them confused! 😉
Yes, extensions can make your life much easier, especially as a blogger. These extensions won’t affect your blog at all, except if you have WordPress and you use the Zemanta extension instead of the plugin, you will have one less plugin for your blog, which is a good thing.
Start with Alexa and Adblock Plus to see if you like them. If you do, then you can add some more.
Let me know if you have any questions, Donna. I’m happy to help! 🙂
Hi Carolyn,
I like these extensions. All mine got wiped not long ago, I usually have lots. I had one that gave me the Google page rank of websites. that was useful because I discovered the news site that syndicates my blog has a worse page rank than me!
I got your photos. I’ll use some of them next week. You might be surprised what I did with them. I have another good picture to use that I took on Monday that’s currently my Facebook cover picture. We have sunshine in England now! 🙂
Hi Mike, I’m glad that you found this article helpful. You may also want to check out the photography extensions for Chrome that may be useful to you.
I look forward to seeing how you edit the pictures I sent you. I really like your new cover photo on Facebook. Very powerful editing!
Very nice list! I am not so into this sort of stuff, but I will give it a try for sure! Do you by any chance to know of some useful plugins for SEO and design?
Cheers!
Hi Danic, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! I’m glad you’re going to give some of these extensions a try. I’m thinking you meant to ask about extensions, not plugins, is that correct? You can check the Blogging section of the Chrome web store for extensions that may prove helpful to you. Let me know if you actually meant plugins for blogging, in which case I would have a different answer.
Thanks for stopping by and adding to the conversation, Danic!
Hi Carolyn
What an awesome list of extensions. I only use a couple of them so I might need to check out the rest of them. I have not been using Chrome for that long, but I really love that there is so many great extensions for different tasks.
Hi Thomas, Yes, you’re right, there certainly are a lot of Chrome extensions. I am certain you will find new ones I haven’t mentioned here and I hope this list provides you with some useful ones.
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts with us!
Hi Carolyn,
Thank you for sharing this list! I love finding new extensions! I use several that you’ve mentioned. Wisestamp and Rapportive are two of my favorites. I love the adblock suggestion, I’m definitely going to have look into that one!
Thanks again!
Stacy
Hi Stacy, I’m so glad this helped. I’ve been using all of these for a while except for One Tab, which I discovered researching this article. Now that I have One Tab, I don’t know how I did without it.
Enjoy your new extensions, Stacy!
Hi Carolyn …
This list is has very usefull extension. I am using awesome screen shot and Google Dictionary.
thanks for other extensions too. I will try other extensions too.
Regards
Hi Ravi, I hope you find some extensions that you like in my list. Thanks for stopping by to share your thoughts with us.
This is a great list of extensions, Carolyn! There are so many available, so it was nice to see an organized list. I did not even know about the Alexa or Zemanta extensions – I can’t wait to try those out! One I use and can’t live without is the Shareaholic for Pinterest extension. It makes it so very easy to add blog posts or other articles to Pinterest when the site doesn’t have a Pin-it button. Thanks again for your helpful post – I’ve bookmarked it!
Hi Jennifer, Thank you, I’m so glad you enjoyed this article!
I actually use the Pinterest Pin It bookmarklet to pin images to Pinterest when a website doesn’t have a Pin-It button. The fewer browser extensions you have the faster your browser will be.
Hello Carolyn,
This is great post. Most of that extension i have used. But WiseStamp ,My Permissions Cleaner , Buffer extensions are unkown for me. From description it look like it will helpful for me. I will try that extension. Thanks for Sharing this Article.
Hi Pramod, I’m so glad you enjoyed this article and that you discovered some new extensions. I hope they are very helpful to you, Pramod!
Interestingly I already have about 10 of those (or same featured plugins).
But I had never heard of “One Tab”. That one is going to save my computer a lot of memory issues.
Hi Marcus, Wow, it seems as if we have a lot of the same extensions in common. I discovered One Tab when I was researching this post and I am delighted to have found it. You’re right, this extension can actually make your browser run better, how great is that? :-bd
Hi Carolyn,
Thanks for the great list of extensions for Chrome. I only have a few myself: Alexa, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Pinterest, Gmail, WiseStamp and RoboForm. I also have Feedly Rss now but only turn it on when needed as I use feedDemon.
(using both due to my last post and the issues reported in it)
I’ve noticed recently that my Chrome is going slower than normal hence turning some extensions off until needed. I’m also having to clean the cache every week just to see Adrienne’s comments, so I dare not add any more to it.
One question I have been meaning to ask you: I’ve recently got myself a smart phone and it uses safari to browse the web. Do I need some sort of protection against viruses etc? I don’t do much browsing on it due to screen size but its good for searches etc and of course Twitter 🙂
Thanks Carolyn,
Barry
Hi Barry, You’re wise to use only the browser extensions you need on Chrome. You’re right that they can slow the browser down drastically. I know what you mean about Adrienne’s comments. I just refresh the page and see them though.
Congratulations on your new phone! What brand of smartphone did you get? My answer will vary drastically depending on the type of smartphone you got.
Hi Carolyn,
When it comes to Adrienne’s blog, for some strange reason for the last few weeks I’ve had to clear my cache in Chrome as it’s not displaying all of her comments and refreshing the page doesn’t work. It’s not an issue really as I switch to FF and catch up there and then clear the cache and refresh….. Ta da it all works again 🙂
My children got me the iphone 4 for Christmas Carolyn.
Thanks, Barry
Hi Barry, You’re right, it does sound as if perhaps there is an extension causing those issues with Adrienne’s blog. A refresh solves the issue for me on Chrome.
Okay, well here is the best answer I can give you about virus protection on the iPhone 4: an article from Forbes called Does The iPhone Need An Antivirus App? It Depends …http://www.forbes.com/sites/adriankingsleyhughes/2012/05/23/does-the-iphone-need-an-antivirus-app-it-depends/
The article is from a year ago but the answer wouldn’t be changed today.
Thanks for the link Carolyn, it was a great help 🙂
Catch up soon,
Barry
You’re very welcome, Barry. I’m so glad it helped you!
Hi Carolyn
I saw this post in our blog group and was in a hurry so I just searched for it again. I am glad I did. I keep going back to Firefox because I have not known what extensions to use for Chrome. Now I have a great list. I have a couple of these but now I have some more to try. I especially love the idea of One Tab .
Thanks Carolyn
Sue
Hi Sue, Thanks for taking the time to hunt down this article. If you prefer Firefox, you may be able to find many of these extensions there but Chrome seems to be a bit more popular with extension developers. I switched to Chrome because of the extension and now prefer it to Firefox but everyone is different.
OneTab is great, it helps me keep my tabs organized and definitely saves memory, making my browser run much more smoothly!
Hi Carolyn,
Fantastic post up here. I just love this kind of posts with list of apps and software 😉
I’ve been using limited extensions on my Chrome browser as they were slowing down my good old PC. Especially affected on browser startup time and that was not a good experience. Anyway now I’m ready for more extensions though stick with the needy ones 😉
Buffer and Awesome Screenshots are favs of mine too. Haven’t thought of using Google Translate as so far when I land on a page with unfamiliar language, I see a translation banner automatically on top of the tab 🙂 Now that’s supported by Chrome by default, no? Is there any more advantages rather than translation dear?
Actually I have no idea about some plugins you mentioned here 🙂 Installed OneTab while commenting and OH… Now I’m, typing my comment or second time 😀 lol… Anyway that’s a helpful one. I knew the parameter based option to combine all tabs and use in one process. What happens if there’s a power outage or something like that Carolyn? OneTab restore tabs again?
InvisibleHand is really a cool one 😉 Who would think about such a concept? Awesome!
Did you try Mail Checker Plus, PageRank Status, Pocket and Do Not Track Me? 🙂 They are in my favs list too.
Have a wonderful weekend full of browser extensions Carolyn 😉
Cheers…
Hi Mayura, You’re right, some extensions can slow down your browser so it’s important to be careful when you load new extensions.
One Tab takes your tabs and transforms then into links on a single page. Yes, if you do that when you’re in the middle of leaving a comment, you will lost the comment. Similarly, if you’re in the middle of drafting an article, you will lose your draft unless you save it first. Be careful!
Yes, once you have your One Tab page set, a power outage will not affect the page. I learned that last week when we had a power outage for a few hours at our home.
The Google Translate extension seems to work more consistently than the built-in Chrome translator. If you don’t find the need for an extension to translate, then you can skip this one.
Of the ones you list, the only one I have tried is Do Not Track Me. But I actually like cookies. I like having forms filled out automatically when I visit a website, especially when I want to leave comments on a blog post. But thanks for leaving your suggestions for others to try out Mayura!
Carolyn,
Tab hoarder? Guilty as accused! I installed OneTab and InvisibleHand immediately. I already use a few of the others you mentioned and find them extremely helpful, especially Rapportive. Thanks for this post. I live in South Jersey and read the Inquirer so I’m surprised I haven’t heard more about your and your site before this. I added you on Google+ to keep up with your future posts. Glad I stumbled across Wonder of Tech.
Hi Anthony, A warm welcome to The Wonder of Tech! I’m glad you found us too. Thanks for the follow on Google Plus, you can sign up for a free email subscription too if you want notices of new articles.
Yes, One Tab and Invisible Hand are truly great extensions, saving you memory, time and money. I hope you enjoy your new extensions, Anthony!
Interesting post. Chrome extensions are really helps and it saves our valuable time.Thanks for this list of extensions and in this list some of new to me like “Awesome Screenshot”, i am going to install this extension.
Hi Andrew, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! Glad you liked this post. Yes, Chrome extensions can be incredibly helpful because they work in the background so you don’t have to worry about issues like lower prices, language translations, memory management, etc.
Awesome Screenshot is a truly great service, a much easier way to take a screenshot than the native Windows screenshot function.
I didn’t realize how many useful extensions were really available. I’m going to have to check out Buffer and HootSuite Hootlet for more convenient sharing to my friends and family. Thanks for the great suggestions!
Hi Jamie, I’m so glad you like these extensions. I hope they prove to be very useful to you!
Add a tiny emoticons keyboard while typing an comment on facebook……
http://emoticons.siteforums.net/
Hi Garry, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! Thanks so much for suggesting Emoticons for Facebook. That looks like a very handy Chrome extension for Facebook fans. 🙂