Even though I’ve experimented with different browsers over the years, I’ve always come back to Chrome. I know Google isn’t the best company when it comes to privacy, but they make a heck of a browser nonetheless.
One of the reasons Chrome is so great is the sheer number of extensions you can install. Firefox also has a good selection of extensions, but somehow Chrome still has the best ones for what you need.
Over the years of using Chrome, I have introduced seven browser extensions that I simply cannot live without. I use them every day and would be disappointed if they were discontinued.
After you browse this list, be sure to read our other lists of the best Chrome extensions for productivity, the best Chrome extensions for web developers, and 10 more great Chrome extensions
(Opens in a new tab” This stealth mode!
There are many reasons why you can use Incognito Mode to browse the web. Since it leaves no traces in your cookies, cache, and Internet history, it is ideal for browsing pages you don’t want others to know you are browsing.
Since incognito mode is also known as “porn” mode, you can guess what I’m hinting at here. But seriously, Incognito Mode is perfect for when you have a site that only gives you a limited number of free views per month, such as the New York Times and the New Yorker. Incognito mode will hide your identity and reset your free views to zero.
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You can usually switch to incognito mode by selecting File– New Incognito Window . But an easier way is to use this extension. Just click a button and your web page will automatically go into incognito mode. Easy and hassle-free.
Chrono Download Manager
One of the few Firefox extensions that I really liked was “Down Them All,” and I was devastated when it was discontinued. It was a download manager that sniffed all downloads on a web page, listed them for you by file format, and let you choose the ones you want to download. It was a real bliss.
It took me a while, but I finally managed to find the Chrome equivalent. It’s called Chrono Download Manager It takes over the standard Chrome download feature with an improved interface, but also has a sniffer feature.
If I were on this page, you will see links to downloadable classic MP3 music files.
Right-clicking on each and choosing “Save As” is a little tedious. Therefore, if you click Chrono, the sniffer will find all MP3 files and list them for you.
Then just check the ones you want and click “Download All”.
Privacy Badger
By now, everyone already knows that web browsing is associated with certain risks. Websites like Amazon, Facebook, and other major sites have trackers that track you online with their cookies and scripts. If you look at something on Amazon and then go to another site, you will most likely see an advertisement for the same item on Amazon.
These are the things that Privacy Badger tries to avoid. The Privacy Badger program, created by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, blocks all known scripts, trackers, ads and social media widgets.
By clicking the Badger box, you can see what was blocked and what was allowed. While this is not recommended, if you are unsure of what you are doing, you can override the Privacy Badger guidelines.
It’s inevitable that with hundreds of RSS feeds to browse every day looking for story ideas, I’m going to find countless stories to read. Stories for which I immediately have no time left at that moment. This is why Pocket is so valuable.
In Pocket I hid all the stories I want to read – after all. With over 500 links, I think I need to start shortening this list very soon. When you see the link you want to save, press the Pocket button and it will be immediately saved to your Pocket account. Of course, you first need to log into your account.
OneTab
When you do some research on Google, and many tabs start opening, the browser starts to slow down. This is completely normal, but it can still be painful. It’s even more frustrating when you have dozens and dozens of tabs open and suddenly it becomes difficult to navigate through them.
OneTab does a great job with this problem. When you have many tabs open, pressing the OneTab button will close all those tabs for you and place them in an interactive list instead.
This frees up memory on those tabs, and at the same time, you have a nice neat list of sites to link to. You can group tabs into categories and lock them to prevent accidental deletion.
My only complaint is that OneTab doesn’t sync between computers, so the lists on my laptop don’t immediately appear on my computer, and vice versa. But you can export the list and import it to another computer, which I recommend doing on a regular basis. But this is a clumsy process.
PushBullet
I use quite a few devices every day, the two main ones being my laptop and my iPhone. In the past, passing links from one to the other was a real pain when sending emails to yourself or syncing tabs. But then Pushbullet came along, and now sending links between devices has become very easy.
Pushbullet is actually a pretty old extension, and the developers had some really big plans for it. But it seems that over the years, he faded into the background. But I love it. You can right-click the page, select the PushBullet option, and then select the device to which the page will be sent. Works great every time.
Make Great Google Photos Again
Despite the unfortunate political name, this is an extension that ignores Google’s inexplicable decision. Some time ago, they prevented people from directly navigating to images in Google Images. So the Internet did what it usually does – it added the button again.
When you install an extension, watch for the button to return. Abracadabra!
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