{"id":456639,"date":"2022-08-20T10:59:06","date_gmt":"2022-08-20T08:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=456639"},"modified":"2022-08-20T10:59:53","modified_gmt":"2022-08-20T08:59:53","slug":"useful-google-chrome-extensions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/software\/456639-useful-google-chrome-extensions.html","title":{"rendered":"Useful Google Chrome extensions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Google Chrome has several browser extensions that can make daily browsing more efficient and productive.<\/p>\n

AtlasVPN\u2019s report<\/a><\/strong> shows that Google Chrome is the world\u2019s most popular browser, with more than 3.3 billion users in April 2022.<\/p>\n

StatCounter puts Chrome\u2019s desktop browser market share at 75.78% in South Africa, with Microsoft Edge coming in second with 10.89%.<\/p>\n

Although users are spoiled for choice when it comes to expanding their browser\u2019s functionality, they should exercise caution when installing extensions.<\/p>\n

In February 2020, security researchers discovered that over 500 popular browser extensions uploaded private browsing data<\/a><\/strong> to malicious parties.<\/p>\n

Similarly, a previous analysis showed that websites could track users\u2019 Internet activity<\/a><\/strong> by detecting which Chrome extensions they have installed.<\/p>\n

As a safety precaution, Chrome users are advised to keep track of their installed extensions and uninstall those no longer in use.<\/p>\n

However, if users investigate an extension thoroughly on the Chrome Web Store by taking reviews and the extension authors into account, they can mitigate the risk of installing malicious software.<\/p>\n

Below are some of the most useful Google Chrome browser extensions to augment your daily browsing.<\/p>\n

A password manager \u2014 LastPass, Bitwarden, 1Password<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As a basic step everyone can take to improve their safety online, computer security professionals recommend using a password manager.<\/p>\n

Password managers allow you to create and store unique passwords for every online service. You then only need to remember one strong master password to unlock your credentials.<\/p>\n

This helps avoid the pitfalls of password reuse. If a data breach or leak compromises your password for one online service, it won\u2019t impact any of your other credentials.<\/p>\n

Good password managers encrypt your credentials to ensure they guard against the potential damage of a data breach of their systems.<\/p>\n

Many browsers like Chrome come with their own built-in password managers. Google also recently announced that it was expanding the functionality of Chrome\u2019s password manager<\/a><\/strong> outside the browser.<\/p>\n

However, using a stand-alone password manager ensure your credentials are not bound to a particular operating system or browser.<\/p>\n

Pushbullet<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Android smartphone users can install Pushbullet to receive notifications on their desktop instead of pulling out their smartphone every time.<\/p>\n

By installing the Android application and linking it to the browser extension, Pushbullet can display all your notifications in your browser.<\/p>\n

You can also dismiss or respond to these inside your browser, including replying to WhatsApp and SMS messages.<\/p>\n

Tampermonkey<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Tampermonkey lets users alter a website\u2019s appearance and behaviour by running user scripts.<\/p>\n

User scripts are bits of JavaScript code that run in your browser as if it was retrieved from the web server storing the web page.<\/p>\n

Considering this, Tampermonkey cannot run scripts that require more than user access privileges to the server.<\/p>\n

Examples of user scripts include automatically closing YouTube advertisements, adding Google search functionality, and automatic reCAPTCHA solving.<\/p>\n

Marinara: Pomodoro Assistant<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Marinara is a time management assistant offering users customisable focus and break timers to maximise productivity.<\/p>\n

The Pomodoro technique splits work into 25-minute intervals separated by 5-minute breaks, with a longer break following the fourth work period.<\/p>\n

The extension tracks the time spent on work to give users a snapshot of their productivity during the day.<\/p>\n

Honey<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Honey automatically applies promotional coupons to your online shopping cart across over 30,000 e-commerce websites, including Amazon, Udemy, Apple, and Microsoft.<\/p>\n

While this extension primarily supports US-based and international ecommerce platforms, users can suggest that Honey add online retailers.<\/p>\n

If you regularly shop on Amazon, Honey compares a product\u2019s prices from different sellers to list the lowest option.<\/p>\n

Users can track a product\u2019s price by adding it to the extension\u2019s droplist, alerting them with an email when a price drop is detected.<\/p>\n

Shortkeys (Custom Keyboard Shortcuts)<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Shortkeys lets you create custom keyboard shortcuts to use within Google Chrome.<\/p>\n

This extension is handy for improving productivity and automating actions that usually take several mouse clicks.<\/p>\n

For example, you can set shortcuts to close all other tabs, switch to the last used tab, open an application, close a tab, and hard reload a page.<\/p>\n

Return YouTube Dislike<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

As its name implies, this extension returns the ability to see the dislikes on YouTube videos inside Chrome.<\/p>\n

It combines extension users\u2019 likes and dislikes with the historical like and dislike data to show the most accurate ratings.<\/p>\n

Before YouTube removed the dislike count in December 2021, it was a useful measure to tell whether the public viewed a video as valuable or not.<\/p>\n

YouTube said the removal was to help protect creators<\/a><\/strong> from harassment and to reduce dislike attacks.<\/p>\n

Tab Wrangler<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Tab Wrangler closes inactive browser tabs automatically after a set time to prevent Google\u2019s memory-hungry browser from eating into your computer\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n

The extension keeps a list of all the automatically closed tabs in a \u201ccorral\u201d, which you can access to re-open tabs as required.<\/p>\n

You can also configure Tab Wrangler to prevent your favourite websites from getting auto-closed.<\/p>\n

It does not save a web page\u2019s state, so any web application and web form content will be lost when a tab is automatically closed.<\/p>\n

Google Translate<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Google Translate extension is ideal if you quickly want to access web pages written in other languages, like international news or foreign-language announcements.<\/p>\n

Users can highlight or select text to quickly translate without navigating to Google Translate in another browser tab.<\/p>\n

Google Keep<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Google Keep\u2019s Chrome extension lets users take notes from within their browser and synchronises these across the other versions of the note-taking application.<\/p>\n

This is ideal for users who struggle with staying focused on a task when switching between different application windows to take digital notes.<\/p>\n

Dark Reader<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

While many websites and web applications have started implementing a dark mode, Dark Reader enables it for unsupported sites and applications.<\/p>\n

The extension enables night mode by inverting websites\u2019 bright colours and lets users customise the brightness, contrast, sepia, and grayscale settings.<\/p>\n

Users who prefer a site in light mode can add it to the ignore list.<\/p>\n

\n

Now read: We installed ChromeOS Flex on an old laptop \u2014 with impressive results<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sifting through Chrome Web Store’s massive collection of browser extensions can be a tedious task. Here are some of the most useful Google Chrome extensions to improve your browsing experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341094,"featured_media":456643,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[80625,80623,167,80621,35],"class_list":["post-456639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-software","tag-browser-extensions","tag-chrome-web-store","tag-google","tag-google-chrome-web-browser","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456639"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341094"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456639"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":457291,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456639\/revisions\/457291"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}