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Home » Technology » 100 Chrome Extensions That You Should Install

Last Updated on August 11, 2013

Technology

100 Chrome Extensions That You Should Install

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We have collected 100 awesome and useful Google Chrome extensions into this one big list that is easy to digest because they’re all categorized! By tweaking you Google Chrome, it can make your browser much more productive and interesting. Enjoy!

Business Tools

1. Gmail Offline

Gmail Offline is one of the most useful tools I have downloaded. Many times emails come in faster than I can reply to them, but disconnecting from the internet while I reply to what is currently in my inbox can be a big help. Additionally, when you are not connected, you will use less battery power.

2. Google Calendar

Google Calendar is an app that gives you fast access to your Google Calendar. Aside from the direct link to your main calendar, there is also the option to see and manage your calendar while offline. This is very useful for the same same reasons as the above Gmail Offline app.

3. Smartr Inbox for Gmail

Smartr Inbox for Gmail is a great extension for your Google Chrome browser. You will be able to see the social accounts for your contacts, which is a great way to better understand clients and/or keep up with family and friends, all from your Gmail inbox.

4. Google Tasks (by Google)

If you weren’t aware, Google has a Tasks app, and it’s already part of your Gmail and Google Calendar. While it is pretty bare-bones, it can still be useful. Using the Google Tasks (by Google) extension will make Google Tasks more accessible and therefore more effective.

5. Always Clear Downloads

Always Clear Downloads is a Google Chrome extension made to solve the problem of that ugly download bar that appears at the bottom of your Chrome browser window after you download any type of file. This will save you task of clicking on the close “X” button every time you download something.

6. Grammarly Lite

Grammarly Lite is a great spell-checker for your browser window. It is different from most others because it will check your grammar as well as your spelling. If you dislike people who incorrectly place the wrong type of word in the wrong part of a sentence, Grammarly will help you avoid becoming one of them.

7. KeyRocket for Gmail

KeyRocket for Gmail is a somewhat educational tool: while you are using Gmail, KeyRocket helps you learn the keyboard shortcuts. Knowing what will Archive an email vs. Deleting it will help you get through your inbox a lot more quickly, and the faster you get through all of your emails, the more likely you are to keep your message count low—maybe even zero.

8. PanicButton

PanicButton lets you hide all of your windows and tabs at once and opens a preset window—some people refer to this as a “boss” button. You can even password-protect the button so they can’t restore the tabs without it. If the button is too obvious, a keyboard shortcut can be used instead.

9. Awesome New Tab Page

The Awesome New Tab Page is a great way to create a useful start page for your Google Chrome browser: when you create a new page or tab, this window will open up. There are a lot of default tiles to add as well as other extensions to install, adding to the awesomeness of the new tab page.

10. Powerbot for Gmail

Powerbot for Gmail ties your two most used apps—Gmail and Evernote—together for one big productivity party. What is really cool here is not needing to toggle between two apps just to create a new note. Everything can be added to the note just as if you were in Evernote; even the email attachments.

Search Tools

11. Search by Image (by Google)

Search by Image (by Google) is a brilliant little extension that lets you search the web using an image instead of words as the search term. This is handy if you are looking for the original version of an image, or even a modified version thereof. You can right-click on an image on a webpage and then search Google for similar images.

12. Google Analytics Opt-out Add-on

When you are browsing the web, you are hard-pressed to come across a site not using Google Analyitcs. These sites are tracking what you are doing: when you are clicking around the site, Google Analyitcs is watching what you are doing, but Google Analytics Opt-out Add-on helps you to avoid being tracked.

13. Highlight to Search

When you are on the web a lot, you are sure to come across something you want to search for more information about, and Highlight to Search makes this easier. Simply highlight the words you’d like to search for, and click the magnifying glass for a new tab with a search in it.

14. Google Quick Scroll

Google Quick Scroll is another great way to make your searches faster. When you click on a link in the search results, you are taken directly to the spot on the page where the search term is mentioned, which saves you from scanning the page as you look for the information you want.

15. Centered Google Results

Centered Google Results is a must-have for users with large monitors. Normally the Google search results are off to the left side, but this Google Chrome extension is a simple fix to place the search results in the center of your screen.

16. Google Search 360

Google used to have a feature called Wonder Wheel in their search options to help you find similar search terms. This was great for people like bloggers or internet marketers, and Google Search 360 is a lot like Wonder Wheel. Add a search term and see similar terms, or keep narrowing down the terms to get more niche results.

17. Personal Blocklist (by Google)

Personal Blocklist (by Google) is a pretty cool extension that lets you block certain URLs from your searches. This is really helpful if you are doing a lot of searching and want to eliminate certain sites like Wikipedia from your search.

18. Speak to Search

Speak to Search lets you use your voice to search Google. If you have an Android phone and use Google Now or other voice commands, you know how useful this is.

19. DuckDuckGo for Chrome

DuckDuckGo for Chrome lets you search without being tracked. Instead of going to a completely different site to search, you can add this extension and use the DuckDuckGo icon. You will see the results at the top of the normal Google Search page.

20. Incognito Search

When you are reading something on a page, you can highlight the term and select Incognito Search to look for the query in a non-tracked window. This will keep it out of your search history too.

Entertainment

21. Magic Actions for YouTube

Magic Actions for YouTube is a must-have for avid YouTube video watchers. It adds essential features like Cinema view and easier sharing options, and you will wonder how you ever lived without them.

22. Auto HD For YouTube

When watching videos, the usual default is to judge the connection and play it back at the best possible quality. Auto HD For YouTube will automatically play the video back in HD every time and in wide screen mode. If you have a slower connection, this might not work well for you.

23. Last.fm Scrobbler

Last.fm is a super popular web app for music lovers. When you listen to something you can scrobble it which means the song is logged and shared with followers. Last.fm Scrobbler is an extension to help this process when you are listening songs on sites like YouTube.

24. CanIStreamIt Search

When you think of a show or movie you’d like to watch, an easy way to find out if you can stream it and from where is using the CanIStreamIt Search Google Chrome extension. Find out if you need to watch it on Amazon or if Netflix is streaming it or somewhere you didn’t think to check.

25. Grooveshark Mediakeys Reloaded

Grooveshark is a web app letting you listen to a lot of new music. With Grooveshark Mediakeys Reloaded, you can control the track as you listen to it using keyboard shortcuts making it easier to pause, advance to the next track and so on.

26. XKCD Alt Text

Sometimes, when reading the comic strip XKCD, it can be a little hard to read the text. XKCD Alt Text makes it easier to read by adding the text outside the strip.

27. My Watch Later Link for Youtube

Have you added videos to your YouTube Quick list and then forgotten about them? Well, My Watch Later Link for Youtube puts a link right next to the search bar so you can easily click it to watch saved videos.

28. Cloud Downloader

SoundCloud is a great app for finding new music, and Cloud Downloader is an extension that helps you download the new music you find so you can listen to it later. This is all done right from your browser instead of through the site.

29. Best Games,Just For You

Do you like to play games? Best Games,Just For You will help you find one to keep you busy. You will have access to about 3500 different games you can play right from your browser—just filter through the game categories to find the perfect time-waster.

30. Classic Games

When you are in the mood to play a classic arcade game, the Classic Games gives access to a lot of the popular flash-style games you might like. One I like to play is the Apple Shooter—some of the mishaps are hilarious.

Accessibility

31. Speed Dial

Some of the browsers out there like Opera have a great New Tab Page with Speed Dials. Essentially, this is a page with the logos for a lot of your most-accessed bookmarks. Speed Dial brings this feature to Google Chrome.

32. Stealthy

Do you live in a country where certain sites are blocked, like some YouTube videos in Germany? Stealthy will help those of you who have content blocked be able to view those sites without the restrictions. This is very useful for international travelers who might not be used to the restrictions.

33. Tree Style Tabs (Beta)

When you have a lot of tabs open, finding the one with the right page can be a challenge. To solve this, Tree Style Tabs list all of the title information for each tab in a drop-down tree-style menu, making it a lot easier to find the right page quickly.

34. FVD Speed Dial

FVD Speed Dial is similar to the other Speed Dial extension in this list with more of a 3D wall Safari browser look to it. See a cached view of the page as the icon for a really good-looking new tab page.

35. Hacker Vision

Hacker Vision will invert the most of whats on your screen to a black background, which is easier on the eyes than having a white background. I wasn’t a believer of this until I tried it for an afternoon, and was really surprised at how much it helped.

36. Turn Off the Lights

Watching a video on your screen is tricky; some videos are all grainy if you expand them to fit the screen, while if you watch them in a smaller mode, you can see all the other stuff on your desktop. Turn Off the Lights will dim the other things in the background so you can focus on the video.

37. Read&Write for Google Docs

Read&Write for Google Docs is a great tool for anyone trying to learn the English language. If you are struggling to read or understand a word, you can use the built-in dictionaries or have Google Docs read you the sentence.

38. Categorizer

Your browser history is not all that easy to manage, so Categorizer aims to help solve this problem by helping you categorize the sites you visit often. From the right-click menu, you can add a site to a category for later. It’s like bookmarking—just a little different.

39. ViewMyBrowser

ViewMyBrowser is a really simple way for you to share your screen with someone else. This is ideal for helping out someone who might be having computer troubles or if you are teaching someone something from a remote location.

40. Fine Link Selector

If you have ever tried to copy a portion of a link, you know you will usually click on the link instead. Fine Link Selector will let you copy just the portion of the link you want instead of copying the whole thing and deleting what you don’t need.

Lifestyle

41. Add to Amazon Wish List

When you are browsing around the web, the Add to Amazon Wish List button makes it easy to save an item to your Wish List for later purchase. No need to head over to Amazon, find the item, and save it anymore.

42. Eat24

Eat24 helps you feed your craving without leaving your browser. With restaurants in over 750 cities, you can order food and have it delivered right to your door. You can also keep track of your favorites so you can order “the usual” in future.

43. Mini Maps

When you are on the web and need to find a location and don’t want to fire up Google Maps, you can use Mini Maps. It offers almost all of the basic mapping options you will need.

44. Refresh Monkey

There are some cases where you need the page to refresh at set intervals, like when you are watching an auction. This is where Refresh Monkey comes in handy: you can set the intervals and choose whether you want one page pr all of the pages to refresh.

45. Kicktraq

Have you supported a startup on KickStart? If so, you know it isn’t always too easy to track the progress. Kicktraq makes the process less painful. See how many backers the project has, the amount raised, and other useful information.

46. Honey

Shopping online is always better when you find a deal. Honey will help you find discount codes for the sites you are shopping on. Not only will it find the codes, but it will try them for you to get the ones that work and give you the best deal.

47. Stipple

If you run a website or like to guide people into purchasing certain items, Stipple will let you annotate an image with links to more information about the parts of the image. You can link to any URL, not just consumer sites.

48. Cryptagram

There are some cases where you might want to post Cryptagram will let you decode images encrypted using the Cryptagram web app. It’s great for hiding things in plain sight.

49. Explain and Send Screenshots

When you need a quick way to take a screen shot and annotate it to show someone how something works, Explain and Send Screenshots will be just what you’re looking for. Add text, arrows and other annotations to your screen captures and copy and paste them into other apps like Google Docs.

50. BBC Good Food

BBC Good Food is a great way to find new recipes right from your browser. There are over 260 different recipes that people have actually cooked and deemed worthy of putting on the site.

News & Weather

51. The Onion

For those of you who have never read or watched anything The Onion has put out, it is a really funny satirical news site and publication about current events. This extension for Chrome lets you see all of the newest hilarity right in your icon bar.

52. RSS Feed Reader

With Google’s decision to eliminate Google Reader, RSS Feed Reader might be a good option for you to have easy access to your RSS Feeds. When you click the icon, you will see the different feeds in a drop-down and how many unread posts on each site. This is a very easy solution if you only read your RSS feeds on one computer.

53. Awesome Weather Widget [ANTP]

Earlier we mentioned Awesome New Tab Page. Awesome Weather Widget [ANTP] is an add-on for Awesome New Tab Page giving you a great looking weather widget. There are other great add-ons like like this in the Chrome Web Store, and usually they will have [ANTP] in the title.

54. Feedly Plus

Feedly is another great option for a Google Reader replacement. In fact they are working on a seamless transition when Google Reader is done. The layout is more appealing for reading new articles.

55. Email this page (by Google)

There are times when you are looking at a webpage and think “Jimmy would really like this.” The Email this page (by Google) extension lets you email the contents of the page or what you highlight on the page to someone using Gmail.

56. Finance Toolbar

If you follow the stock market closely and like to have a ticker on your screen, Finance Toolbar gives you a spot to see all of the current happenings in an easy-to-see toolbar, which is right above your bookmark bar so it isn’t in your way.

57. TLDR

With all of the information out there, it takes a long time to sift through it all to find something interesting to read, and sometimes you are just lured in by a crafty headline. TLDR gives you a condensed version of the article so you can see if it is indeed something you’d like to spend some time reading more of.

58. Amazon Mini

For the Amazon obsessed, Amazon Mini will let you quickly see what the deals of the day are by clicking on the icon. If you like what you see, click on the deal—otherwise, you didn’t waste too much of your time or get too distracted on the site.

59. Knew Tab – New Tab Page

Knew Tab is a really clean and useful New Tab Page for your browser. You can see things like how many unread emails are in your Gmail inbox, what the word of the day is, or other simple things to increase the use of the page.

60. Rain Alarm Extension

The Rain Alarm Extension can be a good thing to have if you work in an area with no windows and you like to leave your car windows open. This will give you some warning so you can run out and shut them, or you can prepare to take a nap while listening to the spring rain.