Google Chrome has been my favorite browser since I tried it last year. Absolutely love the speed, clean interface, and nice features. However, I still had to keep using my Firefox as well because of some of the plugins I used in Firefox.
Recently Google Chrome also started supported plugins (they call them extensions). I am quite surprised to see how many extensions have been created already, and many of them are really good.
Here are 4 Google Chrome Extensions that I find particularly useful. Try these out, and let us know what you think (all these are completely free):
- AdBlock for Google Chrome
- Google Mail Checker
- Aviary Screen Capture
- Chrome SEO Plugin.
[Editor’s note; this article was written by Freewaregenius contributor Ishan; check out his Freeware blog and his new site for netbook freeware].
One of the most popular plugin for Firefox is Adblock. It basically blocks ads from web pages, so that you can just focus on content. Now a similar plugin is available for Google Chrome as well: AdBlock for Chrome.
Once you install AdBlock, it just works. It will start blocking the ads for you automatically. You can configure it to keep showing ads on your chosen websites. Also, if you see that AdBlock has missed some ad, you can add that to AdBlock so that it blocks those type of ads going ahead.
2. Google Mail Checker is a small nifty extension for Google Chrome that lets you see the number of unread Gmail messages. Google Mail checker appears as a small icon on right side of your address bar. To read your Gmail messages, just click on the icon, and it will directly open your Gmail Inbox.
Aviary Screen Capture is a very interesting plugin that lets you capture screenshots from within Google Chrome.
The most useful feature of Aviary Screen capture is that it also lets you edit those screenshots directly from within your web browser. As soon as you take a screenshot, it opens another window which has all the basic editing tools, such as a color palette, various shapes, crop etc.
If you want more editing tools just click on the “Advanced Editor” option and it will produce more editing tools for you. This literally takes away the need for having a tool for taking screenshots and another for editing. Aviary combines both these features very well.
One limitation I found with this plugin is that it captures the entire visible area, and does not give the option to take a screenshot of just a specific section of screen. However, this really isn’t that big of a problem as you can simply crop the screenshot in the editor to keep just the desired area.
One of the reasons I had to keep going back to Firefox was to check the Google PageRank and Alexa Rank of websites. However, Chrome SEO plugin now brings that functionality to Google Chrome, and actually does it very well.
Chrome SEO plugin displays SEO related information about the webpage that you are browsing. To view this information, just click on Chrome SEO icon besides the address bar. It will open up a small window with some good information.
Chrome SEO shows Number of Pages of that websites that are indexed by various search engines. It also shows number of backlinks. Most importantly, it shows important traffic ranks, like Google Pagerank, Alexa Rank, Compete, Quantcast etc. Chrome SEO also shows you traffic graphs.
It is quite amazing that you get all this information by just one click on the icon. This is a very useful plugin for all the bloggers like us.
I find all these plugins very useful. Do you have any favorite plugins for Chrome? Let us know in Comments section.
Thanks for publishing this article
Hey, let’s not forget my favorite Chrome (nee Firefox) extensions:
XMarks for cross-platform, cross-browser bookmark and password synchronization.
IETab for viewing those pesky sites that won’t run under anything but IE.
Good Post.
Don’t forget web of trust, or xmarks
.
I use AdThwart. In Firefox AdBlock is best, but for Chrome AdThwart does a better job. Don’t forget Chrome Gestures (mouse gestures, duh) and Chromed Bird (twitter app)
Google Mail Checker Plus adds some useful features to mail checking – it allows to preview mail, read, delete, archive and mark as spam!
Take a close look at it https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/gffjhibehnempbkeheiccaincokdjbfe
Very good post! I use them all and in addition I like LastPass very much. LastPass has helped me a lot by not only generating hard to crack passwords for all my web-accounts but also remembering them
The three plugins without which I can’t work is Web of Trust, XMarks and LastPass.
Don’t forget that AdBlock and AdThwart on chrome isn’t really blocking anything since chrome’s plug-in API is not allowing such intrusion in the process of user viewing adverts.
And also I don’t trust Xmarks servers and have my own WebDAV server with which I sync my bookmarks and passwords and both of that futures Xmarks for chrome is not supporting currently and syncing passwords will not supported before chrome’s plug-in API will allow that.
I like Chrome but giving up my Firefox plugins is not something I’m willing to do. Love that Chrome is adding some plugins.
XMarks is one of my top 3 FAVORITE plugins
Nice utilities, and nice discussion. Just to add my 2cents, this is what I use with Chrome:
1) Evernote plugin
2) Read-it later (this is actually two plugins, one to mark, another to manage: synchs with the iphone)
3) “My Shortcuts” — actually a direct link to all google services (Docs, Agenda, Gmail, Contacts…).
4) IE Tab
I was really into FF extensions, but now I have become a full time Chrome user.
Thanks guys for some great Plugin recommendations. I also use LastPass and XMarks.
I was not able to find a Read It Later plugin for Chrome though. The Google Code project page for Chrome RIL did not seem to have a valid download. Would appreciate a URL !
ref. Read It Later chrome extension
Samer,
Please check it out. I’ve been using it for some time and it works great. Description below is from the developer:
Postponer Adder (http://tinyurl.com/postponeradder) adds an icon in the Chrome address bar for quickly adding items to your reading list. It also adds an icon next to every article Google Reader to add it to your reading list.
Postponer Manager (http://tinyurl.com/postponermanager) adds an icon in the Chrome toolbar to open your reading list with all your unread items. From there, you can open items, mark as read, etc. It can also show the number of unread items in your list on an icon badge (go to the Options page to enable this).
Rgds
Thanks Ricardo! – got it.
Personally I’m not a big fan of how Chrome’s extensions work. They just don’t feel right and as others have already said the ad blockers just hide the adverts they don’t stop you downloading them because Chrome’s api does not allow that level of functionality. I also find that Chrome’s memory footprint when using extensions is pretty large.