15 Rocking Google Chrome Extensions
November 09, 2009 at 11:11:30 PM, by Blair Mathis
Thanks to legions of Firefox users furiously replicating addons for their new favorite web browser, there are dozens, perhaps hundreds, to choose from. Though choosing the best is never easy, we fired up Chrome, did a little testing, and picked our top 15 choices.
1. Dual View
For those who feel that even tabs are limiting, for those who cannot wait the two seconds it takes to control+tab to the next window, for those who need to see both pages now, the Dual View extension allows you to open two webpages in one browser. Navigation is a little funky, but for those who need to compare without flipping between tabs, you can’t do better than Dual View.
2. PageRank Status
This extension will appeal to the OCD monster in you (or your crazy blogging habits). Page Rank Status, a bookmark extension, allows you to click and instantly see the Alexa page rank of any website, including your own blog, your friends Facebook page, or some other obscure websites you may be stalking.
3. Adblock+
If we have to explain to you what Adblock+ is, you’re not a well-rounded Firefox addons user and you might be lacking critical comprehension skills. Nonetheless, we’ll tell you anyway, because that’s what we do. Adblock+ is a nifty extension that will take any ad on any website and make it magically disappear as if it had never, ever existed.
4. Click and Clean
The Click and Clean extension is based on the excellent CCleaner tool for PCs and it adds a small tab on the bottom of your browser. When you need to purge your browser history, your cache, cookies, and any other temporary data pertaining to your browser, push the Click and Clean for an instant virtual flush.
5. Bubble Translate
Bubble Translate is a Chrome extension that will translate any text from a foreign language to your native language. To use, simply highlight the text you want to translate, and a small popup bubble will appear above it.
6. Smooth Scroll
The interesting thing about this extension is that it demonstrates just how anal some people are, and how…er…non-observant others are. Of course, the choppiness of scrolling in Chrome will be affected by your computer to a degree, but overall, you’ll experience a bit of hesitation when using Chrome. This can be remedied with the Smooth extension. Just note that some people claim to see massive improvements, while others see nothing at all.
7. Cleeki
Cleeki is a right-click dropdown menu that allows you to perform an array of actions to any highlighted word or text, including searching it on Google, looking up its definition, browsing for it on eBay and Amazon, emailing it to a friend, and many other things.
8. AniWeather
This extension will display the current weather in one of 70,000 locations via an animation. It shows the current temperature, wind speed, and humidity, and displays the same info for the next four days. The location can easily be edited and the weather for each day is displayed in a flashing animation.
9. Search in GMaps
As the name indicates, this extension allows users to easily search for directions/locations of any address in Google Maps with a single click. To use, highlight an address and then click the Search in GMaps extensions and Google Maps will instantly be pulled up.
10. Page Editor
Page Editor is similar to Firebug. Run the javascript extension, and from that point on you can edit the content of any website. This is an especially useful tool for Wordpress users, or high school students trying to convince their friends that they’re hackers.
11. oAutoPagerize
This auto page script extension for Chrome will automatically load the next webpage in a series on whatever website you’re visiting so that you never have to click the next button. Perfect for streamlined web searches, for those who spend a large amount of time on forums, or scrolling through blog archives.
12. Rocker for Chrome
Rocker for Chrome, also known as Chrome Mouse Gestures, is an extension that gives your mouse the ability to ‘rock’ your buttons for forward and backwards browser control. Holding the right button and tapping the left goes backwards, while doing the opposite goes forward.
13. Google Image Relinker
Instead of fighting to click on the ‘view image’ link when searching Google Images, just use this extension to skip straight to the picture. Better yet, you can also choose to view the webpage hosting said image with or without the frame, effectively ridding yourself of the problematic redirection that happens when clicking the ‘remove frame’ link.
14. Scrolling Bookmarklets
There are a number of reasons you could need to have hands-free scrolling, none of which are obvious until you actually need them, at which time you don’t have anything to do that because it wasn’t obvious beforehand. Don’t find yourself unprepared—download Scrolling Bookmarkets.
15. McAfee Site Advisor
If you’re the paranoid type, or simply wise enough to be judicious about the websites you visit, the unofficial McAfee Site Advisor extension is probably a welcomed relief. This extension ranks a website based on the security threat and will issue a warning if the site is too dangerous to even visit.
Page:1/1
Stay up-to-date with the latest mobile technology news and laptop reviews with our free newsletter! Get free tips, news and information from Laptop Logic and find the best laptop deals online.
Comments
Prosch at 11:14, March 05, 2010
A very good list for plugins. I use all the plugins for my Browser. _____________ [url=http://www.profischnell.com]english german[/url] - [url=http://www.profi-fachuebersetzung.de]german english[/url]