Google Chrome continues to impress. Due to its stability and vast speed, many people have switched to using it as their main browser. One of the best things about Chrome is the huge amount of extensions that can be added-on to improve your browsing experience. Here are some of the best that I have come across that makes running a website that much easier.
AdBlock
With over 3 million users worldwide, AdBlock is one of THE most popular Chrome Extensions to date, and it’s easy to see why! This great little add-on blocks all advertisements on all web pages (including Facebook & YouTube!). This mostly covers all Google AdSense ads and banner adverts on website, you know the ones that everyone wishes weren’t there.
Of course you can choose to display adverts on specific sites, but at least it gives you the option.
Google Chrome Extension: AdBlock
AddThis
AddThis is the most popular sharing tool in the world and they have made it even easier to use with this chrome add-on. This great little extension that allows you to easily share content across all your social sites. Share to Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and over 300 other services.
Google Chrome Extension: AddThis
Alexa Traffic Rank
If you want to learn any statistics about a specific website, then the first place you usually go is Alexa. Well not any more because they have their own Chrome Extension that makes life so much easier for you!
This Official Alexa Traffic Rank Extension, provides all the information of the site that you are currently on in a drop down box. This allows you to see; the Alexa Traffic Rank, the traffic rank in their most popular country, reviews, number of sites linking in, site speed and much more.
Google Chrome Extension: Alexa Traffic Rank
DropBox for Chrome
If you are like me, you work on multiple computers. Now, it’s a nightmare to keep manually transferring all my different files from one computer to the next, so I use DropBox!
DropBox is a free cloud service that allows you to upload up to 2GB of data. So by uploading your files here, it makes it easy to open your files no matter what computer you are on.
DropBox for Chrome lets you access your DropBox files directly in your Chrome browser. This lets you quickly modify your files without having to install it locally, which is very helpful indeed!
Google Chrome Extension: DropBox for Chrome
Facebook Notifications
If you are like me, you hate having to keep checking Facebook for new updates. Well with this plugin, you don’t ever have to do that any more!
This extension allows you keep up to date with your friends, even when you’re not on Facebook. This means that you get notified whenever you get a new; Like, comment, invitation, friend request, message and anything else you’d normally see when you are on Facebook.
Google Chrome Extension: Facebook Notifications
Firebug Lite for Google Chrome
This extension is a definite must-have if you are a web developer. It makes it easy to inspect your website code and see what changes you can make to your site without messing up. I have found it to be very helpful when my site has decided to act strangely and display things in the wrong place, letting me find and fix what has gone wrong.
Google Chrome Extension: Firebug Lite for Google Chrome
FlashBlock
Well no prizes for guessing what this extension does! FlashBlock automatically blocks any flash content on a website, which can cause webpages to load considerably faster. This is extremely helpful when visiting sites that overly use flash.
Each flash element on a site is replaced with a placeholder, which you can selectively load if you wish. There is also a ‘whitelist’ function that lets you allow certain sites to use flash, i.e. YouTube.
Google Chrome Extension: FlashBlock
Google+ Notifications
This is basically the same as ‘Facebook Notifications’, but for Google+ instead. This lets you see what is happening on your Google+ account, without having to be on it. So when someone adds you to a circle or shares a post with you, you get notified.
Google Chrome Extension: Google+ Notifications
Hover Zoom
Have you ever been on a site when you wanted to make a thumbnail image bigger, without having to navigate away from the page that you’re on. Well if so, then this extension is for you!
Hover Zoom enlarges thumbnails for you when you hover the mouse over them. This makes it so much easier to browse image galleries like Google images, without having to open every image! This add-on works on most sites including; Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Flickr, and many more.
Google Chrome Extension: Hover Zoom
Scroll To Top Button
This adds a ‘scroll to top’ or ‘scroll to bottom’ button in your browser, making it easy to jump back to the top or bottom of a page!
This extension is really useful when you are viewing a really long page. It just helps to make life a little easier when surfing the web.
Google Chrome Extension: Scroll To Top Button
Things to Do
I always seem to have a million and one things to do, so it’s always handy to have a ‘To Do’ list to keep reminding me.
This little extension replaces the new tab page with a to do list, so you can keep track of all the things that you need to get sorted.
Google Chrome Extension: Things To Do
TweetRight
This add-on lets you share images, links, webpages and selected text on Twitter, right from the right click menu.
This makes Tweeting SO much easier! When you find something that you want to share, just right click it and ‘Tweet This’. It’s that simple!
Google Chrome Extension: TweetRight
Tweets Counter for Twitter
This little extension displays a number in the URL bar, which corresponds to the number of tweets that it has received. A red icon indicates the latest tweet was posted within 6 hours, whereas a yellow icon indicates that the latest tweet was posted within the last 24 hours. This is a great way to see how popular a certain page is, whether it’s your own webpage or one that you have just found.
Google Chrome Extension: Tweets Counter for Twitter
WebRank SEO
WebRank is one of the best SEO extensions that you can get. It lets you see information about the website you are on, including; Google Pagerank, Alexa, Compete and Quantcast Rank, Whois Lookup, Pages Indexed and Backlinks in Google & Bing. Very useful for any web developer!
Google Chrome Extension: WebRank SEO
YSlow
If you run your own website, it is important to make it load as fast as possible. This handy extension lets you see how you can do just that. YSlow analyses your web pages and suggests a number of different ways that you can use to improve the speed and performance of the website.
This extension has helped me a number of times to improve the loading speed of this website. If you run your own site, you definitely need this add on!
Google Chrome Extension: YSlow
