Ask HN: What is your favorite Google chrome extension? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What is your favorite Google chrome extension?

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Without a doubt, uBlock Origin.

Some others I like:

- Momentum (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/momentum/laookkfkn...)

- Hacker News Enhancement Suite (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/better-history/obc...)

- Better History (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/better-history/obc...)

Looks like a copy and paste error on HN link, links to the one below... I think it should be:

  - https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-enhancement-s/bappiabcodbpphnojdiaddhnilfnjmpm?hl=en

Whoops, you are correct. Thanks for the fix-up.

- Markdown Here - Lets me write emails in markdown (http://markdown-here.com/)

- HTTPS Everywhere - by EFF, works alongside the HSTS preload list to improve HTTPS coverage (https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere)

- Privacy Badger - By EFF again. Blocks scripts. (https://www.eff.org/privacybadger)

- Send to kindle - Sends articles directly to my kindle (https://www.amazon.com/gp/sendtokindle/chrome)

- iReader - Quick and easy readability extension that lets you read badly formatted extensions. (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ireader/ppelffpjgk...)

Falcon. Search browsing history in your address bar.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/falcon/mmifbbohghe...

Note Board.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/note-board/goficmp...

OneTab.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/onetab/chphlpgkkbo...

Full Page Screen Capture. It can auto split very long page for me.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/full-page-screen-c...

Markdown Editor

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/markdown-editor/ek...

- honey (for live coupon suggestions ) [0]

- Ad Block Plus [1]

- Nimbus Screenshot and Screencast [2]

[0] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/honey/bmnlcjabgnpn...

[1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/adblock-plus/cfhdo...

[2] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nimbus-screenshot-...

Papier - replace your new tab page with a markdown scratchpad. Dead-simple, local, and beautiful.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/papier/hhjeaokafpl...

Visual History - augment back/forward with tree-like hierarchy navigation (disclaimer; made this one)

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/visual-history/nkc...

Papier looks interesting.

I've been using a blank new-tab:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/empty-new-tab-page...

I use New Tab Draft https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/new-tab-draft/nmfj...

Papier looks very nice. Is anyone aware of something similar for Firefox?

Nice - thanks for sharing Papier.

One I didn't see mentioned already: I use something called EditThisCookie.

I'm sure it has many features, but I just use it to quickly delete cookies for one site, primarily on my development sites.

I use it a couple of times a day, probably.

Most common use case: I switch rails projects, and being on the same localhost:port address, it tries to use my other cookies and causes problems. I delete them in 2 seconds.

Vimium - I can't imagine using my browser without it anymore. I use it to:

* move around the page

* click on links

* opening new page from browsing history

* refresh page

Basically the only time I need to use mouse or trackpad are pages that have incorrectly marked links (they just add some on-click behaviour without marking element as link)

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/vimium/dbepggeogba...

Link for the lazy.

Vimium is a life changer. My fingers are on the keyboard 80-90% of the time and I get things done so much more efficiently.

Vimium + Alfred is a potent combination.

I use cVim to save some chrome's memory.

- Session Buddy (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/session-buddy/edac...) - What you need to recommend to all your friends who have 50 tabs open and a fear of losing them.

- Pocket (https://getpocket.com/chrome/) - To read something later.

- Pushbullet (https://www.pushbullet.com) - Less wonderful since they make Universal Clipboard a premium feature, but still the most graceful way to get content across from phone to laptop and back.

- Better History (http://better-history.com/) - Because let's face it, Chrome history sucks.

- Any.do (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/anydo-extension/kd...) - I've stopped using the app on my phone for most part, but this extension is still easier to use than adding things to your calendar.

Kiwi Conversations - checks for HN, Reddit conversations based on the URL you're on (manual research mode by default, but auto-check is available) - also checks Product Hunt and Google News. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kiwi-conversations...

Lazarus: Form Recovery - Autosaves everything you type so you can easily recover from form-killing timeouts, crashes and network errors. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lazarus-form-recov...

Completely new screenshot tool =>

Marker - https://getmarker.io .

This Chrome extension allows you to capture a screenshot, annotate it and create a GitHub issue, a JIRA issue or a Trello Card without leaving your page

It's pretty powerful for bug reporting.

Disclosure: I'm the founder :)

C'mon Gary, disclosure...

Done :) Thanks

I generally try not to use any, because for some reason I can't force myself to trust an extension w/o looking into its code--the process that eats too much time.

So I have only 5 of them installed.

From chrome web store:

* blank ntp (shows a blank page, rather than the chrome default)

* ublock origin (duh)

Not from the web store (I "trust" them, for I wrote them):

* copy_anchor_text

* dereferrer

* hn-dweller

I assume you also looked into the entire code base for Chromium (you are using Chromium, aren't you? Using Chrome - with its abundance of closed source gimmickery - would not make sense given your statement) before deciding it was worth your trust?

While I understand why you'd want to look at extension code before installing it I do not understand the trust in Chrome. Given the size of the code base it is more or less impossible for a single person to decide its trustworthiness by 'looking at the code', given that a single intentional 'mistake' can make the difference between trust and thrash.

You can do things in Chrome extensions that really are quite scary. Turning that around to not trusting Chrome seems like a bit of a straw man.

yes, I use Chromium, but mainly because Fedora doesn't have Chrome in their pkg repos. yes, I've looked into the Chromium src & have run away screaming, mainly because I'm not a big C++ fan.

I'm fine w/ Google products. I don't trust a random extension from a random Vasya ThE HacKeR, especially w/ "read & change all your data" permissions.

Is it possible to choose a different background for 'blank ntp' extension?

judging from its source, all it does is inject a blank .html file:

https://github.com/tvdv/BlankNTP/tree/master/BlankNTP

For those who listens to music from YouTube while programming, I recently made a Chrome extension to generate a track list in navigation bar using the timelinks in the video description.

It's a clickable tracklist, so you can play the track you want to listen to just clicking it, no matter if YouTube is your current tab or not.

Also, the extension shows a notification when a track starts to play.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/timelink-tracker/a...

uBlock Origin

Without it, the web is a totally different place.

Amen. uBlock Origin >> AdBlock

Why? I ask as an adblock user. Never tried uBlock.

BKMRKS - Simple New-Tab-Page for displaying Chrome-Bookmarks https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bkmrks/fdlkakjjmff...

Full Page Screen Capture https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/full-page-screen-c...

Click and Clean https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/clickclean/ghgabhi...

uBlockOrigin https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/jbcj...

Switchy Omega Proxy switcher with autoswitch ability (according to url) https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/proxy-switchyomega...

Screencastify Video capture from desktop/tab/webcam https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/screencastify-scre...

The Great Suspender Automatically suspends unused tabs to free up system resources https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-great-suspende...

Open Screenshot Can capture an entire page, even if bigger than screen https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/open-screenshot/ak...

Tabs Outliner: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabs-outliner/eggk...

Something like Tree Style Tab but TO shows a single tree for your entire browsing session instead of just the current window. Its cloud backup allows me to sync my tree hierarchy across my devices.

All my extensions are like a handicapped version of Firefox feature or extension.

Dynamite [1] - right click on anything than Dynamite / Hide element or selection and it removes a DOM element that was under cursor. Sometimes you have to to this several times to remove something. Firefox has Nuke Anything Enhanced [2]. It allows me to:

- get behind obnoxious popups with no visible close button

- get through dumb subscribe-wall

- remove annoying floating navigation bars (really handy if you like to resize browser windows like me)

The Great Suspender [3] - it unloads tabs unused for specified time and allows to reload them on click. I forgot which one I used on Firefox.

FooTab [4] - blocks loading of tabs on startup - it would be great if The Great Suspender would do this (Firefox do this by default).

I use uBlock Origin and HTTPS Everywhere, but that's just baseline.

[1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dynamite/djoedchmh...

[2] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/nuke-anything...

[3] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-great-suspende...

[4] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/footab/anbodogikfb...

Why use dynamite when you can do the same thing with the developer tools fairly easily?

I don't think it is as easy.

`Ctrl+Shift+C` to select the element, `Delete` to remove it :)

>The Great Suspender

doesnt chrome hibernate tabs by default now?

I like the Momentum extension.

Each time you open a new tab you see a nice picture.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/momentum/laookkfkn...

I see that they get the pictures from 500px. Do you know where they get the quotations from?

http://www.nomorvom.co.uk is indispensable if you order takeaway from just-eat. it adds UK food hygiene scores to the search results.

Full disclosure: I wrote it, but it is open source and totally free.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nomorvom/dlddncnin...

Streamkeys https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/streamkeys/ekpipjo...

That is my extension :). Source is here for those interested: https://github.com/berrberr/streamkeys

I was thinking about getting something just like this about an hour ago. Thank you!

Twitter Account Switcher

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/twitcher-twitter-a...

Auto Copy: Automatically copy selected text to the clipboard. Has options for copying as plain text; including the URL in the copied text; etc.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/auto-copy/bijpdibk...

Tab Snooze: Close unnecessary tabs and make them magically reappear when you need them.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab-snooze/pdiebia...

I use Brieftube to skim through long youtube/coursera videos or to pinpoint to a specific memorable frame in a video I once watched (e.g. obama laughing at bernie at white house gathering). Brieftube runs fast, and creates a nice table of contents which also allows easy searching in the sub titles

(currently, extension seems to work only for videos accompanied with english subtitles)

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/brieftube-instant-...

h264ify - force youtube to use h264 instead of the VP8/VP9 codecs. Unlike h264, which can benefit from hardware decoding, VP8/VP9 are completely done by the CPU, so they eat battery like crazy on laptops.

just make sure your gpu supports accelerated h264 in all formats you are interested in (1080@60, 4K etc), otherwise Chrome will use its own internal SLOW AS CRAP unoptimized SINGLE THREADED software decoder which cant handle 1080@60 on 4GHz Haswell. While supposedly more cpu intensive VP9 plays just fine, Im sure its just coincidence.

Ha, I did not know this. I'm on a puny, 5-year old MacBook Air and h264 helps.

The new Raspberry PI desktop (PIXEL) includes Chromium with h264ify for hardware-accelerated playback! (https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/introducing-pixel/)

Shameless plug: Zombocam. It adds filters and effects to any webcam stream on any page! We just launched: https://www.zombocam.com

Shameless astroturfing: I love zombocam; the only limit is myself!

1. OpenPuppies: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/openpuppies/eibead... 2. Dribbble New Tab: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dribbble-new-tab/h...

why does openPuppies need the rights to read and change _every_ website I visit?

And why is it 400M?

Video Speed Controller: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/video-speed-contro...

After installing this, you can adjust the playback speed by 0.1 increments on any HTML5 video element. Works great for lectures and talks. I often watch some videos at 1.5x, 2x, and sometimes even 3x for exceptionally slow speakers.

SurfingKeys - "...keyboard-based navigation and control of the web in the spirit of the VIM editor."

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/surfingkeys/gfblio... https://github.com/brookhong/Surfingkeys

Google dictionary - double tap anything and it shows definition or translation.

"Click to remove element" - Remove any html element.

"Fix fixed" - remove sticky headers

And various adblockers I guess.

Seconded on Google Dictionary. I use that everyday it seems.

Postman and its Http interceptor. fiddle with http requests, manipulate which headers are sent. even intercept Http requests and change values on the flight

That's going to become deprecated soon since 'Chrome Apps' are. There's a standalone electron app that's basically the same though.

https://www.opentest.co/ - for recording videos, audio

http://www.gettoby.com/ - for saving bookmarks easily.

http://www.unwander.com - for saving places from Trip Advisor, Yelp etc directly to a Trello type board.

Wasa"Vi": https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/wasavi/dgogifpkoil...

It allows you to turn any <textarea> into a small vim-style editor (by simply pressing ctrl+enter). This and vimium really turn chrome into a full vim experience.

CACKey ;-)

Trying out Falcon, keeping the exclusion list updated has been slighty more work than originally estimated.

Proxy Switcher, to access some sites though an SSH proxy automatically

BriefTube - It's a chrome extension that provides TLDR; for long videos. It works well on Youtube, Coursera, Edx etc.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/brieftube-instant-...

note: I'm the proud developer of BriefTube.

Strict Workflow [1].

Allows my monkey brain to actually get some code written when I'm connected to the chasm of infinite distraction that is the internet.

[1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/strict-workflow/cg...

Boomerang for gmail: Allows you to schedule messages to be sent or returned at a later date. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/boomerang-for-gmai...

The iGive button [1], it automatically donates $ to the charity of my choosing when I shop online.

[1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/igive-button/igcjd...

Tabby Cat - beautiful cat illustrations/animations each time you open a tab: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabby-cat/mefhakmg...

Livestyle: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/emmet-livestyle/di...

A little buggy, but saves a lot of time while developing a new site.

Pocket React Dev Tools

Twitter Web Night Mode - https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/twitter-web-night-... (Disclaimer - I built this )

UTM Stripper — removes tracking tokens from URL query parameters before sending network request. Uses an internal 307 redirect before requesting the resource.

https://github.com/jparise/chrome-utm-stripper

why strip when you can block trackers directly?

Well UTM parameters are part of the URL itself, which is useful to strip so you don't request them in the first place, and of course for cleaner links when sharing. Using an ad/tracker blocker is complimentary.

Liner - Highlight and save your favorite text https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-only-webpdf-hi...

The 'Save to Pocket' extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/save-to-pocket/nil...

When angular.js first came out, a chrome extension was released which displayed popular hacker quotes like "ship it" " when new tabs were opened. What was the name of that extension? I can't remember that after I sold my Mac mini, but that was my favorite.

* All-in-One Messenger https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/all-in-one-messeng... * uBlock

Autoforms (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/autoforms/jiicloib...)

Anyone could recommend any good gestures extensions? That's the only thing keeping me on the Firefox right now. I tried a bunch of the most popular ones, but rocker gestures (prev/next tab) almost never works as intended :(

try Vivaldi browser, its Chrome by Opera Presto devs. Gestures work just like in Presto.

Along with all the excellent options posted here, just wanted to recommend - "Ink for Google". It gives a material design look and feel for all google related sites.

Its Pretty good. Especially on youtube.

HackerTagger - Lets you tag people on HN if they're interesting in some way. I've also got tags for anyone who mentioned they're founder of X, for future context in comments.

https://plus.google.com/collection/ML9Ex

uBlock Origin, TabAttack and The Great Suspender.

Another is one I wrote and use to read articles without seeing paywalls. It got pulled off the chrome web store as it started to pick up users, but you can still install and run it in developer mode: https://github.com/cezary/bypass

HTTPS Everywhere, Privacy Badger, uBlock Origin

Georgify - alternate CSS for hacker news.

I really like 'HN Special'. Been using it for ages and only ever goes weird on death days.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hn-special-an-addi...

SwithyOmega: to break the Great Firewall

Lightshot: to capture some part of the page as png

Google Transalte: to understand others

Adblock Pro: to block ads cruelly

AdBlock is a given but I really like rikaikun which translates Japanese kanji on hover.

Papaly.com it's a bookmark dashboard it's very fast and comfortable.

Adblock

adblock plus

adblock for youtube

the great suspender

quick javascript switcher

- AdBlocker

- Pocket

- Any.Do

- ProductHunt

- FlickrTab

-ContentBlockHelper (instead of uBlock/Ghostery)

-Tampermonkey

+1 for tampermonkey

Have you written any nice scripts with it?

Small random tweaks and hooks, for example adding button to auto invoke youtube-dl on YT and twitch(using custom URI), Hackaday comment system enhancement(highlights new and your own comments in diff color), style injection instead of Stylebot on few pages (using 50MB permanently for plugin just because I have two custom styles on pages I read maybe once a week really hurt my brain, even with 16GB onboard:/), gmail url tracking stripper etc, small stuff. I pretty much imported all of my userscripts from Opera Presto, wouldnt make the switch if there was no way to inject own .js code quickly and painlessly in Chrome/Vivaldi.

Quick Javascript Switcher (turn off JS by default and only enable for the few sites needed).

- uBlock (of course)

- Vimium

- YouTube Ratings Preview

- Remove Google Redirection

- TrackMeNot (sends random queries to search engines)

- uMatrix

- HTTP Headers

- Vanilla Cookie Manager

- Project Naphta (on the fly OCR for images)

Awesome Screenshot Minus – What does everyone else use to make nice screenshots?

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