Ask HN: Which browser extensions could you not do without? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Which browser extensions could you not do without?

8 pointsnomilk20 comments

I sometimes encounter a tiny problem that causes outsized annoyance, and after a search come across a browser extension that solves it. A short time later, the thought of using the web without it is inconceivable; almost barbaric!

Examples: uBlock Origin, Sponsor Block, Enhancer for YouTube, Tamper Monkey, jsonvue.

What extensions do you currently use that you could not do without? (some extensions are broad in scope, so if you can, please explain what you love about it/them)

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StyleBot to remove/fix bad styles on sites. I know uBO can add style one-liners, but prefer full control.

For example, I set my own youtube column count, remove ellipses from titles and make the cards less badly designed in general.

There’s around 30 sites in my list.

Bitwarden for passwords.

DarkReader for text contrast. I keep it on even for dark mode sites, because most dark mode sites get done by/for wannabe hackers and are not much easier on eyes than their light versions. DarkReader creates its own colorscheme based on a site’s theme and allows you to control global brightness, contrast and saturation of this conversion.

I think it should be built into every browser (and platform) and in-site dark modes should be deprecated.

Vimium - As a mouse adverse person, it gives keyboard shortcuts for navigation and control in the style of Vim.

So great and funny product!!!

Apart from ublock:

uBlacklist - filters domains from search results, some websites are so bad but appear too often in my search results.

-- desktop only ---

floccus - saves the bookmarks in my nextcloud bookmarks

Idn safe - saves me from idn domains that missuse the system

Keepassxc-browser - the addon for connecting to my favourite passwordmanager

100% on uBlackList - a plug-in so good that Kagi built the entire feature into their search engine.

Only UBlock and a few custom extensions I built that massively improve my specific needs but are worthless to others. The beauty of browser extensions is exactly that: easy personal customization. And now with LLMs it's even easier!

uBo is really the only one that I consider vital.

Might be a bit off topic but how does ublock work and can I make a similar service myself assuming I have the block list on hand which I assume ublock and similar service use to block ads from bad ip addresses

It's open-source: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock

Seek Salary NZ/AU - salary transparency extension for NZ/AU largest job site (I built it, 6000 users, use it whenever job searching - which is all the time lately)

SingleFile . Allows download a page as a single file. Does a decent job at including all assets.

Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/single-file/

Chrome: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/singlefile/mpiodijh...

Hoarder : https://hoarder.app/

Hoarder is something I'm selfhosting and use it as my read-it-later and bookmarking. Previously was a pocket subscriber. But after I found hoarder, I got rid my annual pocket subscription. Hoarder does a great job at auto-tagging using OpenAI API and gpt-4o-mini. I added $10 to my OpenAI account and so far have only used maybe .10 cents in API usage despite adding couple of hundred articles and previous booked marked pages.

Also still use uBlock origin. But mainly to hide certain elements of a page or site I visit often.

Proton pass - password management and email alias creation and management

I have ~400 aliases now

ublock

libredirect - https://libredirect.github.io/

dark reader

My fav is unblock and stylebot(currently)

OneTab - saves all unused tabs and its memory.

Microsoft Editor - Grammarly but better?

HN Enhancement suite - Saved me tracking new comments, the features I use most are a click away and rare are buried.

https://snowflake.torproject.org/ - Circumvent censorship.

Bypass Paywalls Clean - well, you know...

ad break - When you won't let me skip ads. Auto skip ads, otherwise mute and blur and play a game while you're waiting

Bionic reading - The reading comprehension stays the same but speed increased for me.

BitWarden Password manager - better among competitors.

DeArrow - Crowdsourcing titles and thumbnails to be descriptive and not sensational.

AdNauseam - obfuscates ad tracking.

Reddit Enhancement Suite - Thanks to developers.

Toolbox for Google Play Store™ - I sometimes download OSS recommendations displayed on play store website.

WaspLine Reader - Read faster with colour gradient [when bionic reading doesn't work and vice versa].

Vimium, uBO, Sponsor Block,Tamper Monkey, libredirect, uBlacklist are already mentioned at the time of writing this comment.

RES which enhancement you setup?

> Microsoft Editor - Grammarly but better?

It harvests even more data from you than Grammarly. So, not better. Use LanguageTool instead.

1password

ublock

uBlock and Bypass Paywalls Clean.

I really liked Vimperator, but sadly it was killed by the new Firefox plugin architecture.

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