your favorite (safari) extensions please!
December 10, 2017 8:55 AM Subscribe
inspired by umbu's question above, I'm inspired to improve my Internet life. Please tell me your favorite browser extensions that make your Internet experience better! (The irony of being inspired by a question about avoiding recommendations to solicit recommendations is not lost on me but let's do this anyway.) I use Safari, but if on balance my life would be improved by going to Chrome, I can make that happen in 2018.
In general, what I consider "better" is less stuff I didn't ask to see, including ads, gross clickbait "news", comment sections, and anything that jumps around on the screen. I would also very much love a way to see articles all at once without having to click a million pages.
I do spend time on FB, though trying to cut down. I tried installing Purity a while ago and it worked for a while but now doesn't? I don't understand how it works tbh, so please be generous with your explanations...
Not sure what else extensions can do, but I did hear about one (probably here on the green) that would look books up to see if they were available at the library? That sounds awesome. I didn't do it because it was Chrome, and I do prefer using Safari for reasons; but not set in stone.
What should I install? What else can extensions do for me?
In general, what I consider "better" is less stuff I didn't ask to see, including ads, gross clickbait "news", comment sections, and anything that jumps around on the screen. I would also very much love a way to see articles all at once without having to click a million pages.
I do spend time on FB, though trying to cut down. I tried installing Purity a while ago and it worked for a while but now doesn't? I don't understand how it works tbh, so please be generous with your explanations...
Not sure what else extensions can do, but I did hear about one (probably here on the green) that would look books up to see if they were available at the library? That sounds awesome. I didn't do it because it was Chrome, and I do prefer using Safari for reasons; but not set in stone.
What should I install? What else can extensions do for me?
ShutUp: blocks out comments sections.
AdBlock Plus
1Password
posted by nothing.especially.clever at 10:15 AM on December 10, 2017
AdBlock Plus
1Password
posted by nothing.especially.clever at 10:15 AM on December 10, 2017
• uBlock Origin
• Ghostery
• Translate
If you spend the time to configure uBlock and Ghostery properly, most other content and tracker blocking plugins are excessive and will cause more problems than they solve (principally, the more blockers you use, the slower your browser becomes, with accumulated effect if you have many tabs open). The principle exception to this rule of thumb would be comments blocking, because uBlock and Ghostery will only block third-party comment services like Disqus. So if you want something to hide the comments on YouTube, find a plugin for that.
Apple indexes a lot of decent Safari plugins. I'm not aware of a currently-maintained third-party website that indexes all Safari plugins, but googling for "Safari extensions" will call up some recent articles in the tech press with their recommendations. I recommend not digging too deep in the past, though; the past couple revisions of Safari have both changed how extensions work and eliminated the necessity of some of them, for example preventing web media from auto-playing.
About the only plugins I would add if I could would be the EFF's: HTTPS Everywhere and Privacy Badger.
posted by ardgedee at 11:28 AM on December 10, 2017
• Ghostery
• Translate
If you spend the time to configure uBlock and Ghostery properly, most other content and tracker blocking plugins are excessive and will cause more problems than they solve (principally, the more blockers you use, the slower your browser becomes, with accumulated effect if you have many tabs open). The principle exception to this rule of thumb would be comments blocking, because uBlock and Ghostery will only block third-party comment services like Disqus. So if you want something to hide the comments on YouTube, find a plugin for that.
Apple indexes a lot of decent Safari plugins. I'm not aware of a currently-maintained third-party website that indexes all Safari plugins, but googling for "Safari extensions" will call up some recent articles in the tech press with their recommendations. I recommend not digging too deep in the past, though; the past couple revisions of Safari have both changed how extensions work and eliminated the necessity of some of them, for example preventing web media from auto-playing.
About the only plugins I would add if I could would be the EFF's: HTTPS Everywhere and Privacy Badger.
posted by ardgedee at 11:28 AM on December 10, 2017
(While poking around to write the above comment, I've found a few I'm going to try out: HoverSee, KeyStroke, and PiPifier. But since I've only had them installed for a couple minutes, don't consider this to be a recommendation yet.)
posted by ardgedee at 11:31 AM on December 10, 2017
posted by ardgedee at 11:31 AM on December 10, 2017
I am too lazy even to open a bookmarklet, so I made this GraphFi injector extension which adds a little icon to MeFi comment pages that runs the amazing GraphFi bookmarklet which adds a favorites histogram sidebar. Try it on a politics catch-all thread, it'll change your life.
posted by nicwolff at 12:34 PM on December 10, 2017
posted by nicwolff at 12:34 PM on December 10, 2017
ish__, I think retab is no longer needed, since Safari let you undo closing multiple tabs now.
posted by nicwolff at 12:45 PM on December 10, 2017
posted by nicwolff at 12:45 PM on December 10, 2017
In addition to some of the above:
posted by adamrice at 6:48 PM on December 10, 2017
- Showpass allows you to show a password you just typed.
- Tynt Blocker blocks that annoying Tynt script.
posted by adamrice at 6:48 PM on December 10, 2017
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* LastPass
* Always Smile
* HoverSee
* Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on
* Clean Links for Google
* Retab
* Ghostery
* YoutubeWide
* uBlock Origin
* Tampermonkey
posted by ish__ at 9:44 AM on December 10, 2017