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March 11, 2024 7:03 AM Subscribe
What are your favourite general-interest browser extensions in 2024?
I just installed Web Archives to quickly open archived URLs. I'm probably missing out on loads of other browser extensions which enhance the web or save effort. Recommend me your favourites?
I already have:
- uBlock Origin to catch anything NextDNS misses
- Pushbullet to quickly share content between laptop and Android phone
- Lightning Reopen for faster Chrome startup and to stay logged into Bitwarden
- h264ify to make YouTube stream hardware-accelerated H.264 instead of VP8
- Pinboard Keyboard Shortcut to map Ctrl-D to Pinboard
Bonus points for Manifest V3 compatibility. I use Chrome on Windows, but many extensions are released for all platforms now so feel free to recommend Firefox and Safari extensions.
Previously in 2021.
I just installed Web Archives to quickly open archived URLs. I'm probably missing out on loads of other browser extensions which enhance the web or save effort. Recommend me your favourites?
I already have:
- uBlock Origin to catch anything NextDNS misses
- Pushbullet to quickly share content between laptop and Android phone
- Lightning Reopen for faster Chrome startup and to stay logged into Bitwarden
- h264ify to make YouTube stream hardware-accelerated H.264 instead of VP8
- Pinboard Keyboard Shortcut to map Ctrl-D to Pinboard
Bonus points for Manifest V3 compatibility. I use Chrome on Windows, but many extensions are released for all platforms now so feel free to recommend Firefox and Safari extensions.
Previously in 2021.
Best answer: For Safari which is, unfortunately, the only first-class browser on macOS until Orion matures enough to use as a daily driver (I have Opinions about macOS browsers, you see...):
Userscripts gives Safari the ability to manage and execute Userscripts ("Greasemonkey" scripts). This works on macOS as well as iOS Safari. The FF equivalent of this is Violentmonkey.
SponsorBlock uses crowdsourced timecode data to skip many worthless or annoying parts of YouTube videos. There's a Firefox extension by the same name.
DeArrow makes YouTube thumbnails more visually readable; this is super, super valuable for someone like me who struggles to quickly scan visually-noisy things. I believe he makes a FF extension as well.
AdGuard for Safari is, pretty much, the only actually usable ad-blocker for Safari these days. Most of the others don't use the standard (uBlock Origin-like) lists, or don't have cosmetic rule support. This thing is nearly feature-equivalent to uBlock Origin. It's also the only thing that does YouTube adblocking worth a damn, if you care about that. There are macOS and iOS versions, both. There are some enticements to sign up for a service, but none of that is necessary—the extension itself is more than adequate.
For FF:
Multi-Account Containers is the UI for Firefox's native container subsystem. It's a great containerization system, but FF doesn't actually offer a way for user's to interact with it beyond some dumb "don't Facebook me, bro" checkbox that I actually think Mozilla took out, too. This add-on from Mozilla gives a fairly usable UI for the built-in container subsystem.
Violentmonkey, as mentioned, is a userscript manager.
Reddit Enhancement Suite was invaluable back when I still interacted with Reddit. It's a huge pain in the ass to configure, especially because the defaults are terrible, but it's a very powerful way to make Reddit's UI less awful.
posted by majick at 7:31 AM on March 11 [5 favorites]
Userscripts gives Safari the ability to manage and execute Userscripts ("Greasemonkey" scripts). This works on macOS as well as iOS Safari. The FF equivalent of this is Violentmonkey.
SponsorBlock uses crowdsourced timecode data to skip many worthless or annoying parts of YouTube videos. There's a Firefox extension by the same name.
DeArrow makes YouTube thumbnails more visually readable; this is super, super valuable for someone like me who struggles to quickly scan visually-noisy things. I believe he makes a FF extension as well.
AdGuard for Safari is, pretty much, the only actually usable ad-blocker for Safari these days. Most of the others don't use the standard (uBlock Origin-like) lists, or don't have cosmetic rule support. This thing is nearly feature-equivalent to uBlock Origin. It's also the only thing that does YouTube adblocking worth a damn, if you care about that. There are macOS and iOS versions, both. There are some enticements to sign up for a service, but none of that is necessary—the extension itself is more than adequate.
For FF:
Multi-Account Containers is the UI for Firefox's native container subsystem. It's a great containerization system, but FF doesn't actually offer a way for user's to interact with it beyond some dumb "don't Facebook me, bro" checkbox that I actually think Mozilla took out, too. This add-on from Mozilla gives a fairly usable UI for the built-in container subsystem.
Violentmonkey, as mentioned, is a userscript manager.
Reddit Enhancement Suite was invaluable back when I still interacted with Reddit. It's a huge pain in the ass to configure, especially because the defaults are terrible, but it's a very powerful way to make Reddit's UI less awful.
posted by majick at 7:31 AM on March 11 [5 favorites]
Best answer: If you're a monster like me, Linkclump lets you click and drag, then open all the links in that area in a new tab. Useful in all sorts of scenarios; I've got it mapped to clicking and dragging with the right mouse button.
posted by sagc at 7:34 AM on March 11 [1 favorite]
posted by sagc at 7:34 AM on March 11 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I daily use Group Speed Dial on Firefox and like it a lot, basically rectangular screen shots of your favorites in multiple pages including nesting and categorization. When I did a Google it seems like it is also available for Chrome.
posted by forthright at 9:22 AM on March 11 [1 favorite]
posted by forthright at 9:22 AM on March 11 [1 favorite]
Best answer: uBlacklist weeds low-value SEO-driven or AI-generated garbage out of search results.
Picket Line Notifier will tell you if the employees of a website you're on are on strike. This was particularly helpful during the Condé Nast strikes because their brand portfolio is so huge.
If you're on Mastodon et al, FediAct really smooths out a lot of cross-instance interactions.
Sidebar Tabs for Firefox.
posted by fifthpocket at 9:46 AM on March 11 [4 favorites]
Picket Line Notifier will tell you if the employees of a website you're on are on strike. This was particularly helpful during the Condé Nast strikes because their brand portfolio is so huge.
If you're on Mastodon et al, FediAct really smooths out a lot of cross-instance interactions.
Sidebar Tabs for Firefox.
posted by fifthpocket at 9:46 AM on March 11 [4 favorites]
Best answer: It's in the previous thread, but Privacy Badger from the EFF is the first thing I install after uBlock Origin.
posted by The Bellman at 2:53 PM on March 11 [1 favorite]
posted by The Bellman at 2:53 PM on March 11 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Skeema is a nice tab/bookmark manager-organizer
posted by Sophont at 4:58 PM on March 11 [1 favorite]
posted by Sophont at 4:58 PM on March 11 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Consent-O-Matic for automatically dismissing cookie popups and refusing consent to store cookies.
and Bypass Paywalls Clean (manual install) for viewing news sites without being paywalled.
posted by ambrosen at 6:29 PM on March 11 [4 favorites]
and Bypass Paywalls Clean (manual install) for viewing news sites without being paywalled.
posted by ambrosen at 6:29 PM on March 11 [4 favorites]
Response by poster: Some excellent recommendations here, thanks all!
posted by Klipspringer at 1:34 AM on March 12
posted by Klipspringer at 1:34 AM on March 12
Best answer: Vimium C for Chrome allows you to browse (mostly) without using a mouse. You type f and it gives you key sequences for each link/button/etc. Based off of some concepts from Vim.
posted by catquas at 10:40 AM on March 12
posted by catquas at 10:40 AM on March 12
Mod note: [btw, this thread has been added to the sidebar and the Best Of blog.]
posted by taz (staff) at 3:06 AM on March 16 [2 favorites]
posted by taz (staff) at 3:06 AM on March 16 [2 favorites]
Best answer: RYS: Remove Youtube Suggestions is available for Firefox and Chrome
as is Distraction-Free YouTube Firefox , Chrome
This makes it possible to watch videos on YouTube without gettings sucked down a rabbit hole of algorithmically-selected junk.
posted by crazy_yeti at 6:55 AM on March 16
as is Distraction-Free YouTube Firefox , Chrome
This makes it possible to watch videos on YouTube without gettings sucked down a rabbit hole of algorithmically-selected junk.
posted by crazy_yeti at 6:55 AM on March 16
Best answer: Location Guard, which lets you fake your location in the browser. The default mode is to randomize your location by about 500 meters, so websites know roughly where you are but not exactly. I use it in a fixed location mode. My Starlink IP geolocates me to somewhere 200 miles away, this way I give out a location that's near my home. More details on my blog.
I have a rule that any extension that I install that has access to all sites (like this one) must be open source. There've been too many cases of good extensions being sold to a sleazy surveillance or malware company. Open source isn't certain protection against malfeasance but a big help.
Seconding Bypass Paywalls Clean too. Manual install extensions make me nervous but this one is really good. Too good; I keep sending paywalled links to people not knowing they aren't accessible.
posted by Nelson at 8:02 AM on March 16 [1 favorite]
I have a rule that any extension that I install that has access to all sites (like this one) must be open source. There've been too many cases of good extensions being sold to a sleazy surveillance or malware company. Open source isn't certain protection against malfeasance but a big help.
Seconding Bypass Paywalls Clean too. Manual install extensions make me nervous but this one is really good. Too good; I keep sending paywalled links to people not knowing they aren't accessible.
posted by Nelson at 8:02 AM on March 16 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Only for Safari iOS and macOS right now, Clear Read lets you restyle any website without learning CSS. Very easy user interface controls font, font weight, size, alignment, case, as well as four kinds of spacing—lines and paragraphs vertically, space between words, and letterspace within words. Clear Read supports Open Dyslexic and Atkinson Hyperlegible.
posted by Jesse the K at 2:10 PM on March 16
posted by Jesse the K at 2:10 PM on March 16
Best answer: I'll add my vote to uBlock Origin and PrivacyBadger, above. I'll also add my own love of Cookie AutoDelete for Firefox (chrome, edge i guess if you're into that sort of thing).
The great thing about CAD is that it deletes all cookies and web storage for a given site, some configurable number of minutes after you close the last tab for that site. You can easily tell it on a per-site basis to clear cookies only after you close the whole browser, or never (for example, I have metafilter.com set to "never", so I stay logged in). It gives you a report when it does it, but note that it tends to fall back to "delete nothing" if it worries it might lose something you wanted: so check every so often to make sure it's set to delete things.
One effect this has is that you get GDPR noise every time you visit a site. So to help with that I also add Consent-O-Matic to auto-click those "No, don't track me" buttons. Watching them flash up every time I hit, say, YouTube, reassures me that my state-cleaning is working and the anti-tracking measures are happening.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 5:05 AM on March 17
The great thing about CAD is that it deletes all cookies and web storage for a given site, some configurable number of minutes after you close the last tab for that site. You can easily tell it on a per-site basis to clear cookies only after you close the whole browser, or never (for example, I have metafilter.com set to "never", so I stay logged in). It gives you a report when it does it, but note that it tends to fall back to "delete nothing" if it worries it might lose something you wanted: so check every so often to make sure it's set to delete things.
One effect this has is that you get GDPR noise every time you visit a site. So to help with that I also add Consent-O-Matic to auto-click those "No, don't track me" buttons. Watching them flash up every time I hit, say, YouTube, reassures me that my state-cleaning is working and the anti-tracking measures are happening.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 5:05 AM on March 17
Best answer: Some of these automatic consent-rejection tools look great, gotta try them!
At the moment liking Tabmanager.io on Chrome for tab & session management (replacing Session Buddy, which regressed a lot of important features & threw accessibility in the toilet with their latest release), but I only have about a day of real use with it so far. (Pretty much only use Chrome when I'm at work.)
I always stack uBlock Origin/Privacy Badger/DuckDuckGo Essentials on every browser where I can.
On Chrome, I rely on High Contrast to fix unreadable contrast, & haven't found anything comparable yet for Firefox.
Been using Sponsor Block (Chrome & FF) for several months to block ads on YouTube & really liking it so far.
FediAct (Chrome & FF) makes dealing with Fediverse servers a little more convenient (it's able to [sometimes] post actions across different servers without requiring that one retrieve the post on one's own server).
posted by lodurr at 6:02 AM on March 17
At the moment liking Tabmanager.io on Chrome for tab & session management (replacing Session Buddy, which regressed a lot of important features & threw accessibility in the toilet with their latest release), but I only have about a day of real use with it so far. (Pretty much only use Chrome when I'm at work.)
I always stack uBlock Origin/Privacy Badger/DuckDuckGo Essentials on every browser where I can.
On Chrome, I rely on High Contrast to fix unreadable contrast, & haven't found anything comparable yet for Firefox.
Been using Sponsor Block (Chrome & FF) for several months to block ads on YouTube & really liking it so far.
FediAct (Chrome & FF) makes dealing with Fediverse servers a little more convenient (it's able to [sometimes] post actions across different servers without requiring that one retrieve the post on one's own server).
posted by lodurr at 6:02 AM on March 17
To what extent do browser plug-ins impact memory and processor usage?
I run Firefox, and have recently disabled all my extentions in an effort to claw back processing power. When I have my "work tabs" open (mostly Gmail, calendar, todoist, timeclock, Google docs, and a few tabs for researching data), Firefox takes upwards of 50-75 % of my processor. (I suspect Google docs are sucking down most of the processor for some reason)
posted by rebent at 11:19 AM on March 19
I run Firefox, and have recently disabled all my extentions in an effort to claw back processing power. When I have my "work tabs" open (mostly Gmail, calendar, todoist, timeclock, Google docs, and a few tabs for researching data), Firefox takes upwards of 50-75 % of my processor. (I suspect Google docs are sucking down most of the processor for some reason)
posted by rebent at 11:19 AM on March 19
The Task Manager can help you figure it out. It's been awhile but it may be Firefox will only show the sum total of all extensions in one line. Chrome's equivalent shows it on a per-extension basis.
Extensions absolutely can eat up a lot of resources, particularly the ones doing background work.
posted by Nelson at 11:34 AM on March 19
Extensions absolutely can eat up a lot of resources, particularly the ones doing background work.
posted by Nelson at 11:34 AM on March 19
Best answer: Most of these are Firefox and also have Chromium versions.
- Pocket Tube is a complete reimagining of the youtube browser experience. It lets you put channels into groups, custom playlists, and plenty of other things that I wish the actual site had.
- Tab Manager gives you a screen with all your tabs and windows, shows you where you might have the same site open in multiple windows, can drag and drop from one to another.
- Tab Mover lets you move tabs between windows from the context menu.
- Window Titler lets you give each window of open tabs a title which shows up in navigation and in the taskbar.
- Switch To Audible Tab will automatically switch focus to whatever tab is making sound. It's bizarre to me that browsers do not yet have this built-in.
posted by softlord at 3:06 PM on March 28
- Pocket Tube is a complete reimagining of the youtube browser experience. It lets you put channels into groups, custom playlists, and plenty of other things that I wish the actual site had.
- Tab Manager gives you a screen with all your tabs and windows, shows you where you might have the same site open in multiple windows, can drag and drop from one to another.
- Tab Mover lets you move tabs between windows from the context menu.
- Window Titler lets you give each window of open tabs a title which shows up in navigation and in the taskbar.
- Switch To Audible Tab will automatically switch focus to whatever tab is making sound. It's bizarre to me that browsers do not yet have this built-in.
posted by softlord at 3:06 PM on March 28
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posted by staggernation at 7:10 AM on March 11 [2 favorites]