Thursday, February 4, 2010

10 Must-have Google Chrome Extensions


The nature of my writing and consulting work means I spend a lot of time working in a web browser window, so I am always looking to maximize my productivity browser-wise. Recently, I made the switch to the latest Google Chrome beta for Windows because I was looking to take a break from Firefox and wanted to try Google’s latest browser developments.

While Chrome can’t yet match Firefox’s massive extension ecosystem, more useful extensions are becoming available for Google’s browser every day. Here are my must-have extensions for the new Google Chrome user:



Brizzly. Since I am trying to better integrate Twitter and Facebook into my professional communications in 2010, the Brizzly extension, which is a Twitter and Facebook reading/updating tool, ranks as a must-have in my book.





Shareaholic for Google Chrome. This extension lets you share web pages through major social media sites and other services, like Gmail and Evernote.





Google Apps Shortcuts. This shortcut provides easy access to all of your Google Apps, including Google Wave and Google Voice. You can even begin creating new email, documents, spreadsheets and presentations using this extension.





Evernote Web Clipper. We’ve written about Evernote in the past, and the Evernote extension provides the same web clipping functionality you already enjoy in Mozilla Firefox and in Internet Explorer. I use the web clipper whenever I want to capture research from the web.



Xmarks Bookmarks Sync. One of the biggest draws of Firefox for me was the capability to sync bookmarks across my home office PCs. Now with the Xmarks Bookmarks Sync extension you can have the same feature using Chrome.



Aviary Screen Capture. I take a lot of screen captures, and like the fact that Aviary Screen capture lets you capture and manipulate screen captures from within Google Chrome.



Bit.ly. This extension comes in handy if you need fast access to a URL shortener. Clicking on the Bit.ly extension launches a sidebar:





html2pdf. This extension enables you to save the HTML page you are viewing to PDF. I find this extension handy when I want to save a receipt or a piece of research.





Google Reader Notifier. Google Reader is my RSS reader of choice, so the Google Reader Notifier Extension was a natural choice for me.





TooMany Tabs for Chrome. I’ve been known to keep way too many browser tabs open especially when I am in full-on research and writing mode. TooMany Tabs for Chrome helps to keep me organized and my computer’s memory usage in check.




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