The best free Google Chrome extensions
14 November 2022
Extensions are tools that allow you to expand Chrome’s capabilities. In fact, in order to customize your web-browsing experience, there are a lot of functionalities you can access with the click of a mouse. That’s why we are going to show you around 100 of the most useful extensions in 9 important categories.
Before starting, it should be noted that some are unique to Google and its services (such as Gmail), but most extensions work across operating systems, so you can try them on any desktop platform (especially on Chromebooks); there may be some versions that work on mobile Chrome, too.
Moreover, all of these extensions are free and very reliable, so there’s no harm in giving them a try. You can easily disable or remove them by typing chrome://extensions/ into the Chrome address bar, or right-clicking an extension’s icon in the toolbar to remove it. Without further ado, let’s get started!
- Screen/Page Capture
With this tool, you won’t have to limit yourself to basic screenshots, as once you take the picture, you can customize it by annotating it with shapes, arrows, and text comments. One click uploads an image to AwesomeScreenshot.com for storage on Google Drive and sharing quickly on social media.
A very useful feature if you’re looking for a capture that shows you what the whole thing looks like. Then, this extension will do it, scrolling through the page for you and capturing a JPG. Just don’t use your mouse while it auto-scrolls the page.
It is a nice mix of social bookmarking and a full info grabber. This extension brings together features such as letting you bookmark, archive, and annotate everything you see online. The only downside here is that you get 500 bookmarks for free, but Diigo will charge you $40 per year to ditch advertising and add unlimited image storage and web page backup.
- Evernote Web Clipper
Despite having some limitations, this is the best tool to clip and store everything worth keeping online. This extension makes it a breeze, even isolating what it sees as the main content of a page and storing just that. It has built-in annotation features. When you save a screenshot, tag it, and then you can search through it all later using Evernote.com or the offline software and apps.
It works with a simple touch of the toolbar button to capture just what’s in your browser. This is a lightweight screen-capture tool (available for macOS or Windows, which you can set up so that when you press the screen print key to capture anything that appears on the screen).
Furthermore, you can enable the print-screen key to grab anything appearing on the screen. Basically, it has an entire army of tools at its disposal, from upload-for-sharing to annotation. It will even instantly send what you capture to Google to do a search for similar graphics.
This extension allows you to make video screen recordings with voiceovers, and you can also add your webcam mug in a corner. Thus, shoot the current tab alone or the full screen, because there’s no limit to how much you can record, even for free.
You have to be one of those users who hates pages full of ads and weird formatting, don’t you? Well, this could be the perfect solution for you, though. As you’ll see, just with a click (or keyboard shortcut), it reduces the “noise” on a page so you see only the text you want to read.
Mercury Reader has a typeface you can manage, in a dark or light theme, so you will be able to share what’s left via social media, print it, email it, or send it to your Kindle to read later.
Perhaps the most full-featured recorder you can get in Chrome, it does screen grabs (even a whole webpage), which you can annotate, and full video recordings of a browser tab, part of a screen, or a whole screen. You can even annotate the video with drawings. Then, you can edit it, share it, save it, print it, or copy it to the clipboard. Nimbus is also available for Firefox.
Powered by Microsoft. This service is very similar to Evernote. However, it’s even better as now it counts with its own Clipper extension. Available in Chrome or Edge, you can use it to save anything you see online.
Owned by Mozilla, if you want to take advantage of this extension, all you have to do is set up an account and start saving content with the Save to Pocket extension, bookmark buttons, or apps. Keep in mind that you can access the content any time (even offline) and from all your devices. There are also Pocket apps and add-ons for everything, and content isn’t limited to text; you can store video, too.
Another option, if what you want to do is record what you see in a Chrome tab. This feature doesn’t require any other external software. It works beyond the confines of the browser tab, you can record the whole screen if you desire, including your webcam thumbnail.
Moreover, it has some animation tools, like highlighting a mouse in a spotlight helps with visibility. Remember that the videos are easily saved to YouTube or Google Drive. The free version allows videos up to 10 minutes long.
It is designed for those users who prefer to read on their Kindle devices or apps. This Amazon extension is very useful if you find a webpage with a longform article on it since it reformats pages and sends them directly to your Kindle device or app of choice for reading later. You can even get a preview before you send it.
- Google Services
The best extension for users of multiple Gmail accounts. You won’t have to expend extra energy to open a new tab to check your email because Checker Plus gives you fast access via a drop-down menu in Chrome, desktop notifications, color coding, and even voice input for writing messages. It also reads your mail for you (all without actually visiting Gmail). It’s free, but a donation of any amount unlocks even more features.
Similar to the previous one, this extension gives you full access to everything you like about Google Calendar from your Chrome toolbar, plus multiple methods of adding calendar events, such as right-clicking on a webpage to add it as an appointment.
Furthermore, you can enable the notifications (including voice) that are perfectly done. Lastly, it runs in the background when Chrome is closed, so you never miss an engagement.
The easiest way to transfer your web search into a scholar search. This is a search engine from Google that is limited to scholarly articles and case law that usually works better if you’re on your campus network, but can be configured to work anywhere, as long as your school library gives you credentials.
As simple as that. Load it up, double-click any word on any webpage, and you’ll see a pop-up with the definition or search for words from the toolbar. Don’t worry, multiple languages are supported.
This is a very simple tool that, for certain languages, Chrome will automatically offer to translate the whole page to the language of your choice. The difference here is that, with this extension, you can also highlight a word or line of text and translate only that.
Now available to connect in your browser, Google’s voicemail-plus-call-around-number service is very useful. You see, this extension offers on-the-fly access to your voicemail messages (with transcriptions) and SMS texts (to which you can reply), plus you can initiate VoIP calls right in the browser as well as make every phone number you see on a website clickable for calling (either explicitly or via a right-click menu).
- Interface/Utilities
Okay, there are a lot of these extensions out there, but compared to Adblock Plus (a community-driven extension ported from Firefox) and the unrelated AdBlock, this is perhaps the best option. AdBlocker Ultimate doesn’t play games (like permitting certain “allowed” ads to go through to appease sponsors), it is open source, and it is also available on Edge, Safari, and Opera.
Are you tired of always hearing lots of noise as soon as you open a new tab? No worries, AutoMute makes sure every page you open is muted by default.
Do you love to customize your messages with your own avatar? Well, we assure you that Bitmoji, the extension provided by Snap, Inc., is lightyears ahead of any avatar from Apple, Facebook, and the rest.
Apart from being a little more aesthetic, you can build it right into Chrome to snag yourself saying something pithy to put on every message and post.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if we were able to control someone else’s computer from afar, or let others take control of yours for tech support? Actually, many tools exist to make this happen, but none are as easy to implement as this, which automates what you can do on the website.
You can use it across platforms, including Windows, Mac, and even Chromebooks! This feature will help you take control of PCs from your mobile devices.
Located in the status bar at the bottom of Chrome, it constantly updates the zones you’ve designated for monitoring. This feature is very useful when you need to know the time in other timezones instantly, anywhere in the world. Just click the icon in the toolbar for a drop-down menu with the info.
There are a lot of thumbnail images on sites like Google Images, Instagram, DeviantART, and social networks. However, the main function of this extension is that it can show you the full-size image when you hover your mouse over any tiny thumbnail, assuming there is a larger image available.
Download images in bulk on a single webpage with this extension. It will display all the images, and you can specify which ones you want before the download starts.
Once you know it, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it. This extension is very simple. You just have to click the up-arrow icon next to your Chrome address bar when visiting a complicated URL, and it’ll automatically send you to the parent address.
Basically, it takes you back one level of the URL. But that’s not all, because you can keep clicking to get to the original domain name. Master the hotkeys and you’ll navigate up even faster.
It’s perfect if you need some ambient background noise to stay focused. Noisli in Chrome provides a wide variety of them to play. It includes a sleep timer to turn the sound off as well, and you can use it from the web or get the apps for iOS or Android. The free version is limited to 16 sounds and only streams up to 15 hours per day.
Sometimes you gotta print a web page, right? But surely it has to be annoying to waste ink on printing advertisements. For that reason, this extension removes all the navigation and commercials from the page when you print it, optimizing it for reading. Moreover, it can save pages directly to PDF if you prefer.
In order to improve your browsing on social media sites such as Reddit, YouTube, Facebook, Tumblr, Google, Twitter, and elsewhere, you can transform their looks with this tool, which works with scripts you download from userstyles.org.
In this opportunity, Ookla has bet on becoming its internet speed tester into an extension that lives in the Google Chrome toolbar. Then, as soon as you visit new sites, it will instantly check your download and upload speeds to see how they impact performance, or use Web Speed to check page load time.
Specially designed for readers. If you only want to read your favorite story without interruptions such as pics or videos, you could turn all that media off (that includes advertising) with Text Mode. Then, all you’ll see is the black-and-white copy on the page.
Looking for an alternative to Adblock or Adblock Plus that’s a little less resource intensive? Try µBlock.
- Productivity
Currently available on Google Chrome, Microsoft Word has a special function to change the case of words, an entire phrase, or more instantly to UPPERCASE, lowercase, title case, sentence case, and more.
This is a very useful tool if you want to avoid refreshing web pages in order to see changes. You see, with Distill, you only have to put in the site and conditions you’re looking for, and it will alert you via push, SMS, or email when a change happens. Monitor up to 25 pages or sites for free with updates every six hours. You can also get it for Opera and Firefox.
In order to increase your productivity, there are many timers out there. Actually, most of them used to apply the pomodoro technique, which is meant to make you work for 25 minutes, break for five, and then start it all again.
But we are sure that you couldn’t find one as good as Forest. As it counts down, this tool grows an animated tree as long as you refrain from visiting sites you’ve (like Twitter, cough). By the end of the day, you could have a whole forest.
Perhaps it is one of the most advertised on the internet, but well, how to say no to software that includes an extra check on every word you write in the browser, from emails to social media and beyond.
It even has a dictionary function, so when you double-click a word or phrase on a web page you get a definition, or a link to something related to the term. It also works with Gmail and Google Docs, but if you’re a Microsoft person, try its competitor, Microsoft Editor.
Thus, Grammarly, which wants very much to be the official spell and grammar checker for all your online writing, is definitely one of those features you have to try.
If you didn’t know, Wikipedia may be second only to Google for searches throughout the day, and with Lookup Companion you will be able to improve and complement it.
This extension gives you toolbar access to search the user-built encyclopedia of everything, and the results will appear in a drop-down menu and open in a new Chrome tab.
- Magical (Formerly Auto Text Expander)
It’s perfect for writing frequent small text snippets. Then, you won’t have to worry about typing that annoying email out again, just write it once and then type “@jerks” whenever you want to use it. And you can sign in with your Google account to save all your shortcuts.
You’re working on your PC when suddenly, your Android phone (that is in your pocket) gets a text. Don’t worry, you can check your messages right from the screen of your computer. With MightyText, you’ll see your texts in Chrome (or Firefox, Safari, Opera, and IE).
As you read, you’ll be able to see all the messages sent and received, even with pictures and video, are synced, as long as you have an Android phone with the MightyText app installed. You’ll also get low-battery alerts.
And that’s not all, because there’s another extension specifically to get MightyText messages in Facebook or Gmail(Opens in a new window), too.
Create Microsoft Office documents right from your Chrome’s toolbar. You can also edit them and save them on Office.com. This extension works with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Sway Online, via storage on your Microsoft OneDrive account. And don’t worry, because you don’t need to have the full Office suite installed.
It is designed to sync the notifications of your mobile device with those of your desktop. Pushbullet will show you incoming calls even if you are working from your PC. You can also forward files from your PC to your smartphone and send SMS text messages from your desktop (if you have an Android phone). There is also a version available for Firefox.
Naptha is an extension that uses optical character recognition and it makes the text in images copyable and editable. It will even help translate text from other languages, which makes it the perfect tool for working with the text you see in online images.
Multiple tabs are already a good way to multi-task. But what about multiple tabs all in one tab? You can handle it with Panda, which acts as a newsreader to load all your news sites in one tab, or all your social media in one tab, etc., and you get an at-a-glance look at what’s happening.
With this tool, you can place RSS feeds directly in Chrome’s bookmarks toolbar (also available for Firefox and Edge), so it informs you when there are new posts in your favorite RSS/Atom feeds and makes it easy to subscribe.
It also has different themes, so you can change its look and feel. The free version supports 100 feeds with one update every two.
Perfect for knowing the exact traffic of the site you are visiting. This feature will provide a snapshot of the “engagement statistics” for the site you are visiting.
Are you easily distracted by social networking sites? Learn how to control and limit the time you allow yourself to spend on specific Chrome websites. For example, if you spend an hour a day on Facebook, StayFocusd won’t let you return to the site.
You can block specific pages, entire sites, even apps or games, and if you combine it with RescueTime, we assure you that it will be much more productive.
This app offers a timer similar to Forest, but without trees. In addition, you have to activate it manually by clicking to start the timer and repeat as needed after each five-minute break.
Truth be told, Wikipedia may be known for many things, but its design is definitely not one of them. So WikiWand optimizes Wikipedia content with its own interface and ensures that every time you click on a link in the encyclopedia, you see the much better appearance of Wikiwand.
Additionally, you can customize it so that fonts and images appear the way you want them to. You can also get Wikiwand for Firefox, which offers a right-click search of Wikipedia on any term you highlight in the browser.
Definitely the dream of any researcher (and student). It is a free and simple tool to track, manage, and share citations. Although we recommend you read a little more on its official site because not only its extensions are very useful, but also the application itself.
- Security & Privacy
Abine Blur is a favorite service of many. This Chrome extension provides you with thousands of privacy options directly in your browser. It also takes care of creating and storing secure passwords, blocking trackers, masking emails and more. Best of all, most of its functions are free, although, of course, it has a full version that will cost you $39 per year.
One of the most integrated add-ons on this list. Its drop-down menu provides access to your browser’s cache, cookies, plugins, extensions, and history, and quick ways to clear them. You even get a full browser test to see how well Chrome protects you.
It will also help you scan for malware using Bitdefender, erase your private data, and a host of other security options you’re neglecting. Finally, it gives you the option to customize all the options for full coverage.
Its sole purpose is to block all third-party cookies from social networks and advertisers that follow you while you browse. Its developers claim that this helps browsing speed and even saves battery for mobile devices. Although you can still see the cookies you’re blocking in case you want to let some through.
Available on its official site duck.com, it’s the search engine that doesn’t track you and just wants to keep your privacy up and running at all times. It also provides a guide of sites you can trust (you can see the instant privacy rating in the toolbar).
Finally, it takes care of forcing encryption when available, blocking trackers and, of course, making it easy to search, privately, because it makes DDG your default search engine.
Use it to go directly to your browser settings and change the text in a cookie. But this extension can also delete, add a cookie, or create a new one from scratch.
As you may know, while moving around the web, a lot of things are happening. Usually, bugs, beacons, pixels, and more are used to track what you are doing. Therefore, it becomes necessary to have an app that tells you what’s going on in the background to give you full control over these “extras,” right?
If you don’t like a company or what they’re doing, Ghostery can block scripts, objects and even entire images so you can retain your privacy. Best of all, it’s available on almost all browsers and also on Android, iOS, and Amazon.
Another novel way to stay secure while browsing the internet. As you may know, visiting sites with “https://” in front of the URL means you are visiting a site that uses SSL encryption, a must for e-commerce at the very least and preferred everywhere. So what this extension does is that all sites you visit that have “https://” as an option use it, providing another layer of security.
One of the most recommended in this category. This extension is the favorite among free password managers (its premium version also has good reviews).
LastPass works on all operating systems, mobile devices, and, of course, web browsers. It also imports stored passwords from other tools, as there is no limit to the number of stored and synchronized passwords, even in the free version.
Use the open-source OpenPGP standard for encryption/decryption to secure your web-based email messages. It also works with Gmail, Outlook.com, Yahoo Mail, and other mail services; it’s also available for Firefox.
Produced by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, this extension was programmed to protect privacy. Specifically, it blocks invisible trackers and all those ads that seem to follow you around the web. It is also available for Firefox, Edge, and Opera.
A very useful tool to avoid losing information in the forms you have filled out. You won’t find automatic saving in most web forms, unless you install Typio, which promises automatic saving everywhere.
- WOT – Website Reputation
Web of Trust is an online community that is responsible for rating websites according to the main criterion: can they be trusted? So this is the first line of defense against disreputable sites that display red, yellow, and green icons next to search results, giving you a warning before clicking on a link.
- Shopping & Coupons
Amazon Assistant for Chrome
You can use it to add things to your Amazon Wish List (from anywhere), search Amazon on the go, enable price comparisons when shopping elsewhere, check shipping, and more.
As you’ll see, Amazon has retired some of its other Chrome extensions to focus specifically on Assistant development, and as we’ve explained, you can do a myriad of things with it.
The perfect extension to check the full price history of an item on Amazon, with some comparison to third-party sales. It’s really functional to help you decide when costs are most likely to go down and consequently save a little more money.
The best way to check if online product reviews are truthful or not, as 39% of them are very unreliable. That’s why Fakespot analyzes the reviews that are of interest to you.
This one is probably going to become your favorite. It’s owned by PayPal and basically, it automatically sees what shopping site you’re on and provides a drop-down list of applicable coupons (or links directly to the site for better deals).
Likewise, it will automatically apply as many coupons as it can to your payment service on selected sites, so you don’t have to cut/paste/type long, obscure codes. But be careful, because even though it’s free, it’s always going around collecting your data, so much so that Amazon detects it as malware directly.
It is ideal for those users who love low prices. Although it still requires you to do your part in searches, in general, it’s a great tool that works not only with online stores but also with airlines.
It never hurts to support public libraries, right? Well, this extension watches you as you browse for books, music, and other media and will tell you if it’s available at your local library. With over 5,000 supported libraries, you’re sure to find a real bargain.
- Ourforest and TreeClicks
A tool that cares about the environment. This service will help you save the world while you shop, because when you install it, it will track your purchases at partner stores and plant trees to offset the impact you’re having with online shopping.
This is the perfect feature if you’re looking to save on your online shopping with coupons. And that’s not all, because Deal Finder puts those coupons to work for you on e-commerce sites during checkout processes, so you won’t have to worry about filling out fields to apply discounts.
Before this app, it was a pain to find warehouse deals to buy used or returned products to save some money. However, now that it’s available, it will help you find them right on the Amazon page along with new products.
Pay is a very useful tool to add more security to your online shopping. With it, you can easily create virtual credit cards based on your real cards, so you can essentially have a single card to use on all your shopping sites. Its free version allows you to create up to 12 “cards” per month.
- Social/Sharing
Want to get rid of some websites? With Stanford.edu‘s HabitLab, you can do just that, as it will use different ways to intervene when you try to visit the site. For example, if you constantly visit Facebook, it can hide your news feed or basically whatever works best to keep you away.
Formerly known as Netflix Party, this is an extension that will help you stream your favorite movies and shows and then create an online chat party with any remote friend who also runs the extension on their laptop or PC (even with Microsoft Edge).
What’s more, you can all watch together from different locations, as it now works with Netflix, Hulu, Hulu+, Disney+, and HBO Max/HBO Now.
A tool that helps perfect social media art by sizing the graphics it finds online or from your drive, so they always fit perfectly on sites like Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. It even comes with photos courtesy of free stock photo site Unsplash.
Need instant access to your social networks? No problem, this extension will help you do that from its drop-down menu. What’s more, you can post directly to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, Gmail, Evernote, and more than 250 other sites with this extension. Moreover, it has built-in URL shorteners like Bit.ly, as well as Amazon wishlists for various countries.
- Tabs & Home Pages
Perfect for those users who like to make a detailed daily report of what they do. This application loads a new tab that goes directly to an online diary that you can fill in as much detail as you want.
The name says it all. With this extension, any new tab you open will be empty.
Previously, many websites were optimized for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE). So if you have a tool like this at work that they never bothered to update, use IE Tab. This tool allows you to load the page using IE’s rendering engine while staying in a Google Chrome tab. (although it requires you to install an additional program called IETabHelper.exe to make it work).
The best way to customize your home pages in Chrome is to use it to customize the home buttons for all your web-based sites and apps, as well as quick access to search, weather, bookmarks, and history in the browser. You can even set the wallpaper to rotate so you never have the same page twice.
An inspiring, productive, beautiful feature that everyone could use to describe a new tab page created with Momentum, which uses amazing images for backgrounds on the useful text you need (like what time it is).
This extension combines the best features you can get in a new tab page, from beautiful skins, a clock or calendar, to a launcher for apps and websites.
If you are one of those users who usually open too many tabs at the same time, you have surely found that when this happens, your browser’s performance suffers. But with OneTab, you can consolidate the clutter into one tab full of links to all those same sites.
Like the previous one, this might be the best tab manager on the web. With it, you can view and organize them all in one place, save them for later, recover tabs after a crash, and export tabs for sharing.
Actually, shortcuts to the drop-down menus/list of your open tabs are not innovative. But this extension launches a search so you can jump to the one you need quickly, like a tab bunny. Also, you can create keyboard shortcuts to use SuperTabs even faster.
This extension helps you delete tabs you haven’t looked at for a while, but makes it easier to retrieve them. Also, bookmarked sites are not closed and Chrome can synchronize tabs between computers using the same Google account.
Found something really interesting to read online but don’t have the time to do it? Don’t worry, you can postpone it for later in the day, that night, the next day, even next week or next month. Pick a day or simply send the tab content by mail to read it whenever you want.
A tool that provides a view of all your tabs in a resizable, tree-style vertical window, like the one found in Windows Explorer. Similarly, closing a tab does not remove it from the tree, so it is very easy to return to that page.
There is also no difference between an open or “saved” tab, and you can even add notes from web pages. Finally, when you’re fed up with all the work, there’s a button to close all the tabs.
Don’t constantly reopen the same tabs every day. Use Toby to organize them, so that when you open a new tab, you have the option to open them all.
When you open more than 20 tabs, Chrome is almost impossible to use. For this reason, this extension helps you manage the overflow by providing a panoramic view of your open tabs. Also, you can search through open tabs and sort them by domain, title, or creation time.
Turn your new tab into a full-fledged dashboard with all the extras you can imagine, taking you to new levels of productivity. Ultidash incorporates a to-do list, a site blocker with a Pomodoro timer, integration with tools like Google Calendar and Gmail, and analytics on your work habits and sites visited.
We insist on saying that opening many tabs at once can become a problem. For this reason, xTab prevents you from opening too many tabs by setting a tab limit and then deleting the oldest or least visited tab that is already open, retraining your brain to be judicious when opening them.
- Video
Using this extension, you can be sure money is donated to a charity every time you use your PC to stream on platforms like Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime.
With Invideo, you can search for the place you were in a YouTube video earlier that you can not remember but you remember what was happening. This option helps you to search with the subtitles for that specific part.
For videos on YouTube to have a beautiful and configurable makeover, you can use Magic Action, using the mouse wheel to control the volume, select HD or cinema mode, access HD mode, or even turn off auto-play, as well as hide comments or ads.
It works not only on Google but also on Youtube and other video sites, keeping the original video tab open in order to ensure the stream doesn’t end and clicking on the icon, the video you are watching turns into a thumbnail that you can move around the screen while doing other activities in the browser.
There are many Chrome extensions that will download videos, but not from YouTube. That would be against Google’s rules. You can get around that by loading a Chrome extension like this one. It supports a large number of sites, even some of the more adult variety.
Zoom has become very popular after the health emergency, but what if we made accessing it easier? Now you can place a Zoom shortcut in your browser toolbar to schedule meetings or start a meeting instantly. The meeting URL is instantly shared with participants via Google Calendar.
