Best extensions for Chrome and Firefox

You don’t have to be a developer to edit the web. With the right extensions, you can create the online experience you want in only a few clicks.

Want to ban profanity from YouTube comments? Done. Hate how Facebook and Gmail have been redesigned? You can change that. Want to see kittens instead of offensive content? That’s possible too.

Extensions – known in Firefox as add-ons – are small, usually free tools that perform simple tasks. They can add features to your browser, complement desktop applications, or enhance the workings of specific web services. Since anyone can write an extension, they can even modify the behaviour of websites in ways that their creators might not approve of.

That’s a strength, but it’s also a risk. As with any downloadable code, an extension could contain malware that steals data or otherwise interferes with the operation of your PC.

Both Google and Mozilla operate official stores, from which anything found to be malicious will be quickly ejected, but dodgy extensions can still cause trouble before they’re detected, so check reviews and use common sense before installation. Note, too, that updates to extensions can change how they function, so what runs okay today may not tomorrow. Don’t panic, however.

Malicious extensions are in the minority. On these pages, we’ve selected reputable add-ons that can make the web behave exactly as you want. Except where noted, all of the extensions mentioned are available for both Chrome and Firefox. And if you’re having trouble finding an extension to suit, you could make one yourself.

Cut it out

Annoyed by ads? Offended by swear words? Irritated by The Daily Mail? You can automatically delete all of these from your browser with extensions. One of the web’s most popular extensions is AdBlock, which stops ads in their tracks. Not only will this boost load times, but it will help you to avoid malicious adverts.

It also lets you temporarily allow ads, or whitelist an entire site – pcpro.co.uk for example – and has advanced blocking tools, too. To access them, click on Filter Lists in the management tool to add different languages, remove social media buttons or ban other annoyances. Even if you don’t run AdBlock all the time, it’s worth installing in the event that a site fails to load because it’s weighed down with ads, for example.

If simply turning off ads isn’t enough, you can specifically target Flash with extensions such as FlashBlock, or prevent JavaScript
from running automatically with ScriptBlock (Chrome only).

There’s more to block online than irritating ads. Kitten Block shows pictures of tea and kittens whenever you inadvertently click on a link to The Daily Mail, while Simple Profanity Filter (Chrome only) replaces offensive words with carefully placed asterisks – although it doesn’t block obscene images, and in our tests we found it didn’t catch every bit of profanity. F-Stop actually replaces the obscene phrase with a less offensive one.

If it’s social networking spam that you want to rid, FB Purity and Social Fixer can edit out irritating game updates or sponsored posts, while AntiSocial wipes social platforms from web pages. The extension Rather lets you replace what you don’t want on social sites – TV show final results, photos of babies – with what you do want, such as pictures of cats.

If there’s something you’d rather not have on a website, there’s an extension to remove it.

Keep secure

Some extensions improve the security of your browser. The free LastPass password manager is a PC Pro favourite; a popular alternative is 1Password.

HTTPS Everywhere, created by privacy campaigner the Electronic Frontier Foundation, encrypts your connection to websites wherever possible. Web of Trust (WOT) issues security warnings as you browse, while Click&Clean tidies up the traces you leave behind in your browser, such as cookies, cached items, typed URLs and browsing history.

Ghostery blocks advertisers and others from tracking you online; install it, and it will tot up how many servers are following you – it’s an eye-opener – and will let you block trackers or whitelist specific sites.

Disconnect does the same, splitting tracking requests into advertising, analytics and social groups, so you can easily whitelist pages and block others. Disconnect also charts how much time and bandwidth you save by blocking social sharing tools, advertising networks and other items.

Syncing and sharing

In some cases it’s desirable to block social tools embedded in pages, but there are also plenty of add-ons to help you share web content with your friends.

All the major social networks are supported with extensions – both official and third-party – and with these you can, for example, tweet or Like a post directly from your browser, without clicking over to the official site, or add features and remove irritations.

Some extensions focus on one service – Silver Bird (Chrome only) is a full Twitter client embedded in your browser, for example – while others, such as Buffer (also Chrome only), let you share to multiple services.

If reading from your laptop doesn’t appeal, you can save down an article to read from a different device using extensions such as Pocket, Instapaper and Readability.

Pushbullet connects your desktop to your phone, so you can easily push links, messages, files and directions between the two, as well as to your friends’ handsets or computers. If you use Evernote, by installing its extension you’ll be able to save notes with a single click, while anyone carrying out online research should download Zotero, which not only saves articles but also makes them searchable later.

Hack your Gmail

There are a host of extensions for customising the behaviour of Google’s webmail service. Checker Plus (Chrome only) makes Gmail act more like an app, popping up notifications when you receive a new message, and letting you read and delete emails without switching away from your active browser tab. Google Mail Checker works similarly, with a live icon that informs you about how many unread messages you have in Chrome or Firefox.

Gmail Offline (Chrome only, although there are Firefox alternatives) enables you to access your inbox without internet access, while Boomerang for Gmail lets you write emails and schedule to send them when you eventually get online. It also lets you manage your inbox by postponing messages so you don’t see any work emails until you’re in the office, for example.

Gmelius lets you tweak the UI by picking and choosing which elements to include. It also lets you switch back to the old compose email window, and search emails from the omnibox. Minimalist for Everything is a dashboard that lets you choose how Gmail will work by toggling interface items on or off, such as the colour of links or starred items. Preferences can be synced across multiple PCs, and Minimalist works with other pages too; click the icon on any page to view the options.

Create a better browser

If there’s something about Chrome or Firefox that you find annoying – such as a missing feature or a task you have to perform repeatedly – it’s safe to assume that there’s an extension to save the day.

Managing tab overload is something of a challenge, and neither Chrome nor Firefox has done much to address the issue. OneTab for Chrome saves all of your open tabs into a list, freeing up their occupied memory until you restore them. TooManyTabs works similarly, but shows your tab collection graphically, letting you preview them more easily.

Lazarus: Form Recovery saves the text you enter into web forms, in case your browser crashes mid-entry, while Print Friendly reformats web pages so they print more cleanly. Awesome Screenshot lets you record a snapshot of an entire page, no matter how long it scrolls on for.

AutoPager lets you scroll rather than click across sites that split their content across multiple pages – handy for skimming through Google search results – while Stylish offers themes for major sites including Facebook, YouTube and Google. MightyText provides the ability to send a text message from your browser, and RescueTime tracks how you spend your time online, outputting your productivity in a series of charts.

If your ISP has started filtering adult sites, you don’t need to log in and change the settings every time you’re looking for child-unfriendly content. The wonderfully named “Go away Cameron” (Chrome only) lets you slip past the filters with the click of a button.

It does slow down download speeds, however, so you’ll only want to use it when necessary; you can set how long the re-routing lasts for before it’s automatically cancelled. It works in Chrome’s Incognito mode too, which is handy for certain types of content. Ahem. Alternative rerouting services include Media Hint and Hola.

Greasemonkey

Of all the powerful extensions, Greasemonkey is king – it lets users manage scripts to control how they see and use the web.

It works only in Firefox, but some scripts are supported natively in Chrome. Scripts are widely available online – http://userscripts.org is a good resource, although Googling what you want to fix with the terms “Greasemonkey script” will often uncover what you need. Be warned, though, some scripts are dodgy – one promised us the ability to steal Facebook passwords – and some simply don’t work very well. If you’re not happy with what you find, you can also make your own.

Getting started with Greasemonkey is easy. Install the extension, find a script you’d like to use (it will look like name.user.js), and click the link to load it. Reboot the browser, click the monkey icon to open up Greasemonkey and manage your scripts… and you’re done.

Getting and managing extensions

To get Chrome extensions, go to the Chrome Web Store (); for Firefox, go here. You can find many more extensions online, but they won’t have been vetted by Google or Mozilla.

Extension icons appear next to the omnibox in Chrome and Firefox. You don’t need to click one by one to manage them: in Chrome, typing chrome://extensions into the omnibox will present a settings page from which you can disable tools, delete them or allow them in Incognito mode, and set permissions.

In Firefox, click the top-left Firefox button, then select Add-ons to view options for your extensions. You can search for and install extensions directly from here, using the search field at the top.

Of course, there also exist extensions to help you work with your extensions: Extensity provides a dropdown menu to quickly access them in Chrome, while Slim Add-ons Manager cleans up Firefox’s own system to make it easier to use.

You can also use extensions in Safari, Opera and Internet Explorer – in the latter, click settings and Manage Add-ons. The options are limited, but software such as LastPass and Evernote will be supported in all the major browsers.