Recommended Chrome Extensions?

i am trialling out google chrome as an alternative to firefox, are there any nice/must have extensions that the wilders community recommend?

these are the extensions i am using on firefox;
adblock plus
ghostery
yet another smooth scrolling
hide tab bar with one tab
downthemall

 

I use Disconnect and AdBlock Plus for security. I also use Media Hint to watch Hulu and to listen to music at Pandora.

I prefer Firefox though.

 

It's probably hard to say since the "recommended" term is too broad. I just take a blind assumption that you are referring to security. ScriptSafe is what I consider to be worth to use.

P.S. : Unless you meant alternative extensions of FF addons? There are already the Chrome version of ABP and Ghostery.

 

Simple Adblock by WIPS

 

Look at their privacy policy -http://www.wips.com/about/privacypolicy

And their EULA -http://www.wips.com/about/eula

You might change your mind.

 

"HTTPS Everywhere"

 

HTTPS Everywhere broke Chrome for me (some pages would load forever, it couldn't update, etc.) -- had to disable that extension and now Chrome works fine again. Same with Comodo Dragon (which is Comodo modified version of Chrome). For example, when I try to load Chrome Web Store it says "the app is currently unreachable" if HTTPS Everywhere is enabled. YMMV.

 

Exactly, for me it works flawlessly on every page i tried to load, including the web store so probably it's something on your setup that causes all these issues you mentioned.

"shrug"

 

Eat your heart out:

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=263095

 

I would lose Ghostery on both browsers. Replace with NoScript and the likes for Chrome or transfer the block rules to the best of your ability to AdBlock for Chrome.

Even if you allow scripts globally, NS offers damn good protection and can also blacklist scripts which slow your favorite sites down. Most spend the majority of their time on the same sites. So remove everything you don't need and even restyle with CSS. You can use Adblock, Greasemonkey, Stylish, or StylebotMe (C). Now the sites yoy frequent are ad/scriptbloat free and look pretty.

Use few rules in adblock. I use two adblocks. The original for Chrome and Palant's experimental. I use Chrome Dev and Canary, so a backup extension may be needed here (& export your customs lists!!!!). I add adversity's adblock list. It is much faster than old easylist or Fanboy's. It also has an "antisocial" list which kills social trackers--where most the tracking IMO comes from.

Now, you have a very secure, bloat free experience. But you can make it even more bulletproof by employing a cookie whitelist. Have Chrome accept only first party and delete all cookies when closed. Now whitelist the cookies you do need. Like stylised pages (confguarble sites) and ones that require log in. You can also actively block cookies like Youtube's so you can be logged into Gmail, but NOT be logged into Youtube simultaneously. If you don't mind breaking gVoice and gCal. You can also even block google.com and allow gmail.google.com so all your google searches are not assoicated with you gmail login.

Now upon closing your session, you dump the few cookies--if any--that got past adblock.

For smooth scroll, I like Smooth Scrollerator. Your jaw will hit the floor as you actually see SMOOTH scolling over The Fox (greatly evident on trackpads). A rip of a previous, more configurable extension "SmoothScroll", but that one had adware built in. This looks clean and beats Chrome "wheel smooth" for smoothness.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/smooth-scrollerator/lmicgfcegednlkdhgbhgickcgndjeeig

@hide tab: the cogs should allow for it, but I see nothing that will do that. Chrome did have an option to hide the address bad but it was killed 15 versions ago. However, if you just want this for say a seemless page and the url is common--you could make a "webapp" of the page. This will create an icon shortcut to you page and have no tabs.

@downthemall: bad news , the ugly, and good news. Bad news. There is nothing like DTA for Chrome. The ugly: DTA breaks so many downloads for me. It tends not to grab the correct link. Good news: Chrome just opened up the download manager API, so expect improvements/extensions. Caveat: split data, or data control does not look planned for the first hand so no segmented downloads.

Workarounds exist like extensions which hand off the link to a third party manager. Some managers have other integrations like monitoring the clipboard.

What I would add? I use lots of laptops and keyboard a lot so:

"Next page". Opera like function for KB browsers. Allows you to go to page 2 etc upon hitting the bottom and continuing to hit space bar. It opens the page verses appending the page in an endless scroll as most other "page zippers" do.

"Drag and Go" (YADnG). The ability to drag links or highlighted text. Upon dragging: Searches text (in an engine of your choice). Or opens links in a new tab (shift click/middle click). It has an option for drop zones eg drag left search text in IMDB---drag right SSL Google search. Link opening is a savior for laptops/mice with no middle button.

 

Indeed. Adblock is the better choice.

 

thank you very much for the useful info guys, especially to Sordid

 

I have played with chrome, but its way inferior to firefox in my eyes.

privacy issues, (use an alternative chromium etc.)
google hate customisation, hard to install to a custom path, hard to use a ramdisk for temp files etc.
very slow on startup (reminds me of firefox 2/3 days), also very ram hungry.
its reputation as some kind of lightning fast browser, not for me, its slower than IE and FF. I am guessing its only fast if you just use s few or less tabs.

It does have some nice extensions tho and probably the only browser that works 100% with google owned sites.

 

Something's wrong with your profile if the startup is slow. Try the portable version to compare with the defaults. I have no problems with it's startup speed and many extensions/tabs.
The RAM usage may be higher, but it's managed better. Just close a lot of tabs in Chrome and Firefox.

As for what I recommend, ScriptSafe is great even in Allow mode due to its Unwanted Content sources. LastPass if you don't already have a password manager, so convenient for non-important passwords. VTchromizer will make VirusTotal easier and convenient. Selection Search is the best for quick look-up. X-notifier means no need for email clients.

There are more, but I'm only stating my essentials and what's not already mentioned.

 

Adblock Plus
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=350250&highlight=adblock

 

my profile is more or less default as unlike FF chrome is so dumbed down there is nothing to tune.

its slow and there is 100s of reports on th enet confirming the same thing, the reason is chrome doesnt do the same as FF which is only load the FG tab, it loads them all.

IE doesnt only load the FG tab but is faster on startup as it s faster than chrome anyway.

 

But it isn't (think [advanced] settings, browsing data, extensions, and whatnot), and neither are those reports, hence why I requested you to test Chrome portable which includes a default profile.

Dumbed down only for non-techies. If you tried all the chrome://, gpedit.msc policies (or registry for Chrome 27 and below), command-line switches, profile folder editing, and Chromium from source code, you'll see the tuning alright.

Of course, you don't have to if you're not interested enough to even use Chrome.

 

So you have "played" with Chrome. Well, I can tell you this: I had been using Firefox for many years, and I've been using Chrome nearly exclusively for about 1 year - and it's not inferior at all.

There's no evidence that Chrome has more privacy issues than Chromium. Both have Google as default search engine (like Firefox), both allow cookies (including 3rd party cookies) by default (like Firefox), both have the same default settings (like instant search, translation service, usage statistics and crash reports) which can be easily changed or deactivated. A client ID isn't used any more since v. 4.1, and the RLZ is only used if you download Chrome from a 3rd party site and not from the official Google download site.

And with the following command line switch (see below) you can easily block Google Analytics and the likes:

Code:

--host-rules="MAP *.google-analytics.com 0.0.0.0","MAP *.googleadservices.com 0.0.0.0","MAP *.doubleclick.net 0.0.0.0"

Well, it's certainly not as flexible as Firefox (with about:config) but a lot can be changed beyond the settings menu with numerous command line switches.

Just use the command line switch

Code:

--disk-cache-dir="/tmp/ram/"

On my system it's definitely faster on startup than Firefox - even with nearly 30 extensions.

It doesn't use much more than Firefox on my system. And even if it did: The multi-process archtecture has its price but it's an important security feature.

 

People just need to stop bashing Chrome. But I can tolerate their dislikes towards Chrome as long as they have valid reasons.

 

AdBlockPlus works with filter lists and works great, Popup Blocker Pro only filters (javascript) pop-unders/overs and uses internal rules (claimed artificial intelligence) in stead of filter lists. PBP is a great replacement of ABP for people not liking 'acceptable' advertising practise.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/popup-blocker-pro/allcegfcagkffchiajgmnmegdkbnblcj

 

There's a nice extension called "Hover Zoom"...
You might also like ScriptSafe but personally, I prefer to disable JavaScript & Plug-ins and only allow them when needed:

- Privacy\Content Settings\JavaScript: Do not allow any sites to run JavaScript
- Privacy\Content Settings\Plug-ins: Block all...