So you’re looking for some cool Chrome extensions.
You’ve come to the right place, my app-seeking friend.
I’ve compiled a list of the top 10 most awesome Chrome extensions on the Chrome Web Store.
You’ve probably never heard of these, but some are really popular now so you may have heard of them.
Nonetheless, they’re still awesome and worthy of checking out.
Sure, not all of these may apply to you, but I’m almost certain that you’ll find something useful here.
So, without further ado, let’s get on with the list already.
Last updated: 3/2/23. Updated the list for WFH workers!
Got an awesome extension to share? Post it in the comments and I’ll add it to this list!
#1. Data Saver
Data Saver does exactly what the title says. It saves your precious freakin’ data.
It’s backed by Google and currently has over 900K users and it’s rated at 4/5 stars with over 3.6K reviews.
Not everyone has unlimited 4G LTE data, so some of us need to conserve. When you’re using Chrome on your phone, laptop, or Chromebook and you’re connected to a network with data limitations, you need to conserve your data.
Whether you’re using WiFi or mobile hotspot, data is being burned with every single web page, video, picture, article, or podcast you consume. Data go bye-bye.
This app is built for just that. It’ll save your data by using Google’s own servers to minimize pages before you visit them. This will send the same web page over to your device in a minimized fashion with less MB used up.
You don’t really need to know the specifics of how it works. Who really cares anyway? You just want to save data so you can browse more for less, right? Then get Data Saver.
It’s owned by Google so you can be assured your privacy is in good hands. While on the subject of privacy, it doesn’t work with pages you browse in Incognito mode or served over HTTPS connections. It even has detailed graphics to show how much data you saved and what sites are using your data the most overall from the sites you visited.
Otherwise, it works fine on all other pages. Overall, it should save your data usage. Get this app. You have no reason not to install it. Unless you like wasting data.
Check out Data Saver on the Chrome Web Store.
5/25/19: Updated the link to the correct extension!
8/3/19: Data Saver has been retired for good by Google. The app no longer exists. The feature is now built directly into the Chrome Browser.
Here’s how you can enable it:
- Launch the Chrome Browser on your mobile device.
- Go to “Settings.”
- Go to the “Advanced” tab.
- Click on “Lite mode.”
- Enable the feature!
That’s it. Once it’s on, you can see how much data you’ve saved in real time. Keep this on if you need to save your data on your phone or have a limited data plan.
#2. Session Buddy
Session Buddy is one of my most favorite Chrome extensions.
It currently has over 600K users with a 5/5 star rating based on a whopping 23K reviews.
This will save your Chrome tabs in case your browser freezes or crashes. And it’ll save you frustration as well.
Whenever you’re browsing online and you have a bunch of tabs open, you can just have Session Buddy save it in a list.
It’ll allow you name that list if you’d like, and you can do as many saves as you want. It’ll then display all of your lists in a chronological order so you can see exactly where you saved what.
This is one of the few apps that’s STILL being updated by the dev. It’s come into handy countless number of times when Chrome suddenly crashes with a bunch of tabs. Now you can restore them with a single click. You know that feel? It even does it automatically or you can manually save your tabs.
You can also program it to save a list of tabs for easy access later on. It’ll instantly and automatically re-open all your previous tabs you have saved in a list.
You can name these lists whatever you want and save them for later use. It’s perfect for research and looking stuff up. Or if you just want a set of tabs saved that you can easily access, it’s good for that too. It even saves the favicons for the websites you visit (the little picture icon).
Saving tabs and opening them up again later is perfect for handling memory and performance issues.
You can also use it as a tab manager app. You can see all your tabs, windows, and instances of Chrome in one place. You can close entire windows or single tabs. You can also export your tabs in a multitude of formats for emails and posts on social media.
It’s pretty much tab management on steroids. Everything you can think of, you can probably do with Session Buddy.
The nice part about it is that it automatically saves your entire tabs and windows. When you close or open new tabs, it creates new entries for each change. So it’s like a tab tracker that’s always running in the background to save your work. You never have to worry about having 200 tabs open and your Chromebook crashing and losing them all.
The automatic tab saving works wonders and is nearly perfect. It’s saved me personally at least a handful of times when the laptop ran out of battery.
(Want to personalize your “new tab” page? Check out these extensions to customize Chrome and make it yours!)
Update: This extension is still proving to be useful- especially when Chrome shuts down unexpectedly and you want to quickly restore all your previous tabs. I still use this all the time for recovering a bunch of tabs after a Chrome crash. It has saved me countless minutes of time. Still highly recommended for 2022. And it’s still free to download.
Another update: With the majority of people working remotely now, managing all your tabs and windows can be extremely inefficient. This extension can save all your commonly used windows and tabs (with tabs in the right order you left them) in a single click. Managing a ton of tabs just got easier.
This app just keeps getting more praise over time. Just look at the reviews and see for yourself.
If you work with many different programs online because your job requires it, this can make your workflow a lot more efficient and clutter free. No need to worry about closing tabs or entire windows because you can recall them in seconds. You can even save or designate different windows for different workflows.
For example, name one as “accounting” to instantly bring up all your tabs related to that workflow.
And another as “meeting” for all your online meeting tabs.
You can install Session Buddy from the Chrome Web Store here.
#3. Noisli
They say that listening to the right sounds can help do a bunch of stuff for your body.
Binaural beats is a big thing right now. Apparently listening to certain sound waves can help you study, concentrate, give you energy, and a lot more.
This Chrome extension currently has over 140K users and is rated 4/5 stars based on over 600 Nosli users.
Nosli is an app that creates ambient sound for you to focus on your work. It’s designed so you can be productive and get things done. If it’s too loud, too quiet, or in between, you can use this app to help you create background sounds so you can focus on your tasks.
(Are you an audiophile? There’s an app that can boost your bass and equalize your sound so you get awesome sound quality.)
You can choose from a variety of sound combos to pick the perfect track for your mood. You also have a handy volume slider and the ability to control all your combos at once.
If you’re in a busy library and you need to study for an exam, put on a pair of earbuds and turn on Nosli. It’ll drown out all the ambient noise so you can concentrate on your work.
This extension has been updated constantly. New features are added to make this an effective extension to help you concentrate and focus to get the job done!
Get Noisli here.
#4. OneTab
OneTab is an app that’ll save your device memory and speed up performance by taking all your active tabs and putting them in a single list.
It currently has over 1.3M users and is rated 5/5 stars based on over 9.5K reviewers. That’s pretty darn impressive. It’s still supported by the dev.
It advertises to save up to 95% of your device’s RAM usage. With this much RAM freed up, you’re free to multitask without any computer slowdown or lag. Given that Chromebooks don’t have that much RAM to begin with (usually 2GB or 4GB), this extension will speed up your Chromebook.
(Looking for other guaranteed ways to speed up your laptop? Check out this article I wrote about how to make your Chromebook faster.)
After you install the app, you’ll get a little blue arrow. All you need to is click on it and OneTab takes your tabs and puts them in a little neat list. The list shows all the pages you had in your browser with their little icons displayed. It also shows a tab count and the options to restore all your tabs individually or at once.
OneTab keeps tab management simple. You can see everything in one place so you don’t have to go hunting for the proper tab. It’s a lot easier to find it in a list rather than scrolling back and forth at all those tiny tab icons.
It also saves memory (RAM) usage on your Chromebook or another device. If you have a lot of tabs in your browser, Chrome is known to hog precious resources from your computer and slow it down. OneTab eliminates this and will free up resources for other computer tasks.
Note that Chrome has a built-in tab suspender now. This app may not be necessary if you just toggle on that option.
Try it out. It’s an awesome tab manager app.
Get OneTab from the Chrome Web Store here.
#5. Disconnect
Disconnect is an app that blocks websites trackers that…track you.
It’s a popular privacy extension for Chrome that currently has over 800K users and is rated 4.5/5 stars based on over 3.4K ratings.
Whenever you visit a page, it’s almost guaranteed to place these invisible trackers on your computer or phone. These trackers aren’t really harmful because they’re necessary to display relevant ads to you.
But then again, your privacy is compromised. So don’t let that happen.
(Looking to protect your privacy online? Want to stay completely anonymous from trackers, hackers, your ISP, and government agencies? Check out this list of the best free VPNs for Chrome.)
Disconnect will attempt to block all these sneaky trackers so they can’t spy on you. You can see a list of all the trackers that were blocked. It also speeds up your browsing experience by a ton because no trackers are loaded.
It’s a decent Chrome extension if you value your privacy. It doesn’t cost you anything to install and doesn’t really affect your browsing experience either.
Try out Disconnect here.
Update: As of 5/25/19, Disconnect seems to be having some incompatibility issues with Gmail and Google Calendar. Users report that the extension is no longer compatible for those two entities, so this may be something to consider before using it. However, Disconnect seems to work just fine for typical web browsing.
#6. Honey
Honey is an app that’ll save you money online.
It’s currently used by over 5.6M shoppers with a 5/5 star rating based on over 78K reviews. That’s pretty crazy.
Basically, when you check out at online retailers, Honey will automatically hunt down coupon and promo codes test them to see which one works. If it finds one, it’ll apply it to your order and save you money.
Honey will also show you a list of all the coupons and sales available for any supported store. It works like magic.
It even rewards you saving money. How do you like that? Earn rewards for saving money.
It also has detailed charts to show how much you’ve saved, and it gives you an instant notification to show you what you saved on your current order. It works like magic.
If you shop online, you need Honey. It’ll save you cash a lot more often than you’d expect. Even for sites you probably didn’t even know had a coupon code available.
Save some cash with Honey.
#7. StayFocusd
StayFocusd is an app that will get you to get things done.
We all know we’re not always productive on the computer.
I don’t care who you are. No one is completely productive online.
We’ve all gotten on the computer and got distracted by anything and everything- social media, news, videos, pictures, and everything else. Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Pinterest, Instagram. Whatever it is, pick your poison.
You say you’re gonna get something done. An hour later? You’re still saying the same thing. And you’ve done nothing but update your Facebook status.
(I’ve got another awesome motivational app you may want to check out.)
With StayFocusd, it’ll block out all time-wasting websites. For good.
It’s currently used by over 600K users with 4.5/5 star rating based on over 6K reviews.
It’s a very popular productivity app for Chrome OS and Chromebooks. What it does is controls the amount of time you waste on these websites. Once you use up your “time allowance” you can’t visit them anymore until the next day.
You can completely customize it to do whatever you want. You can adjust it to filter out specific sites, specific pages, and even specific content within the page. You can also control what pages are allowed and what aren’t.
You can even control active days and hours. If you’re in need of a site, you can activate a challenge. There’s also a “nuclear option” which will block sites for a specific amount of time. There’s no way to get rid of it. It’ll get rid of all distracting sites so you can focus and get your work done.
The best part about StayFocusd is the time you save. You can see all of it visualized in detailed charts to see where you wasted time and how much you’ve saved.
Get your time back with StayFocusd.
#8. HTTPS Everywhere
HTTPS Everywhere is another cool extension created to protect your privacy online.
It’s used by over 1.6M users with a 4.5/5 star rating based on over 3K reviews.
It basically will automatically switch thousands of different sites to the “HTTPS” protocol from “HTTP.”
If you don’t know nerd speak, don’t worry. In layman’s terms, it’ll automatically switch your browser to visit the secure version of the website rather than the insecure version.
This can do many things for you:
- Protect your privacy from being spied upon by third-parties
- Protect against surveillance
- Get rid of some forms of censorship
- Prevent account hijacking
- Protect against third-parties on the website from accessing your information
It doesn’t cost you anything to use and it works in the background. Just install it to Chrome and you’re good to go. Everything else will be done automatically. You won’t even notice a difference for the most part.
Some sites do get affected by forcing HTTPS. If a website looks broken or weird, you can easily override it using the icon for this extension in the top-right of the browser. It’s an easy fix and should allow the site to function as regular (without HTTPS).
Protect your privacy with HTTPS Everywhere.
#9. TinEye Reverse Image Search
When you find an awesome image online, don’t you wish you could sometimes find where it came from> Or maybe if there’s a bigger version of it?
That’s exactly what TinEye does. TinEye basically takes the power of its reverse image search engine and puts it all into a nice little app for you. You add it to Chrome and you have an option to search for duplicates that pops up on every image you see online.
TinEye is currently pretty popular with over 300K active users and a 4.5/5 star rating based on 1.7K reviews.
When you click that option, it’ll search for the image and give you other variations of it and where else it’s found.
It even works with cropped or altered images. It’ll find them all.
You can also customize it to set the sort order of images and whether to perform the search in a new tab, background tab, or the tab you’re using.
This is useful if you have an image you want to see where else it’s been posted. TinEye will find it for you.
It’s a pretty neat little search engine. If you want to find out where an image came from, this will show you where it came from.
Try out TinEye here.
#10: Panic Button
Panic Button will basically do exactly what it says. It’s a button you use when you panic.
It’ll immediately hide all your opened tabs with just one click. It’ll also save them as well.
If you have an unsuspecting person pop into your room, you can hide all your tabs right away and look as innocent as possible.
After the coast is clear, you can just click a single button to restore all your tabs in a flash. Isn’t that convenient?
It’s currently used by over 350K users with a 4.5/5 star rating based on over 4K reviews.
The best part is that you can also password-protect your hidden tabs. This way, they can only be viewed by you. You can program Panic Button to save your tabs and put a password lock on them so only you can access them safely.
You can even use the “F4” key on a traditional keyboard to quickly hide your tabs. That way, instead of fiddling with the mouse looking for that Panic Button, you can just press a quick keyboard combination and hide your tabs.
By default, it’s set to “F4.” You can easily customize it to whatever key combo you want.
You can also hide the app itself from showing up in the toolbar. And you can set a “safe page” to automatically navigate to when you hit the button.
This is a very cool Chrome extension that anyone can take advantage of. It safeguards your privacy from intruders and you can also use it to hide any tabs when you’re on the go and don’t have time to go through your tabs on your laptop or Chromebook.
I actually wrote an in-depth article about Panic Button you can check out if you’re interested.
Hide your tabs with Panic Button.
Totally cool, dude
Well, there you have it.
These 10 Chrome extensions should come in handy and at least a few of them should appeal to you (unless you’re extremely picky). You should be able to try out a bunch and see how they improve your Chrome Browser experience.
If you have any other awesome Chrome extensions to suggest, leave a comment and let me know.
Or if you found a new extension from this list that you’ve wondered how you could live without, let me know as well =].
Thanks for reading.
Andy, thanks for sharing this list. Also I’d like to mention one helpful extension I use – Deskun. There are options to snooze an email, create message templates and even checklists for tasks. Check out https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/deskun-a-multichannel-hel/iiliegbpolacldlgjkoconoljdkaaoao
Thanks for the suggestion Jeff, I’ll check it out. It sounds pretty handy with the templates.
If anyone else has some awesome recommendations, keep ’em coming.