Best Browser Extensions and Add-ons: My Favorites

I have been trying out software since 2008. Back then, software was coming in CDs in tech magazines. After all these years, here is what I have been settling on:

Browser

I have tried IE, Edge, Safari, Opera, Maxthon, Avant, Vivaldi, etc. I have been a Google Chrome user for a long time. A few years back, when Firefox launched Containers, I switched to Firefox.

  • Mozilla Firefox Developer Edition
    • I use Firefox, especially for its container feature.
    • I contribute to the Mozilla community, so a bit of emotional attachment is there.
  • Brave
    • Brave I use Google Input tools add-on to write into Odia Wikipedia and make Shabdarasa posts in Odia.
    • To try out new Chromium-based Add-ons.

Firefox Browser Extensions/Add-ons

Video Speed controller

  • I use this to go beyond 2x speed while watching any video.
  • The highest went till 4x speed.

Containers

  • Containers are like Independent cookies-based tabs synced with your bookmarks.
  • Firefox Multi-Account Containers lets you separate parts of your online life into colour-coded tabs. Cookies are separated by the container.
  • For example, you can open two different Twitter accounts in the same window in two different tabs.

Grammarly

  • Spelling/Grammar corrector

Thumbnail rating bar

  • Without opening the youtube videos, from the thumbnail of the video, you can see how many people liked/disliked the video.

Dark reader

  • It converts any webpage to dark mode.
  • It helps to read on the bed before sleeping without too much straining the eyes.

uBlock origin

  • I finally settled with this AdBlocker.
  • It supports customized Ad blocking as well.

WhatFont

  • This Add-on helps me identify any text font.

Wapanalyzer

  • It helps me detect what web framework, tools, and technologies a website uses.

ColourPicker

  • Provides the hex code of any colour on a website.

Imagus

  • To quickly preview a full-size photo without clicking on the image.

SearchPreview

  • Adds preview of the websites on the search results.

SaveToNotion

  • It saves any essential website to my notion (a note-taking app) workspace.

AutoTabDiscard

  • It automatically makes tabs inactive if they Idle for a custom period.

JiffyReader

  • It has a feature that helps you read faster.
  • I have been experimenting with this Add-on and have not settled yet.

Microsoft Edge Browser Extensions/Add-ons

Around the end of 2022, I switched to Edge from Firefox. Initially, it started for the Google Input Tools Add-On, but later on, I discovered many good browser features. Here are the top extensions I use in Edge.

Dark Reader

  • I use this for Dark mode reading on any website.
  • Pretty useful during the post-dinner readings.

Grammarly

  • I have been a subscriber to Grammarly.
  • This Add-on helps me to write error-free and grammatically correct sentences.

SponsorBlock

  • SponsorBlock is an open-source crowdsourced browser extension and open API for skipping sponsor segments in YouTube videos.
  • There are currently 13,033,165 users who have submitted 13,574,856 skip segments, which have saved 1210 years and 363.22 days of people’s lives.
  • The power of people.

Firefox Relay

  • Though I left Firefox, I could not leave this extension.
  • Firefox Relay makes it easy to create email masks that forward to your true inbox. Firefox Relay helps you protect your actual email address — the one most closely tied to your online identity.
  • It lets you generate unique, random aliases (up to 5 in the free tier) to sign up for accounts, apps, or newsletters and forward messages to your address. If you find that an account is sending unwanted emails or spam, you can block the alias, and it will stop sending emails to your inbox. Once you no longer want an account, you can delete the alias.

Readwise and Readwise Highlighter

Spirtz

  • Read your favorite web content twice as fast with far greater comprehension. Welcome to the future of reading! Spritz scans the written content of any website (including your favorite news sites) and visually reads it back to you at up to 1000 words per minute.
  • The patented rapid-fire, single-word display feature is fully adjustable, so you can train your brain to read up to 2x faster.

Video speed controller

  • HTML5 video/audio speed controller, with which you can go up to the speed of 4x or more.

I would love to know any other super valuable add-on for you, and I should try that out. You can follow me on Twitter @soumendrak_ for more such updates.