Best Google Chrome Extensions 2023

Ask the average PC user for their definition of a perfect web browser, and they will probably say it should be a quick, reliable, user-friendly, customizable, and easy on the eyes, aesthetically-pleasing software that allows for hours of seamless internet surfing.  

Most would probably also agree that we just accurately described Google Chrome.

In addition to those qualities, something that greatly contributed to Chrome’s current market dominance is its rich extension marketplace, also called the Chrome Web Store.   

According to the community, the wide variety of available extensions and ease of installation, combined with their potential to completely overhaul the browsing experience, result in Chrome rising above the rest of the competition as a favorite.

To further explore and prove this claim, we have downloaded, tested, reviewed, and created a list of the most useful Google Chrome extensions that will change your everyday internet use.

The results of all that research are listed below for you to see.

Without further ado, let’s get started.

As we already mentioned “seamless and uninterrupted internet browsing” in the introduction part, we’ll begin our list of useful Chrome extensions with what’s considered the best wide-spectrum content blocker extension available today.

You cannot have seamless and uninterrupted browsing if you’re constantly being “bombarded” with advertisements, some of which may not even be related to your interests.

uBlock Origin has been downloaded by more than 10 million users and is available on Chrome’s extension store for free.

One of the best things about it is that it is open-source, meaning everything about the code is transparent, and anyone can contribute to its development. There are no hidden tricks or shady actions behind the curtains that users are unaware of.

The community drive behind this extension also has a lot of positive impact on the experience as a uBlock Origin user.

If you are active on Reddit, we recommend visiting uBlock Origin’s dedicated subreddit, where thousands of members engage in threads, discussing common issues, ideas for future improvements, reporting bugs, and much more.

Being a part of this community means you can usually get a quick answer for any question related to the extension, as well as help others if you know more than them about a specific topic.

uBlock Origin is and has always been community-driven and oriented, which contributes even more to the extension’s progress and its dominance over the rest of the competition.    

To support this claim, here’s an example of what the community thinks of both the developer and the product as a whole, presented in a massively-upvoted Reddit comment in a popular thread on this topic.

With all that said, we’re confident that uBlock Origin is currently the top choice for anyone who is looking to install reliable ad-blocking software that’s both efficient and lightweight.

After multiple years of use, it’s difficult to imagine browsing the internet without it.

Our final verdict? We gladly recommend it to you and other users.

Since we started our list with a tool to protect against annoying and “spammy” advertisements, let’s further bolster that defense, this time against time-consuming YouTube sponsorships.

Sponsorblock is a community-driven extension that will save you a lot of time if you frequently use YouTube to watch videos. It is available for free on the Chrome Web Store.

It’s open-source, which makes it even more trustworthy and easy to work on if you are a developer yourself. As stated on the official website, its developer wants to keep it as open and user-friendly as possible.

The way this extension works is intriguing, as it is driven solely by the community, and anyone can contribute towards perfecting it.

If you are watching a YouTube video and another user that watched that video reported the timestamp when the sponsorship occurs, the extension will automatically skip that part, so you don’t waste your time watching it.

You, as a user, can also report these sponsorships through the extension, so other users won’t end up watching them. The more users that do this, the more time everyone will save.

If you are interested in hearing what a channel owner has to say about a specific sponsored product, you can always disable the extension or manually rewind the video to re-watch the part that was automatically skipped.

Supporting creators is very important, but sometimes we’re in a rush to find an answer or get to the point while watching a video, in which case this extension proves itself to be very useful.

Many of us use our computers for work, which is why we believe most would agree that working with all the distractions of the internet is not easy. There is always a website with fun facts or a subreddit with hilarious memes to distract us somewhere in our Chrome bookmarks.

It takes a lot of self-control to avoid all those websites during work hours. As your concentration starts dipping, it’s easy to find yourself looking at random sites instead of working.

Thankfully, we are not the only people this happens to. The good news is that there is an easy way to prevent it and remain focused on work.

StayFocusd is a popular extension available on the Chrome web store and is used by more than half a million productive individuals.

This lightweight browser extension will help you remain on top of your game while working by preventing you from opening sites you find distracting or allowing only a few minutes of fun during your breaks, depending on how you configure it.

The best thing about it is that you’re the one in charge of all the settings. If you feel like a minute or half an hour is what you should be spending on specific websites, arranging that takes just a few clicks.

Some users installed this extension in 2012 and are still using it to this day, claiming that their productivity and focus improved dramatically thanks to it.

Finally, the developers are friendly and frequently update the extension, which is one of the most important things when you are choosing something that will be responsible for your overall working capabilities in the future.

Give it a try and see how it goes.

When Chrome is brought up in a “browser versus browser” conversation, one of the arguments against it is that it occupies way too much RAM, which can be a problem on lower-spec computers.

But, at the same time, one of the best things about Chrome is Google’s idea to make this software a platform and not just a regular browser. By allowing developers to create extensions for it, and users to download them for free, this browser can be more than a regular one. The community can “fix” the lacking aspects of it by coming up with creative and helpful extensions.

With that said, The Marvellous Suspender is an extension that fully solves the previously-mentioned RAM problem. Like all the other extensions on this list, it’s free and easy to download.

The Marvellous Suspender will help you by maintaining optimal PC performance levels while having multiple Chrome tabs open simultaneously.

It does this by detecting tabs you haven’t opened for a while (the time can be configured by the user), then suspends them to free up RAM and make your CPU’s work a bit easier.

There are also quite a few customization settings available, with a few extra features such as detecting audio tabs and granting them suspension immunity, modifiable behavior when browsing offline or using the battery-saving mode, and much more.

Last but not least, the extension is open-source, meaning the code is fully transparent, which is always a good thing safety-wise.  

So far, we have covered ad-blocking and time-conserving extensions, one that helps you remain concentrated, and a performance-conserving tool for when you have a lot of tabs open. Now it’s time for something that helps you write like a professional.

Grammarly is, at least in our eyes, the world’s best free writer-assisting software on the internet. You can download it as a standalone app or, even better, install it as a Chrome browser extension.

Grammarly is available on the Chrome web store and has been downloaded more than ten million times. It is one of the top-rated apps in the productivity category and is used even by professional writers.

Installing this extension will ensure that your e-mails, letters, or regular everyday messages to friends and family members are free of grammatical errors.

Whenever you want to stop using Grammarly in your everyday browsing, disabling it takes just one click. However, users rarely do this as it doesn’t interfere with your internet surfing in any way, so there’s absolutely no need to switch it off.

Using the extension is quite easy and self-explanatory. Whenever you make a mistake while typing something in your browser, Grammarly will highlight it and conveniently point out the mistake, along with one or more correct options to replace the incorrectly-spelled word. Then, it takes just one click on your end to fix the grammar mistake.

Our final word on this extension is that you never know how much you can improve your writing until you install Grammarly and use it for a while.

Pushbullet is one of the most useful Chrome extensions that will help you save time and organize your files better if you often use multiple Android devices alongside your personal computer.

As stated on its official website, Pushbullet connects your devices, making them work as one.

Some of the features this software offers are the following:

• The ability to send and receive SMS messages from your computer while your smartphone is linked to it.
• Replying to messages and texts as though you were using your smartphone, but by using your keyboard instead.
• Conveniently sharing files between devices.
• Marking notifications as “seen” on your PC to make them disappear on your smartphone too.
• Much more.

If you are curious about how it works, you can take a look at the official, concise video guide that explains the process from start to finish.

The app also has a dedicated subreddit where users post their questions, answers, and opinions about possible helpful changes. Pushbullet supports more than thirty languages, meaning you are unlikely to have trouble using it, even if English isn’t your native language.

After using this extension for a while, you will probably never think about switching back, as it makes things much easier, especially because you can set up as many Android devices as you need.

If you often find yourself transferring files, to-do notes, links, or anything else from your personal computer to your Android device, we wholeheartedly recommend checking out this useful Chrome extension.

Many of us prefer being in a dim room while working or browsing the internet, and the bright blue light from our monitors is often the main light source in the workspace. This isn’t very kind to our eyes, but there’s yet another useful Chrome extension that can easily solve this problem.

Dark Reader is a fully open-source extension that’s available for free on the Chrome Web Store. It has been downloaded more than a few million times, is trusted by its community, and is praised among passionate internet users.

It has been reviewed by numerous professionals to ensure that it is safe to use and doesn’t contain anything malicious in the code. It has been given the Verified badge on the Firefox browser extension store, which further supports this.

This helpful tool allows you to enable a dark theme, even on websites that don’t have it as a built-in setting. However, that isn’t all.

Most websites with a built-in dark theme only allow you to “flip the switch” and turn the white background into a dark one. Dark Reader, however, allows you to play around with the contrast, brightness, grayscale, sepia, and a few other settings that will help you achieve a look that’s easy on your eyes.

The usefulness of this extension doesn’t stop there, though. As it’s designed for people who do a lot of reading, it allows you to change the font and the amount of text stroke you see on the websites you visit. This ensures you enjoy the best possible reading experience while protecting your eyesight.

This is an absolute must for those who often find themselves browsing the internet in the dark.

PixelBlock is a Chrome extension that isn’t known by many, but internet users who are heavily into privacy are usually well-aware of its existence and usefulness.

First, let’s do a quick brief on what email tracking is, as that will help you grasp the concept behind this extension more easily.

Every email you receive might contain a so-called tracking attempt. This can be a one-pixel image that will tell the sender whether you’ve opened their mail or not. Most users are not even aware that something like this exists outside of modern messengers that have the “seen” feature.

Obviously, this is a privacy concern, but PixelBlock is here to save the day.

After installing the extension, all emails you open will automatically have the tracking attempts blocked, and the extension will let you know how many of them were inside the mail. You can still open the e-mails normally, but the sender won’t be notified as to whether you’ve opened them or not.

Last but not least, if you are concerned about security, rest assured that PixelBlock doesn’t collect, process, or send any of your data, as the extension is not connected to any remote servers. It runs locally on your browser.

You don’t have to be a professional graphics designer to find this Chrome extension useful.

ColorZilla is a free, transparent, and trustworthy extension that allows you to “pick” a color from any website you’re browsing with just the click of a button.

As stated on its official website, ColorZilla does not collect or process any of your data or browsing activities, which makes it great for those who are careful about their extensions and worry about privacy.

Overall, it’s really convenient, easy to use, and if you often work with colors, this extension will save you a lot of time, as you won’t have to use the inspect element tool on a website to find the hexadecimal code for a color that you like.

Finally, if you want to keep up with the latest updates and changes the developers make to this extension, you can do so by periodically peeking at their Twitter account.

The more we use the internet, the more usernames and passwords we create for each new service, app, video game, store, or e-mail we find interesting. If you’re someone who takes even the basic aspects of security seriously, you probably have different passwords for each of your online accounts.

With that said, it can sometimes be difficult to remember all of them. In many cases, inputting the wrong password a few times can easily get your account temporarily locked.

Needless to say, we need an easier way of managing all of our online passwords and the developers of LastPass, a free Chrome browser extension, came up with a brilliant solution. When it comes to safety and convenience, this is the extension you need.

If you’re interested in learning how it works, this concise, step-by-step video guide will show you the entire process from beginning to end.

The LastPass development team also created a well-designed, informative website where you can find various information about the product, its plans, supported platforms, pricing for the premium version, and much more.

You can also join the LastPass subreddit if you need to ask or answer questions from other users or simply engage in discussions related to the product.

Overall, we feel that LastPass makes password management far easier, and we recommend it to both beginner and experienced users.  

We have covered multiple useful Chrome extensions in our list so far, but we still haven’t mentioned something that works in favor of all the shopaholics out there.

The internet drastically changed the way people buy things, and it’s safe to say that online shopping is now the most popular method of buying almost anything.

Honey is a free Chrome extension that has been downloaded more than ten million times. It is widely known among the online shopping community and is trusted by many users.

The process is easy. You add it to your Chrome browser, and when you reach a checkout page, the tool looks for discount codes and vouchers and uses them. This lowers the total amount you have to pay for the item or service you are buying.

Honey has an official website where you can learn more about the product. As it is so popular, you can find many reviews and video guides on the internet, such as this one, explaining how the extension works in detail.  

Hop on the Honey train if you often shop online, as the extension will definitely come in handy and help you save money. 

RescueTime is a popular productivity tool that’s also available as an extension for Chrome. It has both a free and a paid version.

This is a must-have extension for individuals who want to track their focus, performance, and habits while trying to achieve their goals. The app will tell you if you’re multitasking a lot, and can help channel your focus to what’s important by temporarily blocking distracting sites during your so-called Focus Sessions.

RescueTime allows its users to view a complete breakdown of their computer activities and time spent. This allows for a much clearer overview and optimization, which in return should yield better productivity, improved focus, and result in achieving more goals long-term.

If you want to know exactly how much time you spend on various activities while using your computer, and use that knowledge to become a more productive person, RescueTime is a must-have tool in your Chrome extensions collection.

Working in teams is fun and rewarding but often complicated. Frequent and clear communication between members is what makes a group project successful, which is where our next extension recommendation really shines.

Loom is yet another free browser extension that can be downloaded from the web store. Doing so takes just a few seconds, as it is lightweight and easy to set up.

This useful product helps you with sending video messages, instructions, feedback, or tips with just a few clicks, without having to look for your phone and use it to record yourself. It can also record your screen, which makes explaining so much easier.

You can keep everything to a single device and get this done in just a few seconds, professionally and easily.

Once you start using Loom, you will never look back, especially after realizing how much time you save by replacing long text messages with video recordings.

Your co-workers will appreciate the effort to pass on your knowledge, opinion, or feedback in a more convenient way, and the overall productivity of your team will almost certainly increase.  

We recommend Loom for Chrome.

We have already covered one extension related to colors, but what about fonts? Colors are not the only thing that makes a website visually appealing, so when you run into a good-looking font, you might want to add it to your list and hopefully use it in one of your next projects.

You don’t have to be a designer to enjoy these visual touches. Some people are just curious, and Fonts Ninja will help you with that.

Grab this extension from the Chrome web store, and you will never need to spend time looking for font names online.

If a website has more than one font you find cool, the extension has an option to display a full list of all fonts used on that page. You can also immediately bookmark or buy fonts without spending too much time.

This will increase your productivity and save you a lot of time in the long run. We recommend Fonts Ninja, even to the average internet user.

We can never get enough of productivity-enhancing extensions, especially when using our computers for work is a daily reality.

When it comes to these extensions, the main benefit should always be saving time while improving work efficiency, and that’s exactly what Session Buddy does.  

You will no longer spend time recuperating your session in case of an unfortunate outage or have to sift through the pileup of tabs to find what you’re looking for.

It’s all so much easier with this extension, but don’t just take our word for it. Have a look at this informative YouTube video that thoroughly explains how it all works.  

As for the privacy part, it’s important to mention that apart from using Google Analytics, Session Buddy does not transmit or store your data to any external services, as stated in their official Privacy Policy, which can be found on the product’s official website. 

Session Buddy will help you stay organized.

If you are interested in community-driven products, here’s another great one to add to your list which will enhance your everyday browsing experience.  

Search By Image is an open-source project that is available to download for free from the Chrome Web Store.

The size of this tool is less than one megabyte, meaning installing it will take just a few seconds. When it comes to being lightweight, it doesn’t get any better than this.  

Now, let’s look at the functionality of this extension and how it can make things much easier for you.

The Search By Image tool allows you to right-click any image you encounter while browsing the internet, then initiate a search on one of the many search engines available, such as Google, Bing, Yandex, Baidu, and TinEye, to find the source of the image.

Here’s a brief explanation by the developers, taken from the Chrome Web Store page.

Our extension helps journalists and researchers verify the authenticity of images and assists in the identification of false information on social media. Search by Image is also popular among photographers, helping artists explore how their work is shared on the web, while shoppers find it valuable for discovering similar products at discounted prices.

Search by Image

If you are a developer or simply want to find out what’s going on behind the scenes, the source code is available at the official GitHub repository for you to explore.

This is a very useful extension to have if you often find yourself seeking sources of specific images.  

Internet users are steadily realizing the importance and need for using a VPN (Virtual Private Network) during their daily browsing sessions. Most would also agree that data is the modern-day currency, and companies will certainly try their best to “grab” yours.

When it comes to VPNs, we cover many products in one of our detailed guides, but we are adding Windscribe to this list because its proxy feature comes in the form of a browser extension, which makes things much easier for less experienced users, or simply those who prefer not having a standalone privacy app installed on their system.

Windscribe is well-liked and positively reviewed and has been downloaded more than a million times from the Chrome Web Store.

Some of the features it provides are:

• Social Blocking
• Advertisement + Tracker Blocking
• WebRTC Blocking
• Notification Blocking
• Timezone Spoofing
• Cookie Monitoring

The browser extension is part of the free plan which offers up to 10GB of data per month. This is more than enough if you’re only using a VPN to access a few specific services that aren’t available in your country or to encrypt your data, so it doesn’t get tracked.

If you like the extension, you might also like the standalone VPN desktop app, which provides even more useful features.

We often download numerous items from the internet, including images, songs, and other types of files, which quickly clutters the download history page.

Most Chrome users will agree that manually opening the downloads section and clearing it is inconvenient. On the other hand, if you don’t regularly clean the downloads section, you might have to spend a lot of time trying to navigate it, and the hundreds of files on the list won’t help.

Thankfully, Click & Clean is a very simple, efficient, and free, Chrome extension that will help you clear and organize downloads much better with a single click, as the name suggests.

Along with the helpful one-click clean feature, this extension provides shortcuts for other commonly-required actions for those who browse the internet daily. This includes clearing cache and cookies with just one click, doing a privacy test, clearing private data, and much more.

This is definitely a handy tool if you are the type of person who prefers having a shortcut for everything.

We often mention Speedtest by Ookla in our guides as one of the most simple and efficient methods of stress-testing your internet connection.

This is useful when you need to know whether the network you’re connected to is performing as it should and whether or not you can rely on it. If you are someone who often works in public areas and is unsure which Wi-Fi connection to choose, you can use this handy extension to test them out before making your decision.

Using this speed testing service was always simple and easy, and all it took was one click on the official website to get things going. Now you can do it without even opening the website. Keep everything within your browser by downloading the extension from the Chrome Web Store.

With a list containing so many extensions, it’s only logical to include the free Extension Manager tool as the final item on it.

If you are someone who prefers keeping the look of your browser clean and organized, this is definitely the right extension for you. It will help you choose which icons you see without having to look at an entire row of them.

Many extensions do not require you to click on their icon and use the menu, which makes it pointless to see their icon on your extensions bar. The more space you have, the more productive you can be.

Once you open the settings in the Extension Manager, you can configure various parameters to your own taste, such as the icon size, column number, and much more. It’s so easy to use, yet also effective and satisfying.

Always customize your Chrome browser to be the workspace you need.

It’s worth mentioning that this extension also runs in offline mode, as stated on the store page. Last but not least, the developers disclosed that they wouldn’t collect, process, or use your data in any way.

Conclusion

That completes our long and thorough Google Chrome Extensions list. We’ve covered everything from productivity-improving extensions to ones that enhance your privacy and finally, those that help you remain organized while working.

If you recently started using the Chrome browser and don’t have any extensions installed, we strongly recommend looking into these helpful tools as they can easily take your browsing experience to the next level and make you never want to look back.

The beauty of Chrome is that even if it doesn’t immediately seem like the right browser for you, you can change that by choosing the right extensions based on your needs.