Google Chrome has been my favorite browser since I tried it last year. Absolutely love the speed, clean interface, and nice features. However, I still had to keep using my Firefox as well because of some of the plugins I used in Firefox.
Recently Google Chrome also started supported plugins (they call them extensions).
I am quite surprised to see how many extensions have been created already, and many of them are really good.
Here are 4 Google Chrome Extensions that I find particularly useful. Try these out, and let us know what you think (all these are completely free):
- AdBlock for Google Chrome
- Google Mail Checker
- Aviary Screen Capture
- Chrome SEO Plugin.
[Editor’s note; this article was written by Freewaregenius contributor Ishan; check out his Freeware blog and his new site for netbook freeware].
One of the most popular plugin for Firefox is Adblock. It basically blocks ads from web pages, so that you can just focus on content. Now a similar plugin is available for Google Chrome as well: AdBlock for Chrome.
Once you install AdBlock, it just works. It will start blocking the ads for you automatically. You can configure it to keep showing ads on your chosen websites. Also, if you see that AdBlock has missed some ad, you can add that to AdBlock so that it blocks those type of ads going ahead.
2. Google Mail Checker is a small nifty extension for Google Chrome that lets you see the number of unread Gmail messages. Google Mail checker appears as a small icon on right side of your address bar. To read your Gmail messages, just click on the icon, and it will directly open your Gmail Inbox.
3. Aviary Screen Capture
Aviary Screen Capture is a very interesting plugin that lets you capture screenshots from within Google Chrome.
UPDATE: this extension seems to have been removed from the Google Chrome Web Store. We recommend using Awesome Screenshot Chrome extension instead,
One of the reasons I had to keep going back to Firefox was to check the Google PageRank and Alexa Rank of websites. However, Chrome SEO plugin now brings that functionality to Google Chrome, and actually does it very well.
Chrome SEO plugin displays SEO related information about the webpage that you are browsing. To view this information, just click on Chrome SEO icon besides the address bar. It will open up a small window with some good information.
Chrome SEO shows Number of Pages of that websites that are indexed by various search engines. It also shows number of backlinks. Most importantly, it shows important traffic ranks, like Google Pagerank, Alexa Rank, Compete, Quantcast etc. Chrome SEO also shows you traffic graphs.
It is quite amazing that you get all this information by just one click on the icon. This is a very useful plugin for all the bloggers like us.
I find all these plugins very useful. Do you have any favorite plugins for Chrome? Let us know in Comments section.
