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5 Chrome extensions that I couldn’t live without

Launched back in 2008, Chrome has been my favorite browser since it’s inception. At that time, a bloated toolbars is something common in desktop browser, even if we tries to minimalize them, they still took a precious space on our screen. When Chrome arrived with the simple and clean UI, it immediately become my primary browser. It’s also faster and stable, and thanks to the multi-process architecture, I never have to worry to crash my browser when one tab is not responsive.

Although, sadly, one thing I have to let go when migrating from Firefox is the ability to run third-party extension. So I still find myself going back and forth with Firefox. It’s not until 2010 that Google added extension support to Chrome, and since then I can finally make Chrome my primary browser without looking back at the others (except when I do testing of course). ๐Ÿ™‚

Now, I’m going to list my 5 favorite Chrome extensions that I couldn’t imagine to live without them. Here I go.

chrome-extension-1

Web Developer

As a web developer myself, of course this is naturally the first extension on the list. It features a lot of useful stuff to save development time. First developed on Firefox,ย Chris Pederick then bring this extension to Chrome.

Download

chrome-extension-2

Disconnect

Hate to see your browsing activity being tracked without you knowing? Disconnect is the solution. It blocked external requests made by any web page, group them to category and let you see them easily as it is one click away from the toolbar button.

If you use ad-blocking extension, Disconnect is also a natural ad-blocker, although Disconnect won’t block ads hosted by the website itself (only external). This is actually useful, as it is less likely mistaking to block anything genuine that started with “ad…”.

Download | Website

Reload Image

chrome-extension-3If you lived in a place where internet is not so hot, you will often fail to load image (especially the gigantic one), resulting in a sad broken image. Reload Image is a simple extension that add a reload image option to the image context menu. No need to reload the whole page ever again just to see the single failed image!

Download

chrome-extension-4

OneTab

Having too many tabs? OneTab allows you to save your tabs in a single tab. So when you have too many tabs and it slow down your Chrome, you can put some unneeded tabs to OneTab but still have access to it later when you need it.

OneTab is wonderful for me, as when working in multiple projects, I can put some tabs that I don’t currently work to the rest, and restore it whenever I get back to it. It reduced memory usage, so making my Chrome more stable in the long run.

Download | Website

chrome-extension-5

Postman

In web developments, it can’t be avoided that from time to time, we would need to work with REST APIs, either on your own website or third-party web services. Postman is a REST client, which make it really easy for us to create request and see the returned data, formatted beautifully. It’s not an extension that I use everyday at work, but when I need it, it’s a life-saver!

Download

Additionally, if you want to keep Postman in handy, consider to install Postman Launcher to keep the one-click launch button on your toolbar.

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Bonus: DummyText

Need to create a dummy content? DummyText generates random text for you, you can specify how many paragraphs that you need and how many words per paragraph. Albeit less fun (no lorem ipsum pattern!), it’s useful and serve it purpose really well.

Download

Summary

So that’s it, my 5 (+1) favorite extensions on Chrome. ๐Ÿ™‚ Hope you find this list useful. Is there anything in this list that is also your favorite? Do you have some extension that you would recommend for me? Let me know in comment below.

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