Earlier this week, we asked you to share with us that one, special Chrome extension that you just can't bear to live without. As it turns out, for most of you, that one is actually more like eight. So to help, we've pared it down to the absolute cream of the Chrome extension crop.
Here are 18 tried and true Chrome extensions to make your internet travels just that much faster, simpler, and all around more pleasant. And, at least in one case, way more Nic Cage-ier. Just wait—you'll see.
Adblock Plus
For as vast and varied as the internet is, there are at least two immutable truths: 1) YouTube comments are where good things go to die and 2) ads—especially the pop-up and autoplay varieties—are the worst. Thankfully, Adblock is there to save us from at least one of those terrors. Plus, it's free, open-source, and most importantly, it works.
via pretty much everyone
Last Pass
What it does: Remembers all of your passwords for you so you only have to remember one password to log into it the service to access all your passwords.
Why I love it: I can use passwords that are just numbers and letters I won't ever remember that are very secure and I only have to remember one password that I use to log into the account I have. Makes me feel at ease knowing all my passwords are in one spot and secure.
via themsv89
Pocket is perhaps the simplest, most easy to use extension on the market. And consequently, it's also one of the hardest to live without once you've had a taste. When you come across a page that, for whatever reason, you'd like to save for later, just click the icon, and your casual, at-your-leisure reading list awaits.
via, again, pretty much everyone
The Camelizer
They track the price of products over time. I have used it on many occasions to check if something is a good deal or not. It works with amazon, newegg, and bestbuy. I also use it to verify the kinja deals.
via FrankFroman
Cloud to Butt Plus
Turns clouds to butts.
Just get it. It's SFW.
And friends, we could not agree more.
via pacguy
Subscriptions Grid For YouTube
What it does: Takes Youtube's broken-assed subs list, and makes it much more manageable.
Why I love it: Being able to actually see my subscribed videos, in chronological order, with more than just five on screen at once, is pretty nice - Being able to see 32 of them at once, with working sub links, properly formatted, is bliss.
via Reverendryu
MightyText
What it does: Send and receive SMS and MMS from your browser (and integrated within Gmail) using your phone.
Why I love it: It basically eliminates the need for me to constantly check my phone throughout the day. I can cut and paste from desktop windows to SMS conversations, send photos in my picture folder to MMS recipients, and works on my Nexus 7 tablet as well. Emoji's are supported too. Love it.
via Alan Shen
Google Voice
It's great handling voice mail and texts from the a quick drop down.
via gmcclel
Checker Plus for Gmail
I never check my email by myself, so having a little reminder next to the unibar is godsend.
via Emil Malta
Lazarus
It autosaves webform inputs. So if you get a server time out, or hit the back button accidentally, or anything else that might lose all the info you've inputted into a forum post or a webform or anything else, you have it back. Its freaking awesome. It also works with Firefox!
via gamebrain89
Simple = Select + Search
What it does: Select any text string and search it on any website. You can customise your search engines etc. so it becomes pretty powerful.
Why I love it: My job involves a lot of research of companies and people, so to be able to search for text on LinkedIn and Facebook with just a right click is just incredibly handy.
via nuksies
Pushbullet
What it does: Allows you to send links, images, addresses, attachments etc. from your browser (Chrome AND Firefox) to your smartphone and vice versa.
Why I love it: It saves ridiculous amounts of time. You won't quite understand how amazing it is until you tried it.
via nuksies
Hola Better Internet
Websites from the US, UK, etc. will feed me a localized ad that lasts 30 seconds and then tell me I can't view the actual video because I'm not in the right country? This fixes that bullshit and makes me watch things on their sites instead of The Pirate Bay.
via Leaufai
Yet Another Drag and Go
If you want to search for something in the text of a webpage, you highlight and drag left, right, up or down and it will open a new tab with the highlighted text as the search term.
You can also set each direction to a different search engine so dragging left can open a wikipedia search tab, dragging right can open a google tab, dragging up can open a dictionary tab, and dragging down can open an amazon tab.
It is very very handy, I use it all the time, including to search for some of the recommendations of other Gizzers (read geezers).
via labenji
Hover Zoom
What it does: When hovering your cursor over a picture, it expands the picture so you don't have to click on it, just hover over the thumbnail.
Why you love it: This makes browsing reddit so much simpler. I can just hover over the thumbnail to look at a picture instead of clicking it to see it on another website. It just saves time and tabs.
via DarkraiDan
Hide YouTube Comments
Yep, it completely removes the comment section on YouTube. Why? Because nobody should have to have their day ruined by the absurd stupidity of YouTube comments.
via Emerbes
XKit
What it does: Adds tools to Tumblr.
Why I love it: I love it because Tumblr's endless scrolling SUCKS, so I turn it off. Xkit has an option to hit the J/K keys to go to the next post and when it gets to the bottom of the page it will automatically jump to the next page. So you get pretty close to endless scrolling without the slow down requiring a reload of the page that makes you loose your place. Plus it has a bookmark function on top of that so you don't loose your place. Lots of other stuff too that would take too long to explain.
And last but certainly not least...
nCage
Every time a co-worker steps away from their PC without locking it, I make sure to enhance their browser with this extension. 5 stars.
via DJGugg
Image: Shutterstock/Blend Images