Thing 27: Power Up Your Browser

Add-Ons and Extensions for browsers are handy tools to have on your bookmarks bar, but I have not taken advantage of them as I should.  In Google, I had added dropbox, email templates, Flash clipper, Google Hangouts, and Grammarly.  With the exception of Grammarly, which functions automatically, I have not used them much (highly recommended).  So, I added some more extensions to my Google Chrome browser that looked liked like easy and helpful tools.  I am now trying out the Bookmark Sidebar which this pops up whenever my cursor moves to the left side of the screen.  I bookmark a lot of sites so this should be a good one for me.  I also added Google Keep, which is an app on my phone that I rarely use, but I might use it more for remembering things if I noticed the icon on my bookmarks bar.  Similar to Google Keep, I added Sticky Notes as I like to keep lists of things I need to do.  I already have this on my laptop at work and have recommended it to one of my colleagues.

I added the Print Friendly & PDF extension, which will allow me to print only the essential parts of an article.  I can remove ads and images that I don't need, saving on ink and paper. I can also change the size of the text and convert the document to a PDF file.  For saving images and text, I have added Awesome Screen Shot and Google Drive.  I played around with Awesome SS and liked the added tools that allow you to add text, blur images that need to be private & save or share the image.  I also created a "project" or collection of images - this is a great feature, but you can only create one project on a free account.  My sample screen shot from this site is below - note the blurred face on the left, the added text, and I did crop the image as well.

For my Firefox browser, I added some fun extensions like the Emoji Keyboard and for wallpaper background, Japanese Tattoo (very pretty).  Some practical added extensions were Ad Block Plus and UBlock Origin and No Script Security Suite.  They all had excellent reviews and will increase my security in ways that I may not detect.  Ads drive me crazy and can be sources for online viruses, so eliminating their presence with Ad Block Plus and UBlock Origin is very helpful.  I tried NoScript for a week, but it was blocking every site that I normally visit, so I disabled it.

I added Reader to my Firefox browser.  This can change the text size, font, background color and read the text to me.  Some of these features are not really necessary for me, but I will try it out a few more times to see if I like it.  It is very easy to use.

Chrome Web store has so many extensions and apps that it can be overwhelming.  The same can be said about Google Drive add-ons and apps for your mobile phone.  I appreciate the suggestions offered by Polly and hope to be able to advise my colleagues and friends on the best ones to add to their browsers for web-based services, online security & creation, collaboration/connection with the digital community.