What I Use: Google Chrome
I know I'm not alone in my use of Google Chrome as my primary web browser. It is by far the dominant browser in the market. There are many reasons for this, some of them even justified. In today's computing world we practically live within the browser. Gone are the days of needing to have a separate office suite and a start menu full of applications. In the future when Microsoft releases a Chromium-based version of Edge I may explore it as an option but for now, Chrome's my go-to.
In this article, I'll lay out how I make Chrome work for me.
Extensions
Extensions are a big part of the browser experience. Here are some of the extensions that I use.
uBlock Origin
The internet today is a mess and a good ad blocker is essential to reduce trackers and to minimize pop-ups. uBlock origin is highly effective and I like that they don't take money from advertisers in order to have their site whitelisted. That being said If there I a site that you truly enjoy and value you can choose to whitelist it yourself in order to ensure it's continued survival.
Honey
Honey is an incredibly useful extension that searches for coupon codes and upon checkout applies them to order in an effort to make sure you get the best deal. It's not 100% but works more often than not.
OneNote Clipper
I don't use OneNote for my everyday note keeping. For that, I will typically use Google Keep. I do however use OneNote for more long-form notes including recipes. So if I happen to find one on the web to my liking I simply click the OneNote icon and it converts the page to a format easily read and saves it to my OneNote notebook.
LastPass
Everybody should be using a password manager. Full stop. A password manager is one step to keeping your personal data safe on the internet. Monkey123 is not an acceptable password and using the same password across the internet is not a good plan. A good password manager will create a long random password for you, save it in a secure database, and make it easy for you to fill in your username and password across your devices. LastPass fits the bill.Google Password Checkup
This extension simply notifies you if any of your passwords have been detected as part of a publicized data breach.
Grammarly
One of my new favourite applications. Grammarly is an incredibly useful app that corrects common grammar and spelling errors.Google Mail Checker
A simple extension which notifies you of new mail to your Gmail account. Somewhat redundant now that Windows 10 natively notifies you of new mail.Picture-in-Picture
An incredibly useful extension that creates a PIP window of nearly any video playing within the browser. This means I can be watching a Netflix video or a video from my own PLEX library in the corner of my screen while still browsing.
Google Translate
This allows you to translate any page you encounter in a different language. Useful for when I'm reading about Dutch football.
iCloud Bookmarks
This extension syncs my Google bookmarks to Safari for when I choose to use that browser on an iPhone. I hope someday this extension will work with Edge as well so I may keep all of my bookmarks in sync across all my browsers.Web Activities by Microsoft
This extension enables Chrome in the Windows 10 timeline feature. The timeline feature gives a snapshot of activity across all PC's in which you use your Microsoft Account.Chrome Remote Desktop
Sync and Mobile Apps
Chrome is essentially available everywhere, including PC, Mac, Linux, iOS, and of course Android. For a long time, I found Chrome on iOS to be almost un-useable on iOS but with the recent redesign that changed. It's now far friendlier to navigate from the bottom of the screen.
Additionally, Google makes it incredibly easy to sync a host of useful data across the browser on all of your devices. This includes usernames and passwords should you choose as well as credit card numbers, contacts, autofill data, history, and of course your bookmarks.
Pinning
By far the most useful feature for me is the ability to pin web apps to the taskbar. Web apps like Google Calander, Gmail, Keep, or PLEX can be pinned directly to the taskbar and opened in their own window without the traditional browser navigation.
