a red ladder against a black background

Most of these extensions were designed for Chromium browsers. I am an unashamed user of Microsoft Edge. It can use the same extensions available to Google Chrome and there’s a vast selection to choose from. I don’t find that running all these extensions slows Edge down appreciably, so I install what I need. Extensions are specific to the profile you are using, but workspaces within the same profile share the same extensions. You can create a different Mac and PC profile is you find yourself using extensions that are platform specific. Here’s what I use:

  • Omnivore - It’s the best read it later service around these days, featuring a mobile app with read aloud capability, newsletter subscription service, RSS feeds and a browser extension.
  • MarkDownload - saves Markdown versions of web pages directly into my Obsidian vault with customized properties
  • Perplexity - Although one of the unique features of Edge is the built-in access to Chat-GPT4, I like to use Perplexity as well. It’s a popular extension with over 200K downloads.
  • Raindrop.io - I have a subscription and heartily endorse Raindrop.io for it’s cross platform support as well as its IFTTT integration which really helps me when I’m researching anything
  • Aboard - This is the extension for the app my wife and I use to share links with each other. When I find an app, a TV show, a news story or whatever, I put it into Aboard and she gets a notification and can check it out when she has time. It’s free and useful.
  • Chrome Remote Desktop - This allows me to access my home computer from other locations. It’s free, easy to set up and use and reliable. I don’t know what people pay for Screens or TeamViewer subscriptions.
  • UBlock Origin- The best ad blocker on the planet. 31,000,000 downloads can’t be wrong.
  • Toby - My new tab extension. It makes it easy to save and open windows full of tabs on the go. I use the free version and even though I maintain my start.me page, I stick with Toby for new tabs.
  • Velja - Works in conjunction with the Mac app of the same name to open URLs in other bowsers and apps (e.g., Slack, Teams, Zoom, Freetube etc)
  • Lastpass - I’ve had a paid account shared with my wife for more than a decade. Lastpass has gotten some bad PR due to a couple of incidents, but I haven’t had any issues. Still, peer pressure is getting to me and I’m looking to switch to Bitwarden when my subscription is up.
  • Archive page - An indispensable extension for getting around paywalled content. I use it multiple times a dat for Medium posts and Atlantic articles.
  • Postlight Reader - The Postlight Reader extension for Microsoft Edge removes ads and distractions, leaving only text and images for a clean and consistent reading view on every site.
  • Reddit Enhancement Suite - I use this for one primary reason - to block pictures of other people’s graphs on the Obsidian subreddit. LOL
  • Simplify Gmail- The only extension I pay for. It has hundreds of improvements (small and large) to streamline, simplify, and enhance Gmail’s design and functionality. Hide the features you don’t use, customize the ones you do including setting the list and message width and fonts.
  • Raycast - Built-in page summary for Raycast Prousers.
  • ChatGPT for Google- Adds a simultaneous ChatGPT search when you look for something at Google.com.
  • Web Time Tracker - Provides stats on how much time you spend on web sites
  • Street Pass for Mastodon- StreetPass is a browser extension that helps you find your people on Mastodon. Here’s how it works:
    1. Mastodon users verify themselves by adding a custom link to their personal site.
    2. StreetPass lets you know when you’ve found one of these links, and adds them to your StreetPass list.
    3. Browse the web as usual. StreetPass will build a list of Mastodon users made up of the websites you go to.