I’m starting a series about the 5 most important extensions I use in each web browser on my Mac called “If I could only have 5 {web browser} extensions”, but when I began writing the first entry, for Chrome, I quickly realized I was going to have a problem. These were my 5 picks for Chrome, in alphabetical order:

  1. 1Password: I have to keep track of well over 100 sites for myself my clients; add on top of those the sites I use for fun, and it starts to get ridiculous. 1Password helps me manage the passwords & other information I need for all those sites, & then some. And the fact that I can access the same data in every web browser is, well, it’s wonderful.

  2. Adblock Plus: I hate stupid ads. I don’t like looking at stupid ads. Therefore, I block them. I don’t feel bad about this in the slightest.

  3. Chrome YouTube Downloader: More on this in another post.

  4. Stylish: Too many sites are hard for my aging eyes to read. Too many other sites do annoying things. With Stylish, I can set CSS on a site-by-site basis to meet my needs.

  5. Xmarks Bookmark Sync: Yes, Firefox has bookmark syncing. And Chrome. And Safari. But those only work with themselves. Xmarks syncs between all the major browsers, which makes my life far easier.

The problem is that 4 of those go on every browser I use regularly! The only one unique to Chrome is the YouTube Downloader. So I’m calling out the other 4 as extensions I install on every web browser (at least when they’re available; Xmarks, for instance, doesn’t work with Opera, but then again, I almost never use Opera—sorry, Opera lovers).

Looking at the 4, I notice that 2 of them—1 Password & Xmarks—are about syncing data I need (passwords & bookmarks) between all the browsers I use. The other 2—Adblock & Stylish—are about making the Web a more pleasant place for me to work & play. That seems about right in the extensions that I always install: have my data available, and conform things to meet my needs.