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Google Dictionary Extension for Chrome Gives You Definitions as You Browse [Downloads]
TabJump is a Smart, Organized Tab Manager for Google Chrome [Downloads]
Google Chrome (Windows/Mac/Linux): If you tend to have tons of small, hard-to-read tabs open at a time, navigate through them with TabJump, a Chrome extension that lets you open recently closed tabs, jump to open tabs, and group related tabs together.
We've all been there before—you open up Wikipedia for a five-minute break, and two hours later you have 30 tabs open. TabJump is a great tab manager for Google Chrome, that sits in the address bar and organizes all your open and recently closed tabs, so you can easily navigate through your sea of open pages. Your open tabs are organized into two columns, one of which shows the tabs related to the one currently in focus, so you can quickly jump between open pages from the same site. You can also lock certain pages, protecting them from accidental closure. If you try to close a locked tab, you'll get a popup message from Chrome asking you if you are sure, preventing you from losing what was really important out of all those open tabs.
TabJump is a free download, works wherever Google Chrome does (Note: You’ll need to be running the beta channel for extension support on Linux, and the dev channel for extension support in OS X). Thanks, MPS!
Google Voice Chrome Extension Makes Calling and SMS Even Easier [Updates]
Google Chrome: Google Voice Notifier, one of the 18 extensions we loved at launch, has seen a major update. It now converts phone numbers on the web to automatic dialing links, and initiates calls and text messages from a drop-down box.
The extension previously did little more than notify Google Voice users of the number of unread SMS messages and voicemails sitting in their inbox, as well as doing a little spin animation when updated and opening the inbox when clicked. In the new version, nearly any phone number in a recognizable format is converted into a click-able link. Hit that number, and a pop-up box asks you which phone you want to connect to. Oddly enough, it doesn’t work on Google Maps results, where I’d kind of most want that behavior, but does work from Google search results.
The new version also makes starting a call or text message to any of your known contacts very easy. Click the extension button, and a drop-down box with auto-filling fields appears. You can switch between calls and SMS messages easily, and if you click the extension button when you’ve got messages, you get a quick preview of your inbox.
The Google Voice extension is a free download, and works wherever extensions work with Google Chrome at the moment—Mac users will have to use the development channel version in this case. If you already had the extension installed, you should see it update automatically the next time you load up Chrome.
If you’re looking to sign up with Google Voice but don’t have an invite, we hear they’re getting a lot more invites out to those who ask for them.
Make the Most of Chrome with These 13 Excellent Extensions [Downloads]
Shortly after Google Chrome’s Extensions gallery opened, we rounded up 18 worthy downloads. Now that Chrome’s official add-on market has matured a bit, we’ve dug up more productive, annoyance-fixing, feature-adding extensions that you should consider adding to your collection.
At this point, extensions for Google Chrome work on the Beta and Dev channels for Windows, the Beta for Linux, or the dev channel for Macs. If an extension doesn’t work across all platforms, we’ve noted it at the front of each description.
Checkers & notifiers
• Google Mail Checker Plus: There are tons of Gmail and Google Apps checkers in the extensions gallery. So why this one? First off, it handles both standard Gmail and (multiple) Google Apps accounts. Second, its roll-down mail notifier lets you actually act on the messages it shows—archive, delete, spam, mark as read, or reply. Third, if you don't ever want to open the Gmail tab, that's fine—you can read the whole message in the checker window. Fourth, and finally, it offers a wide range of icon styles to choose from, so it meshes with whatever Chrome theme and OS you've got going. Best of class.
• Google Calendar Popout: As with Google Mail Checker, this is one of many Google Calendar extensions to choose from. The version made by Google offers a little button badge showing you the time until your next appointment, but for those with multiple calendars, it’s a bit annoying, because it only picks up appointments from the primary/personal calendar. This model simply rolls down a mini-calendar (which you can turn off in the options), shows color-coded appointments, and offers the Create Event and Quick Add links that GCal addicts depend on.
• One Number:
This one’s simple. If you’re a Google fiend who doesn’t want blow-by-blow pings and notifiers, One Number combines all your Google app notifications into one handy window. (Original post)
Annoyance fixers & site improvers
• Better Gmail:
Our own How-To Geek had previously rounded up a Better Gmail for Chrome to complement the popular Firefox extension, but Chrome’s extension system and script support has changed quite a bit since then. A very helpful coder rounded up scripts that are still working into another Better Gmail extension, one that includes a lot of the things we like to see available: folder hierarchies, mouse-over row highlighting, footer appending, and much more.
• Clickable Links:
Forums, blog comments, really old sites—they're full of links written out in text, asking the reader to precisely copy and load the text in their address bar. This extension updates those annoyingly non-interactive links to the modern day.
• A Bit Better RTM:
It simply tweaks, improves, and makes shortcut-friendly the Remember the Milk webapp for the convenience of serious task management. Based on the popular Greasemonkey script, Bit Better moves your list tabs to the left, lets you hide lists you hardly ever look at, and makes nearly every action do-able from a keyboard. It does those things and more from the background, too, so that’s one less taskbar button to deal with. (Original post)
• VidzBigger: This two-for-one add-on reconfigures the layout of YouTube, MetaCafe, and DailyMotion to make the actual videos the (larger) star of the page, and also adds a download link whenever possible to your viewing screen. You can also scroll related videos without having to move your video out of place, which is just the thing for … terribly unproductive web video binges. Sigh. (Original post)
Other cool stuff
• IE Tab:
Windows only: As you might expect, IE Tab is just like its Firefox counterpart: It renders the web page you’re looking at in a separate tab, using Windows’ built-in Internet Explorer rendering engine. Helpful for developers, and those 476 remaining sites that refuse to accept any browser except IE.
• Session Manager: Chrome can automatically pick up your tabs where you left off, and offers a decent tab and web history from its “new tab page.” If you tend to open tabs in batches, though, or don’t always want to pick up exactly the way you left it, adding Session Manager to Chrome is a nice time saver. Open up a batch of tabs, save them to a new session name, and you’re up and running. (Original post)
• Everymark: An extension after our own hearts, mostly because these hearts love the light-speed-quick Everything search engine for Windows. Everymark aims to provide that same type of as-you-type convenience for your local bookmarks. Chrome’s own OmniBar (that’s “address bar,” for those who don’t buy into Google’s super-hype terminology) does a decent job of pulling up bookmarks that you’re typing for, but Everymark searches the name, the URL, the date modified, and folder names, all at once.
• WOT (Web of Trust):
This one showed up in early form, but now ranks as one of the best sanctioned extensions to tell you more about where you’re going on the internet. Using WOT’s research and input from the community, the extension shows you the trustworthiness of whatever page you’re looking at, and provides a link to the rating page with more information.
• Firebug Lite:
In the hearts and minds of developers who love Firebug, nothing can replace it. But this is a noble first attempt for the Chrome-using set. It comes from the same development team, and it’s basically a JavaScript file, molded into an extension, that emulates some of the Firebug features that let you watch in real time as you change a site’s code.
• uTorrent for Google Chrome: Are you a uTorrent fan who’s also a Chrome user? Install this little add-on to your browser and, using the awesomeness of uTorrent’s WebUI, you can remotely control your BitTorrent downloads from anywhere in the world (that has web access). uTorrent itself is only for Windows and Mac systems right now, but this extension can be used anywhere Chrome extensions are allowed.
What extensions have made their way into your must-have list, or just your Chrome taskbar for now? Tell us, and link, your favorite finds in the comments.
18 Extensions Worth Downloading from Google Chrome’s Gallery [Downloads]
Google’s extension gallery for its Chrome browser opened for business this morning. We've taken a look around the offerings—most of them, anyways—and pulled out a few picks that deserve a spot in your formerly pristine browser.
Actually, rating these extensions by “worth the slowdown,” as is often the case with Firefox, doesn’t seem applicable here. Chrome renders pages just as snappily on a Linux install with eight extensions loaded, and the memory use seems not all that different. Your mileage may certainly vary.
We pulled out extensions from the gallery for highlighting that do something a bit different from widely-available bookmarklets, or at least fill a crucial need for those who use the web productively. You can disagree with our picks or tell us how blind we must be to miss a great one—do so in the comments, and if we missed a really great one, we'll update the post.
You need to be running either the Windows dev version of Chrome, the just-released Linux beta, or a daily build that supports extensions. Mac users are, unfortunately, left out of the add-on party for the moment.
Google Mail Checker: Just what it sounds like. It sits in your address bar, keeps track of your unread messages, and opens Gmail when you click it. Take note that the author states it “does not yet work well” with Google Apps mail.
RSS Subscription Extension: Puts an RSS icon in the address bar when standard feeds are detected, and delivers the feed to a reader selection page when clicked. You can add custom readers beyond the standard five using URL syntax.
Xmarks for Chrome Beta: Just like the early Chrome alpha, this extension ties Chrome into your Xmarks bookmark account, synchronizing you between Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, and across multiple profiles, if needed.
iMacros for Chrome: We haven’t had nearly enough time to discover what this cool tool is capable of, but it seems like a nice solution for anyone missing their crucial Greasemonkey scripts and other Firefox-only helpers.
Aviary Screen Capture and Picnik Extension for Chrome: We’ve already spilled some digital ink on the neat Aviary extension, but Picnik does the same type of instant web page capture—and also lets you pick a particular image from a quick list that pops down.
Flash Block and FlashBlock: Both do the basic task of turning off Flash on all web pages, until you turn it back on for all pages from that domain. FlashBlock uses a keyboard shortcut, while Flash Black has a settings dialog with a list you can edit.
AdThwart and AdSweep: As you might guess, they both block ads, though they use different blacklists to do so. We’ve previously covered AdSweep in its early days, and AdThwart looks like a fledgling sibling.
Brizzly: The helpful, time-saving, at-a-glance Twitter/Facebook client for the web integrates smoothly into Chrome. Click the button, and you get a quick read on what’s happening in your social streams, with images automatically shown and videos embedded. You can, of course, also tweet or update Facebook from here.
Google Voice Notifier, Google Wave Notifier, and Google Alerter: The first two do just what you’d think they do, but make lots of sense for services you want right away and might only occasionally check, respectively. The last is a kind of uber-notifier that checks Gmail, Wave, and Reader for new items. If you’re a heavy Reader user, you’ll obviously want to turn those pings off in the settings.
Chromium Delicious Plugin: All your recent bookmarks from the Delicious bookmark service, as well as quick saving of bookmarks from selected text/links or manual creation.
ChromeMilk: There are many, many tools that bring to-do manager Remember the Milk into your browser, but this one's notable for popping up your task list right from the address bar—and offering Remember the Milk's very slick iPhone interface as an option for pro membership owners.
LastPass: As previously mentioned, this extension fills in the gap that Xmarks’ lack of password syncing leaves on Chrome.
Fittr Flickr: Adds keyboard shortcuts, additional photo information, lightbox-style galleries, and more to Flickr photo pages, in the style of Gina’s own Better Flickr for Firefox.
What have you found that’s worth installing, and bragging about, in the Chrome Extensions Gallery? Share the links and love in the comments.
Chrome Extensions Gallery Officially Opens [Chrome Extensions]
Right after the Mac and Linux betas of Google Chrome arrived, Google threw open the doors to its Chrome extensions gallery. Jump in, browse the most popular and highly-rated add-ons, and grab something good for your new browser.
As noted, the big letdown is that these extensions don’t work on Chrome’s Mac beta, at least for the time being. On a Windows machine running the dev version, or in the Linux release, it’s a two-click install for most extensions. You can sort by popularity and rating, and see what’s being featured by the Chrome team. You can also browse by most recent uploads, but that seems like it’ll get out of hand before too long.
The obvious point of comparison is Mozilla’s Add-Ons gallery for Firefox. Notably lacking from Chrome’s gallery is RSS feeds for search terms and popular/recent categories. On the other hand, Chrome’s gallery seems far more friendly to multiple, big screenshots, which we all can appreciate.
Find a great app in the Chrome gallery? Tell us about it in the comments. We’re definitely taking a look around, and taking suggestions, for more coverage.
Early Google Chrome Extensions Put Notifiers in Status Bar [Downloads]
Windows: An early look at sample extensions for Google Chrome shows the browser implementing notifications and page awareness in status bar icons. They’re not much, but they’re helpful to Gmail and Google Reader users.
To try out one or more of the three sample extensions being shown off at the Chromium developer’s documentation, you’ll have to download the Google Chrome Channel Chooser and switch to the weekly updated “Dev” channel. You’ll also have to add --extensions-enabled at the end of your Google Chrome shortcuts, then head to the page below and click the “Install” links.
The Gmail notifier took a few minutes to update and stop displaying the word “Login” in my own test, but the Google Reader and Chromium Developer notifier worked just fine. There’s far more to come, we’d presume, from Chrome’s extensions, but this is a neat little sneak peek. Thanks to Owen for the link!
Google Chrome Extensions Are Happening in the Latest Beta [Google Chrome]
Yesterday’s announcement of the new Google Chrome Beta brought with it some good news for Firefox extension lovers eager to move to Chrome: A first glimpse of extension compatibility.
The Chrome Developer Documentation has released a guide to creating and installing Chrome extensions in their most simple form. Right now the “extensions” aren’t really much to speak of, and the process of installing an extension still seems very much like running Chrome with user scripts, but it’s great to see that they’re making some progress on the extensions front. As Google Operating System is quick to point out, these “extensions” are in fact “just fancy wrappers for user scripts, but there are plans to make them more useful by exposing browser features and allowing developers to create interfaces.” Hit the link below for a quick guide to installing your first (not terribly useful) Chrome extension if you’re eager to try it out. (The extension in the example just replaces Google’s homepage logo with another picture.)

