As the owner of a business, you likely spend the better part of your workday on your computer – responding to emails, updating social media, tracking website performance, downloading content, uploading blog posts, and filling online forms. One way to save yourself time and make your work day more efficient is to optimize that time you are spending online. Thankfully, there are a ton of tools that allow you to do that, including some pretty cool internet browser extensions.
Internet browser extensions are little pieces of software that can help you get more work done online, with less effort and time. In this article, we are going to take a look at some of our favorite extensions for the top browsers.
Here are 15 of our favorite browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and more that help make our web experience more organized and less time-consuming.
As one of the most popular Google Chrome extensions, AdBlock eliminates annoying online banner advertisements. It stops the download of ads so you can enjoy a cleaner web experience and focus only on what’s relevant. You can download the extension here for Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Microsoft Edge.
Need access to your computer from a remote location? The Chrome Remote Desktop extension allows you to remotely and securely access your computer, or another, via Chrome regardless of where you are. This is a useful tool for remotely collaborating with your employees, or accessing a file on your home computer while you are out of the office. Find more information here.
Do you get a lot of text messages on your phone during the day? That can be a HUGE distraction, especially if you need to move your focus from your computer to your phone constantly during the day. The MightyText app allows you to skip the phone and start sending text messages from your computer or tablet to any mobile phone. Simply download the app on your Android phone and then install the Chrome browser extension. It’s that simple!
If you receive a lot of .pdf documents via email during the day and are spending the time to download them and then open them in another program on your computer… STOP! The Docs PDF/PowerPoint Viewer Chrome browser extension eliminates the need for downloading large files and allows you to view them instantly in the Google Docs Viewer.
While online, do you often come across website pages and online content that you think has great value and you’d like to share with your social networks? Instead of copying and pasting the URL and then opening your social networks to share, use the quick and nifty Hootlet tool from HootSuite. Hootlet lets you share content instantly to your social media accounts with just the click of an icon and without having to leave the page you are on. You do need to have a HootSuite account to use the tool, but they do offer a free account, which makes this a no-brainer add-on for people looking to optimize their social sharing. You can find this extension available on Chrome.
ClickCutter Auto Copy is a time-saving extension for those who need to copy content when browsing online. Simply select the text you wish to copy and the content is immediately copied to your clipboard. If you are constantly searching on the web, this simple add-on can shave minutes off the time it normally takes to gather information.
We often find more online content that we would like to read, but don’t have the time for. The Pocket add-on lets you save content directly from websites or your social media accounts for reading it later on any device. The saved content is also visible in the offline mode. Pocket is available for all major devices and platforms including iPad, iPhone, Android, Mac, Kindle Fire, Kobo, Google Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Opera, and Windows.
The Video DownloaderHelper is a free Firefox browser add-on for downloading videos from YouTube and other similar sites. You can also download audio and pictures by simply clicking on the item. Click here to download the add-on.
Our team at VirTasktic swears by this software and extension! Collectively it probably saves us over 2 hours per day! This add-on works with the popular LastPass system that safely stores your password. It allows you to quickly log in to saved accounts and search your Vault directly from your browser to save you the hassle of remembering all your various passwords. You can download this add-on for Firefox, Chrome, Linux, Safari, Microsoft Edge, and more.
This extension works with Microsoft’s suite of Office programs, including Word and Excel, allowing you to edit and create files directly from your browser. With quick access to existing documents, this is a must time-saving tool if you are an office user! You can get the extension for Chrome.
Evernote is another necessary tool in our business. It’s our go-to tool for note taking. Thanks to the Evernote Web Clipper extension, it’s also our favorite tool for collecting everything on the web that we want to save for later. You can choose to save entire pages or clips and assign them to any notebook with tags so you can quickly find them later. The Evernote extension is available for Chrome and FireFox.
If you are a team of do’ers like us and you use a number of different project and task management systems to monitor tasks, then Taco app is a tool you will want to get right now! Taco allows you to connect multiple platforms like Asana, Teamwork, and Basecamp and pulls all of your tasks into one dashboard for easy management. See the details of each task, link directly to the task in the app and complete tasks right from the Taco dashboard. It’s an amazing time saver! You can download the Taco extension for Chrome here.
An extension for Microsoft Edge, Mouse Gestures gives more power to your mouse so you don’t have to use the keyboard as much. For example, moving the mouse to the left will bring you back to the prior page, and moving it to the right then up will open a new tab.
Ghostery is an app that makes surfing the web cleaner, safer, and faster. This app increases your browsing speed, privacy, and protection by detecting and blocking tracking technology. For more information or to download Ghostery, click here.
Microsoft Translator understands 50 different languages. If you ever find yourself on a web page in a language you don’t understand, just click on the icon and this extension will translate the full page for you. If you want to download the Microsoft Translator, click here.
By getting smart about how you spend your time online and using the right tools to increase your efficiency, you’ll have more time in the day to focus on revenue-generating tasks and ideas. Did we share one of your favorite apps? Let us know in the comments below what your favorite is or what browser extensions help increase productivity for you.
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