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How to open the Chrome Web Store to add your favorite extensions
Learn how to open and navigate the Chrome Web Store to find and install extensions and themes that enhance your browsing experience
The Chrome Web Store has thousands of themes and extensions that add new visuals and features to your Chrome browser. Are you looking for a new Chromebook on a budget? Use an extension that finds coupon codes for the item you're shopping for. Need help writing? Use a writing assistant extension powered by the Gemini or ChatGPT large language models.
Google Chrome's top extensions of 2023 focus on personalization and productivity
The Chrome Web Store is full of goodies
Google Chrome is the most-used web browser in the world for good reason, even with its well-documented history of being a resource hog on all platforms. Besides its seamless synchronization with all of its users’ Google accounts, it’s got another trick up its sleeve in the way of the Chrome Web Store. Take a trip here, and you might find your shopping bags are full of things you really didn’t need to enhance your web-browsing experience. Chrome extensions can legitimately change the way you surf the web, for better or for worse. Back in November, the company awarded the best Google Play apps and games of 2023. Google has now named its favorite Chrome extensions for 2023.
ChatGPT was officially unveiled to the world in November 2022, and it was immediately heralded as an inflection point in human history. Although web-based tools powered by artificial intelligence (such as Google's DeepMind and Stability AI's Stable Diffusion) were already circulating, OpenAI's ChatGPT caught the focus of the public like no other AI tool had before. With all the buzz ChatGPT has been generating, it was only a matter of time before developers started making browser extensions to expand its flexibility. But when it comes to ChatGPT-based browser extensions, there's a lot to choose from, and Android Police is on the beat to help you sift the wheat from the chaff, just like we do with our roundup of the best smartwatches.
Installing Chrome extensions turns Chrome into your personal browser. You can do everything from tracking price changes to spell-checking your emails through extensions. Extensions are the perfect way to make Chrome work best for you. If you're a dedicated user of one of the best Chromebooks, these are essential, as they make up for some of the Chromebooks' limitations.
Heads-up: I don’t care about cookies has been acquired by Avast
Avast doesn’t exactly have a great reputation when it comes to protecting personal data
I don’t care about cookies has long been one of the Chrome extensions we can’t live without. It’s a great tool that gets rid of all these pesky cookie banners that have cropped up since the dawn of the well-intended GDPR law. It makes browsing the web just a little less annoying. The extension has been doing its job well for years, and there is nothing much that needs improving. But now, it has been acquired by security company Avast, so there might be some changes coming to the product.
New Chrome Web Store badges make discovering safe and helpful extensions a lot easier
They'll highlight individual add-ons and publishers
There's no shortage of reasons to stick with Chrome as your main browser these days, but one of its biggest strengths comes in the form of extensions. With countless apps and add-ons at your disposal, tweaking and enhancing your online experience can be done with just a few clicks of your mouse. Finding useful ones can be challenging, though, especially if you don't have a specific use case in mind. With its latest update, Google is working to make discovering the best extensions on the Chrome Web Store a little easier.
Apple's iCloud Passwords extension arrives on the Chrome Web Store, but it's not working yet
It's supposed to be functional for Windows users
Read update
No matter how hard companies pitch the benefits of being in their ecosystem, more often than not, consumers end up buying products from different brands that render some ecosystem-exclusive features useless. In an attempt to make iCloud Keychain accessible to those with Windows PCs, Apple has released a Chrome extension. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work at the time of writing.
Google has been working on an updated version of the Chrome extension API, named 'Manifest V3,' for over two years at this point. After extension developers rallied against some of the proposed changes, Google went back to the drawing board, and now the final documentation for Manifest V3 is available to developers.
Google adds new privacy protections for Chrome extensions
The Chrome Web Store will display each extension's user data practices
It finally seems like people are becoming more aware about the importance of privacy online. Google has been working to improve its public image when it comes to user data privacy recently, including setting new privacy standards for Chrome extensions last year. Now the company is announcing an update to its developer policy that limits what developers of extensions can do with user data, as well as provides increased transparency regarding data-use practices.
Here at Android Police, we live and breathe in our desktop browsers. Almost everything we do from writing, researching, and communicating happens within the confines of our computer screens (or on our phones, naturally). Over the years, we found quite a few ways to make our lives easier with extensions, both for our jobs and our personal lives. For this collection, we want to share all of the extensions with you that help us manage our lives and our workday.
Pushbullet's Chrome extension approved after nebulous Chrome Web Store policy violations
Google couldn't decide what was wrong with Pushbullet's extension
We haven't heard a lot from Pushbullet lately, but it's still out there mirroring notifications and flinging data between devices. It almost had to stop, though. Google threatened to remove the Pushbullet extension from the Chrome Web Store, but it didn't explain why. As a result, the developers had to scramble to address Google's concerns... whatever those were. After a little helpful prodding, Google has accepted Pushbullet's updated extension.
How to install Zoom on a Chromebook
You can use the Chrome extension or Android app for virtual conferencing.
On desktops, Chrome can be a powerful and individual tool, despite being a resource hog. Depending on your needs, you can customize your browsing experience with extensions, and there is one for almost any use case. Now, Kiwi Browser has added the same feature to its Chromium-based app, making it possible to use Chrome extensions on Android.
Microsoft recently made some changes to the "Task view" in Windows 10. As of the Spring 2018 update, it includes Windows Timeline. As the name implies, it shows a timeline of recent activities on your computer and connected Microsoft services. Now, you can add Chrome tabs to the list thanks to Redmond's new Web Activities extension. Just install this, and your Chrome tabs will sync to Windows Timeline and other products like Microsoft Launcher for Android.
Keeping your password and private information safe on the internet has never been more fraught. From hackers to identity thieves, it's easier than you think for an account or password to be infiltrated. Google aims to help that problem with its newest Chrome extension.
As Uncle Ben said, "With great power comes great responsibility." Browser extensions can be incredibly powerful tools, but many of them demand full access to all web pages. Stories about popular extensions stealing user data or running cryptocurrency miners have become all too common. Google today announced a series of upcoming changes to Chrome extensions, some which aim to make them more trustworthy.
The Chrome Web Store is a hotbed of sketchy browser extensions, with seemingly little intervention from Google (except for the occasional crack-down). The company already takes down extensions that secretly mine cryptocurrency, but now it is going a step further. Starting today, all extensions that mine cryptocurrency will be barred from the Chrome Web Store.