Chrome Extensions are here for PC & just today Google released a beta version of Chromium for Mac with Extension support. If you’re wondering which extensions to get on to first then we’ve put together a short list of our favourites to date. What we love about Chrome is that it feels like you can do everything you need from within the browser, you can integrate most of the things you use separate applications for like Email, Twitter Clients & RSS Readers.

Feedly

Feedly is perhaps hands down the best feed reader we’ve ever used. I personally missed it when I made the change from Firefox to Chrome, but now I can read all my favourite feeds again in all the Magazine like glory.

What we love about Feedly:

1. Easy integration into Chrome, feels like part of the browser.
2. You can segment your feeds into categories
3. Save articles for later if you’re just scanning through

AdBlock

Most of you will probably need no introduction to AdBlock, but in short it Blocks ads. No more slow loading pages because the ad server is overloaded, no more annoying auto playing video or audio ads annoying you. Imagine being able to switch off commericals on your Cable TV, it’s that good.

What we love about Adblock:

1. Get rid of annoying ads (obviously)
2. It’s fast! No slowdowns like external Adblocking software
3. Automatically updates the blacklist for you

RSS Subscription

RSS Subscriptions is something that Chrome has been seriously lacking, it’s something that I would have assumed would be a default feature. Instead there’s an extension that provides the functionality.

If you’re planning on using Feedly as your default RSS reader here’s a handy tip on how to add it:

1. Click the RSS Button
2. Add a new source
3. Name it Feedly
4. Add the URL: http://www.feedly.com/home#subscription/feed/%s[action.subscribe
5. Save
6. Now when you hit the RSS subscribe button it’ll open directly in Feedly. Win!

What we love about RSS Subscription:

1. The fact that we can actually see which sites have RSS Feeds now (Something Chrome has been lacking for quite some time)
2. You can easily integrate with feedly (see above)

Session Manager

Session Manager is a great way to store the current state of the browser & tabs you have open then come back to it whenever you like. So for example you could create a session around all your Social Networking sites, one for all the News Sites you read & one for all your Email Accounts. Simply switch between them whenever you want keeping the session information.

What we love about Session Manager:

1. Manage multiple Google/Gmail Logins at once
2. Manage multiple profiles across Social Networks

Better Gmail

Gmail is an amazing mail program, we use it here to manage all our mail at StoreCrowd. But it’s still not perfect, there’s ads, you’re asked to invite your friends & much more.

Better Gmail simply allows you to customize Gmail a bit more to remove the unwanted features you might not like. Folders4Gmail doesn’t work too well in this extension so I’d recommend installing the standalone version instead.

What we love about Better Gmail:

1. Removes annoying ads
2. Organise labels into folders with Folders4Gmail
3. Fixes the Page Width
4. Removes the Invite Friends Widget
5. Hides Sponsor Messages

Firebug Lite

I always swore that I’d move away from Firefox as soon as Firebug was available for Chrome. There’s a few things missing from Firebug Lite & that’s Javascript debugging, but I’m sure that’s just around the corner. There’s a few other gripes & that’s YSlow! or Google Pagespeed isn’t support as of yet either.

What we love about Firebug Lite:

1. That we finally don’t need Firefox to use Firebug
2. Chrome inspect is great, but Firebug is much more Flexible

Invisible Hand

Since we’re in the online coupons & daily deals game ourselves we often like to praise others who’ve come up with a great idea (especially one that’s different). Invisible hand alerts you whenever a product you’re viewing is found cheaper elsewhere. Pretty nifty.

Currently Supported Stores: A1Books, Abes of Maine, Amazon, Arkivmusic, B&H Photo Video, Best Buy, Borders, Buy.com, Camera World, Capitol Supply, ClubMac, CompUSA, Compuvest, Crutchfield, Drugstore, eBags, eCampus, eForCity, Geeks.com, Guitar Center, Home Depot, Instawares, J&R, Kenmar Watches, Kodak, Logitech, Lowes, MacMall, Meijer, MooseJaw, MrWatch, NewEgg, OfficeMax, onSale, Overstock, PCMall, RadioShack, RitzCamera, Sears, Sony Style, Tech Depot, The House Boardshop, TheNerds.net, TigerDirect.com, Tools-Plus.com, Tower.com, Toys ‘R’ Us, Vanns, Walmart, WatchWear, Wirefly, WolfCamera

What we love about Invisible Hand:

1. That it turns shopping browser plugins on their head, traditionally Coupon/Deal websites would show related coupons for a product or website. Not where the user can buy the product cheaper. Yes, lets worry about the users (not where we can make the most money).
2. Not only does it match products, but it’ll find prices when you do google searches

iMacros

iMacros is an extremely useful utility to script repetitive browser tasks at the press of a button. If you’re looking to get started here’s a few iMacros scripting tutorials.

What we love about iMacros:

1. You can script any repetitive browser actions
2. You can send people a links that’ll automatically fill out a form for them (without them having to do anything)
3. Think of tasks that you do a lot (running reports or checking stats) & simply automate them

Remember the Milk

Remember the Milk is a really simple & easy to use Task Manager. The Google Chrome Extension brings the functionality right to your fingertips without having to log into Remember the Milk.

What we love about Remember the Milk:

1. No more logging in to RTM to set up tasks
2. Keep track of all tasks from right within your browser

StayFocusd

Do you find yourself spending too much time on Social Networking or News Sites? StayFocusd allows you to limit the amount of time or simply block these sites in Chrome. It’s pretty customizable in that you can block Delicious, but allow the submit page so you can still bookmark pages.

What we love about StayFocusd:

1. That you can finally limit yourself & remove the distractions of social networks
2. Keeps your productivity high & removes distractions