Remember when iOS app developers where upset that Apple incorporated the functionality of their apps into iOS by default? Remember how much better it made iOS by default? I do too.

If Google followed Apple’s lead, as they do on occasion, it would seem that they should examine various helpful Chrome extensions and consider adding their functionality as native components.

Some areas that would easily level up Chrome for the masses:

• browsing security
• tab management
• extension management
• password management

For now, here are my favorite extensions that provide exactly these features.

HTTPS Everywhere – keeps Chrome on the secure protocol for websites even when an non-secured page is requested, if the website has HTTPS as an option.

Disable Extensions Temporarily – lets you toggle extensions on and off. I actually made this one myself 🙂

TabCloud – saves and restores open tabs across multiple sessions and computers.

LastPass – saves your passwords and provides access from every computer and mobile device.

When you’re browsing around, do you ever wish you could change the colors or fonts used on a website? If you’re using the Chrome or Firefox web browsers, you can!

There is a browser extension named “Stylish” that will let you apply different styles to various websites. Anyone familiar with CSS can create new styles, but everyone can use them.

After you install Stylish, you just browse the web like normal. When you’re viewing a website that you want to change the appearance of, you click the Stylish browser extension button and enable styles or click “find more styles for this site” which will take you to a website Userstyles.org where a lot of custom styles have been shared. Find a style that’s more appealing to you. After all, a website doesn’t have to look the same for everybody.

Install Stylish for Chrome
-or-
Install Stylish for Firefox

Visit Userstyles.org to find custom website styles

How do you disable your chrome extensions, temporarily, then re-enable them? With an extension of course!

You can install it from the Chrome Store: Disable Extensions Temporarily

I personally have a lot of chrome extensions enabled but from time to time need to disable them all. However, I also need to be able to re-enable them and I don’t want to go one by one and click check-boxes. I just want to be able to temporarily turn off my chrome extensions with one click and then when I’m ready to turn them all back on, click again.

I found some decent extensions available, but not an exact fit. So, I scratched my own itch and made a new chrome extension that disables all chrome extensions with one click and, even better, remembers which extensions where previously enabled and will re-enable them again with just one click. Re-enabling only previously disabled extensions was key for me, because I have some extensions installed that I toggle on and off individually from time to time and after temporarily disabling extensions I don’t want to simply turn on all chrome extensions, I want to just turn on previously disabled extensions.

Try it for yourself!

Cite Marker is a Chrome browser extension that puts a twist on browser bookmarking. When bookmarking a web page if you’re trying to save a reference back to a quote or snippet, more so than the entire content of a page, then Cite Marker can help.

Built in browser bookmarking uses the web page’s generic title to identify the page being bookmarked. Cite Marker uses the text you highlight instead. And yes, you could type in your own title for the bookmark, if you’ve got nothing better to do with your time and would rather paraphrase the content that you find valuable enough to bookmark.

Also, by using the text you highlight to mark the source your bookmarks become a lot easier to retrieve, especially if you use the bookmark search feature. You can also create multiple marks for the same page.

It’ll even let you tweet out what you’re marking, if you’re into that kind of thing.

Check it out on the Chrome Web Store

If you’ve used Gmail Manager for Firefox but have been looking for the equivalent on Chrome, or if you’re just looking for a chrome extension to manage multiple Gmail and/or Google Apps email accounts, then you’re in luck. The maker of Gmail Manager for Firefox hasn’t written a port for Chrome, but there is at least 1 very good Chrome extension for managing multiple gmail accounts as well as multiple google apps email accounts.

After trying a few, the one I’ve really come to like the best is Simple Gmail Checker. The interface isn’t exactly like Gmail Manager for FF, but you might actually like it better. It’s not the most downloaded gmail add on for chrome, but it probably should be. That is, if you have multiple gmail accounts and/or google apps email accounts. So, here’s my shout-out to another extremely helpful chrome extension!

Gmail Checker Plus is a decent chrome extension for multiple accounts, but it has problems with multiple addresses from the same domain. This makes the add-on worthless if you actually monitor more than 1 email address on a domain. Nice try, better than nothing, but Simple Gmail Checker handles this scenario flawlessly!

If you’re looking for an add-on to manage multiple gmail and google apps accounts with Firefox then Gmail Manager is the way to go!

i’m testing out the Google web accelerator which pre-fetches pages… does some compression tricks… and a few other small performance enhancing twirks to make surfing the internet faster. i’ll post a review after i’ve saved more than a handful of seconds (it tells you how much time it’s saved you over browsing without it)

http://webaccelerator.google.com/