Nearly two-thirds of internet users turn to[1] Chrome for their browsing needs, but far fewer take full advantage of its available extensions, the add-ons that elevate it from good to great. If you're one of those plain vanilla Chrome users—or if you've only dabbled in the extensions game—check out these sprinkles of joy that the WIRED staff swears by.
The following list of Chrome extension recommendations is by no means comprehensive; there are plenty to explore and discover in the Chrome Web Store[2]. (If you go exploring, just make sure you stick with reputable developers[3].) But these are the ones we depend on every day to keep our internet experience as sane and enjoyable as possible. May they do they same for you.
Wayback Machine[4]
Have you ever clicked on an interesting link, only to be greeted by a 404 Error? Wayback Machine’s Chrome extension can help. Created by the Internet Archive—a nonprofit that preserves billions of web pages—the extension shows you what a website looked like in the past, even if has since been deleted. It can turn up the most recent version of a page it has saved, or go back to the first time the Internet Archive recorded it. That latter can be especially illuminating. For example, you can see what a user’s Twitter account looked like when they created it, or how a company’s website appeared when it first launched. One drawback: Wayback Machine doesn’t have a record of every webpage on the internet. But it can also help you prevent others from vanishing in the future: The extension lets you save the web page you’re currently visiting to the Internet Archive's database. —Staff Writer Louise Matsakis...