The best way to find new extensions on the Chrome Web Store

Martin Brinkmann
May 12, 2014
Updated • May 12, 2014
Google Chrome
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I'm spending about twice as much time on the Mozilla Add-ons repository than on the Google Chrome Web Store. The core reason for that is that Mozilla provides me with the tools I need to find what I'm looking for, while Google does not.

I visit Mozilla's store once a day to check out new and updated extensions. It is actually very easy to do, as I can filter for that right on the store.

As far as Google's store is concerned, I visit it less often as it does not provide me with those filters.

I'm not interested in apps which seem to be Google's main focus, but when you select extensions on the store, you get a completely different design compared to Mozilla's store.

A different design does not have to be worse necessarily, but this one is, at least for my purposes. First, you only get those big graphics that tell you next to nothing about the functionality of an extension. To get a glimpse, you need to move the mouse over the icon to get a couple of descriptive words.

What's worse in my opinion is the lack of proper sorting filters. You can sort by popular, recommended, trending or rating, with all of them displaying the same mix of extensions for long periods of time.

While you will find new extensions among the trending category from time to time, you are missing out on the majority of new extensions listed in the store because there is simply no way to display those.

To discover new extensions, you either need to use the search function which may reveal them to you, or get recommendations from third-party websites, for instance when the author of the extension posted a link to it on a forum like Reddit.

Alternative

You can use a search engine like Google to find newly released extensions. All you need to do is visit the search engine and use the site:chrome.google.com command to display a list of matching pages.

The command limits results to that site. By default, the most popular pages are displayed. To display only new pages, click on search tools and select Any Time > Past 24 hours.

This displays only new pages that have been published in the past 24 hour period.

Note that apps and extensions are mixed here. Since they both use the same url structure, there does not seem to be a way to limit results to extensions only.

 

What I like about the listing is that it displays the name of the extension or app and the first couple of words of its description, so that you know usually what it is about.

You can combine the site command with a keyword in case you are looking for new extensions for a specific purpose. Facebook site:chrome.google.com displays only Facebook related extensions and apps for example, while tab site:chrome.google.com only tab related.

Summary
The best way to find new extensions on the Chrome Web Store
Article Name
The best way to find new extensions on the Chrome Web Store
Description
How to find new extensions that are published on the Chrome Web Store for the Chrome browser.
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Comments

  1. Dwight Stegall said on May 12, 2014 at 8:55 am
    Reply

    Chrome Webstore search box is a waste of time. I have always searched it the same way you do. For Firefox I have three RSS feeds “newest, popular, and recently updated” They keep me updated. To easily find feeds I use Bing. Type this in feed:mozilla. This is the only thing Bing has that’s worth talking about.

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