Tabs Plus adds a variety of features to the Chrome browser with thumbnail previews of open tabs being only one of them. The tab preview feature is available by clicking on the icon of the extension in the Chrome address bar after installation.

It seems that the preview thumbnails only work on http site and not https sites.

The thumbnail preview window of all open tabs can also be launched with the keyboard. Windows users press Alt T, Mac users Ctr Shift T and Linux users Shit Alt T to display the window.

A click on any website thumbnail will make that tab the active tab in the web browser. Users with many open tabs can make use of the search to find the tab that they are looking for. The search will not only find the search phrase in the website’s title or url but also in the contents.

Additional options are then provided in that window including a grouping option to group all search result tabs next to each other. It is furthermore possible to bookmark the selected tabs or to open them all in a new browser window.

Tabs Plus is an interesting extension for the Google Chrome web browser that is especially useful for users who like to open many tabs i the browser.

The extension can be downloaded from the Google Chrome extension gallery.

Between ten and twenty new Mangas are added everyday to the website making it one of the most frequented websites for Manga lovers.

It hosts many of the most popular Manga series from Naruto and Bleach over One Piece and Fairy Tail to Full Metal Alchemist, Hunter X Hunter and Kenichi.

Users can visit the website to find out what’s new, subscribe to an RSS feed or use the recently reviewed Google Chrome extension Manga Lover which displays the latest releases directly in the web browser.

One Manga Reader is an alternative to the options described above. What does it do? For starters, it displays a list of all Manga series that are hosted on One Manga. That alone is not that spectacular but the following options are.

One Manga will add all Mangas that are read by the user to the reading list. The reading list will keep track of the latest chapter that has been read by the user and display the latest published chapter as well as links to all chapters of the Manga that are hosted on One Manga.

The extension provides a few options that can be configured in the Chrome extension manager. It is possible to remove ads from the One Manga website, display the Manga on one page instead of only a sheet per page ordisplay two sheets which is helpful for widescreen monitor users.

One Manga Reader can be downloaded from the Google Chrome Extension gallery.

The developer mentions experts-exchange.com in the description of the Google Chrome extension. The website could be a good example if they would really block the results from users coming from search engines. We have already shown that it is possible to access all experts exchange content without paying for it.

But assuming there is a site that is protecting their content, or a malicious site or spammy site then it could be in the best interest of the user to block those results from the search engine.

The websites on the other hand are not blocked if they are opened directly making the extension not suitable as a website blocker, but that was never the intention of the developer.

New websites can be added to the Google blacklist by clicking on the Tools icon in the Google Chrome toolbar and there on the Extensions menu entry.

A click on Options next to the Google Blacklist extension displays the configuration options. Urls can be added and removed in here easily. It is furthermore possible to make blacklisted results transparent instead of removing them completely from the search results.

Interested users can download the Google Blacklist for the Chrome web browser at the Google Chrome Extensions gallery. The developer plans to include two interesting new features in future versions. The first is the ability to add websites to the blacklist directly from within the search results, the second to whitelist websites so that they are highlighted in the results.

Turn Off The Light is an extension for the Google Chrome web browser that can dim all elements on pages with videos but the video itself.

The extension will display a black light bulb in the Chrome address bar whenever it detects a video on a page. A click on that icon dims all elements on that page so that it becomes easier to concentrate on the video that is played on the page.

The opacity can be configured in the options of the extension. It is by default set to 80 and the color black. Both the percentage of the opacity and the color can be defined in the options. It is for instance possible to dim the video pages completely so that no element but the video is displayed during playback.

The only other option that is offered by Turn Off The Light is the setting to automatically dim the background on Youtube.

Turn Off The Light is compatible with many different video portals, we have not encountered any in our tests that did not work. The extension can be downloaded from Google’s official Google Chrome Extension gallery

The Delicious team has been hard at work to provide their Google Chrome users with an extension that would offer them the same functionality as their Firefox counterparts.

The Delicious extension for Google Chrome is currently in beta stage which means that not everything that has been integrated into the Firefox add-on is currently also offered in the Chrome extension.

The Delicious extension currently be used to sync the Delicious bookmarks with a Delicious account, display Delicious bookmarks in the address bar of the Chrome browser and to bookmark pages with the help of the Tag button that is being placed in the Chrome toolbar.

A Delicious account is needed to make use of the extension. Bookmark syncing can be enabled in the extension’s options as well so that the bookmarks are always synced between the browser and the Delicious account.

Users who want to read up on the release can visit the Delicious blog post that announces the beta release of the Chrome extension. Those who want to skip the information can head over to the Google Chrome extensions gallery to download the Delicious extension.

The latest to join the ranks is the S-YouTube Downloader which, as the name implies, is a Google Chrome extension to download Youtube videos.

The extension adds a Download link to the menu bar below each video on Youtube. A click on the link will open the download options below. All available formats that the Youtube video can be downloaded in are displayed on the page.

The available choices are separated into computer and mobile phone formats. The available formats that can be downloaded depend on the original quality of the video but can be as high as full high definition downloads in 1080p.

The extension is excellent as it is unobtrusive and can be displayed only if it is needed. Downloads are started right away without having to use a proxy download site.

S-Youtube Downloader can currently be downloaded from the Google Chrome extension gallery. The extension is currently only capable of downloading Youtube videos with the chance that the developer starts to integrate additional video portals in future releases.

The extension Eplsite: Watch Live Football Streaming is basically providing quick access to the service offered at Eplsite which lists live football streamings that can be viewed in the web browser with the only requirement being that Flash is installed.

The site concentrates on the UK football scene which is definitely one of the finest in the world but does offer matches without English teams as well. The extension will place an icon in the Google Chrome address toolbar that display the available matches upon selection.

Today’s matches include for instance AC Milan vs. Manchester United and Olympique Lyon vs. Real Madrid. The live football streams are displayed in a new window after clicking on a link.

The quality is ok but not excellent but good enough considering that it is free to watch. The site includes a small chat applet that can be used to chat with other viewers while watching the stream.

The extension is helpful for users who do not want to visit the Eplsite directly regularly to find out which matches they broadcast live on that day. Everyone else who just wants to watch the major events like the Champions League or Euro League may be better of by visiting the site on those match days to find out which football games are offered.

The extension is only available for Google Chrome and can be downloaded directly from the official Google Chrome extension gallery.

Webpage Decorator is an extension for the Google Chrome web browser that provides the user with options to customize a website’s color scheme and fonts. The extension will place its icon inside the Google Chrome address bar, something that we are not that fond of as it reduces the available space of the website’s url.

A click on the icon opens a menu with options to customize the fonts and colors of the website. This includes changing the background image, background color, link and visited link color, text color as well as the font size and font type.

A color picker is displayed whenever a color needs to be changed. The web user can either pick one of the most used colors or use an RGB slider to select a custom color. There is unfortunately no option to enter hex values.

The font size of the website and the font can also be changed with Webpage Decorator. The font size can have a value between 8 and 30 pixels. The available fonts might depend on the computer system. Eight fonts were available for selection on our Windows 7 test system.

All changes become visible right away and will be saved so that the website will always be displayed with the custom colors and fonts. The program has a handy reset feature to undo the changes and display the website in its original state.

Webpage Decorator is an interesting add-on for users who want to modify the colors and fonts of websites that they visit regularly. The Google Chrome extension can be downloaded from the Google Chrome extension gallery.

Revolver is a Google Chrome extension that aids users who need to open multiple websites in Google Chrome that they need to view regularly but passively.

The extension can automatically flip through all open tabs regularly so that each tab is shown in the web browser for a set amount of time.

This was created for using Google Chrome full-screen to power unattended screens like kiosks or tv displays where rotating dynamic/live web content is needed.

The extension will by default cycle through all open tabs in ten second intervals and reload the contents of the active page every time.

This behavior can be changed in the extension’s options. The interval can be changed from 10 seconds to another timeframe. The same holds true for the automatic reload of active tabs which can be deactivate in the options as well.

The function itself is started by clicking on the Revolver icon in the Google Chrome address bar. Another click on the icon stops the process and returns the browser to its normal state.

Revolver can be an interesting tab for users who want to passively display information in the Google Chrome web browser that is offered in multiple tabs.

The extension is compatible with Google Chrome 4 or newer and can be downloaded from the official Google Chrome extension gallery.

NoScript is primarily a security add-on but it also provides other benefits like ad blocking since most advertisements on the Internet are using either JavaScript or Flash.

Google Chrome has made leaps forward with Chrome 4 stable being released to the public and Chrome 5 in the workings. Extensions are now supported out of the box in Chrome 4 and users are asking (again) why NoScript has not been ported or copied yet.

The developer of NoScript, Giorgio Maone, gives us the answer on December 10, 2009.

Chrome is still lacking the required infrastructure for selective script disablement and object blocking. Maybe Google plans to implement the missing stuff later, maybe they’re still trying to figure out whether it can be done without enabling effective ad blocking, but in the meanwhile the pale AdBlock and FlashBlock imitations which have been hacked together by overwhelming popular demand, are forced to use a very fragile CSS-based hiding approach, ridiculously easy to circumvent.

The developer posted an update on January 28, 2010 in the Informaction forum:

It means the the technology infrastructure to make it possible is not there yet (so “now be possible” does not makes much sense), but I’m in talks with good will Google people who say they want it to happen.

Talks are underway which is good to hear although Google had contacted the developer previously (as early as April 2009) and nothing seemed to have changed since then.

Google Chrome 5 on the other hand might deliver exactly the functions needed to port NoScript to Google Chrome. If you remember yesterday’s review you know that JavaScript and Plugin blocking with whitelisting resources was shown in the new Content Settings menu. It would be interesting to hear what the NoScript developer thinks of this development.

The tabbed browsing extension TabJump might be one of those extensions. TabJump adds a button to the Google Chrome address bar that will trigger an overlay window that is helpful for tabbed browsing.

The window displays a list of tabs that have been recently closed, related tabs and the open tabs each with a favicon of the website and the website’s title.

The recently closed tabs section does not only display the last page of the tab that was closed but also all other pages that have been accessed in that tab.

Related tabs are tabs that have been opened from another open tab. A left-click on an entry in the listing either switches to the active tab or opens the page in a new tab.

Tabs can also be locked which protects them from being accidentally closed by the user. The browser will display a popup window asking the user if the tab should be really closed.

TabJump is an interesting extension for the Google Chrome 4 web browser. The extension only displays the eight latest results in its interface with no option to change that number. That’s probably the biggest shortcoming that the developer’s should fix for better usability especially for users who regularly open dozens of tabs at the same time.

Google Chrome users on the other hand need to locate the RSS feed links on the website to subscribe to them which is not very comfortable especially for users who subscribe to RSS feeds regularly.

The RSS Subscription extension changes this shortcoming by adding an RSS icon in the Chrome address bar which when clicked displays a feed subscription page that can be used to subscribe to the feed in various feed readers like Google Reader or My Yahoo.

This feed subscription page is not displayed to Google Chrome users by default who see the full feed instead which means that they still have to copy the feed’s url and paste it into their RSS feader.

The RSS Subscription extension is compatible with Google Chrome 4. It can be downloaded from the official Chrome extension gallery.

Readability Redux is a Google Chrome extension that adds a button to the Chrome address bar by default. Pressing that button on a page will turn that page into a version that is better readable by removing nearly any elements on the page but the text. But even the text is reduced as usually only the title and the main text remain on the website with every other text removed as well.

Before:After:

The extension will by default remove all other elements from the page including images, graphics and flash contents. The text is centered and the font size increased to increase the readability of the text itself. Controls to print or email the page are also provided by the extension.

A right-click on the extension’s button in the address bar of the Google browser will display a context menu with an option to change some of the preferences of the add-on. It is possible to switch the overall style of the layout from the default newspaper style to novel, book or terminal styles. The only other options that are provided define the font size of the text and the margin on the page.

Readability Redux is a straightforward extension for the Google Chrome browser that works fine on most websites. Several other options exist to increase the readability including bookmarklets like Readability which seems to have been the inspiration for this extension. The extension can be downloaded from the official Google Chrome extension gallery.

That’s what the Session Manager extension for Google Chrome 4 does. It allows the user to save the current browsing session so that it can be loaded again at a later time. All the relevant information will be saved so that the user can start exactly the way it was when the session was saved.

The extension will place a new icon in the Google Chrome address bar that can be used to save and manage sessions. A click on the button reveals a menu that will display the currently stored sessions, the ability to save the current session and options to rename, load or delete sessions that have been saved before.

Saving sessions can be interesting for several purposes. It can obviously be used to return to a browsing session at a later time but some specific applications include creating groups of websites, e.g. news, business and computers, that can be opened together. Another use might include research or business related sessions that open websites that are always relevant for the job.

The Google Chrome Session Manager can be downloaded from the Google Chrome Extensions gallery. The extension is compatible with Google Chrome 4. Firefox users might want to look at the 10 useful firefox add-on articles which includes a session manager for their web browser as well.

The Camelizer for Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome aids the latter by providing easy access to the price history of many items that are offered at the popular online shopping sites Amazon, Best Buy, Newegg, Backcountry, Overstock and zZounds.

The two major features that are provided by the extensions are price history charts that can be accessed on product pages and the ability to track specific items to receive alerts whenever the price drops.

The extension displays a small icon on the left side of the screen which can be used to expand the price chart on the page. This displays the price history of the item if it is already tracked by the service. The price history is not only recorded for items offered by the store but also by third parties if the shopping site offers that feature.

Sharing options can be enabled to share the chart, the shopping page or the page at the Camelizer website with others.

The option to track products comes in handy in two situations: When no price history chart is available and when the current price is to high so that the customer prefers to wait until the price drops further.

A click on the Track this product link that is displayed on all product pages leads to a page on the Camelizer website where the product can be tracked.

Here it is possible to create price alerts whenever the price of the selected product drops below a given level. Alerts can be send to an email address or Twitter account. No registration at the website is required to track the prices.

It has to be noted that Camelizer supports country specific stores as well, for Amazon it is the US, UK, Canada, German, Japanese and French store.

Camelizer is an interesting add-on. The fact that many prices are already tracked makes it a valuable tool for many users who shop at the supported websites. The Camelizer can be downloaded for Google Chrome 4 or Mozilla Firefox.

The website of the service is interesting as well as it displays the top daily and weekly drops at the supported online shopping sites with the option to filter these by category. Good for users who are looking for bargains.

The Google Chrome extension IMDB Plus tries to remedy the situation by embedding movie trailers from Youtube into IMDB movie pages.

The functionality is available right after installation. Each IMDB movie page contains a link to view trailers right beneath the movie title. Clicking that link will display the movies on the same page so that they can be viewed right there without having to load an additional page.

The movies are embedded on the page which means that they all can be played right away.

The View Trailers link is also shown on other pages of IMDB including the top 250 movies of all time listing or the frontpage. These movie trailers can also be played directly on those pages which makes the service even more interesting as it saves the user quite some time.

The option to view trailers is also available on the actor and director pages so that trailers for the movies of a specific actor or director can be viewed comfortably as well.

IMDB Plus is available at the Google Chrome extension repository. It is compatible with Google Chrome 4.

The Firefox web browser has quite a few add-ons that offer a configuration of the scrolling smoothness in the web browser. Smoothwheel is one of the add-ons but there are also additional hacks to fix the choppy scrolling in the web browser.

The Google Chrome extension Chromium Wheel Smooth Scroller provides Google Chrome users with the ability to fine tune the web browser’s scrolling as well.

The configuration provides access to four mouse and keyboard scrolling parameters that can be changed to suit the individual needs of the Chrome user. The four available parameters are step size which defines the pixels that are scrolled with each tick of the wheel, the smoothness factor at the beginning and end as well as the acceleration sensitivity which defines the step size when the mouse wheel is flicked quickly.

The values can be changed by editing them in the provided forms on the configuration page. The new values become active once the focus is removed from the form they have been entered in. It is usually a good idea to open a website that consists of a few pages to be able to test the new values effectively.

Chromium Wheel Smooth Scroller can be downloaded from the official Google Chrome extension repository. It is compatible with Google Chrome 4 browsers (via Download Squad)

Linky is the first add-on for the Google Chrome browser that brings part of that functionality to the browser. The Google Chrome extension does not work exactly like the Firefox add-on which becomes problematic in several occasions.

Linky places an icon in the Google Chrome header. Pressing that icon will open all links that are currently highlighted by the user. Multi Links users will know that highlighting does not prove to be as effective as working with the rectangle simple because of the reason that highlighting will highlight everything on the page between the first and last selected link. This would mean for the Google Search results for example that all Cached and Similar pages would be opened as well which is usually not the intention of the user.

Linky works best when the links are placed next to each other without interfering elements. This is for example the case in sidebar menus. It is however not practical on all sites and the developer should consider switching to the implementation offered by Multi Links instead.

Linky can be downloaded at the official Google Chrome extensions repository over at the Google website.

This window contains options divided into the eight categories Homepage, live feed, pictures, birthdays / events, menus / cat, keyboard shortcuts, other options and advanced.

Here is what the individual sections offer:

• Home Page: show or hide specific modules on the Facebook homepage including pokes, events, requests or suggestions. Other options include blocking streams for 3rd party apps, left aligning the content, stretching the content to make use of the full width of the web browser window or altering the location of the filter list.
• Life Feed: Hide specific news in the live feed. This can include photo, group, event or video stories among others.
• Pictures: Display bigger pictures on mouse over (works even with external pictures), automatically load thumbnails and adding a link to display bigger versions of all pictures on an album page.
• Birthdays / Events: Show people’s age if they provide their full birthdate, option to download an ical calendar file with all birthdays, option to add all birthdays to Google Calendar, include persons full name in the title for birthdays, add a person’s birthday to event details.
• Menus / Chat: Change transparency settings, hide idle buddies, use font weights to differentiate between active and idle buddies
• Keyboard Shortcuts: Lots of keyboard shortcuts to open specific Facebook pages, for instance a to open albums or photos.
• Other Options: Lots of options provided in this menu from adding download links to posted videos over showing the number of unread messages and notifications in the page title to forcing Facebook to always use https and automatically reloading error pages

Facebook Fixer improves the Facebook experience of Google Chrome users. The extension is compatible with Google Chrome 4. It is available for download at the official Google Chrome extension repository.

One Number is an interesting extension for the Google Chrome browser that acts as a notifier for the four Google services Gmail, Google Reader, Google Wave and Google Voice. It places a single icon in the web browser’s toolbar that displays the number of unread messages as one number.

The main benefit of this approach is that it saves up space in the Chrome toolbar if several Google services are used regularly (the extreme would be a reduction to one icon from four).

All four Google services are monitored by default. The options can be used to disable checks for specific services.

The first step after installation is to log into a Google account by left-clicking the icon in the toolbar and selecting the Log In link there.

The login redirects to the Google account login on the Google website.

The same menu contains a link to the options which can be used to disable and customize specific services (changing the color code or excluding their unread count from appearing in the number that is displayed in the toolbar) as well as server query intervals, timeouts and misc toolbar colors to indicate if multiple services have unread messages.

One Number is a Google service monitor that can be helpful for Googleholics who use at least two of the services that are currently supported by the Chrome extension (it’s also good for monitoring only one service but that would defeat much of its purpose).

The extension is compatible with Google Chrome 4 and can be downloaded from the official Google Chrome extensions website.