Tools & Resources
Browser Extensions That Quietly Make Everything Better
Install fewer browser extensions. These are the ones that reduce friction without turning your toolbar into a junk drawer.
Most browser extension lists are toolbar pollution with screenshots.
Install this. Install that. Add seventeen tiny icons next to the address bar and call it productivity.
No.
The rule is simple:
An extension earns its spot only if it removes friction you hit every week.
Not once.
Not in theory.
Every week.
Also, extensions can read and change browser data depending on their permissions, so do not install random shiny junk. Google says this plainly in its Chrome extension help: trust and permissions matter.
Good. Be suspicious.
Then install carefully.
The small stack I would actually keep
Vimium
The job: Navigate the web from the keyboard.
Vimium is for people who spend too much of their life moving hand to mouse, mouse to link, link to scroll, scroll to back button.
It adds keyboard shortcuts for browsing:
jandkto move/to searchfto open links from the keyboardggandGto jump top or bottom
The first hour feels strange.
Then your mouse starts feeling slow.
Use it if: you write, research, code, or live inside docs.
Skip it if: keyboard shortcuts make you angry. Life is short. Do not become a shortcut monk for no reason.
Unhook
The job: Make YouTube less hungry.
YouTube is useful.
YouTube is also a trap with search results attached.
Unhook hides the parts that pull you sideways: recommendations, Shorts, comments, feeds, and other attention bait. You can still watch the video you came for. You just remove the buffet of “one more.”
This is better than heroic self-control.
Self-control gets tired. Interface friction keeps working.
Use it if: YouTube is both your classroom and your time leak.
For a wider version of this problem, read tools for staying focused in a notification hellscape. Same enemy, different costume.
Tab Wrangler
The job: Close stale tabs before they become emotional support clutter.
Tab Wrangler automatically closes inactive tabs and keeps a recoverable list.
That last part matters.
You are not deleting your precious research trail. You are moving it out of your face until it matters again.
Set it gently at first. Do not make it close tabs after five minutes and then act betrayed.
Do this now: Start with a two-hour inactive limit. Protect pinned tabs. Review the closed-tab list once a day for a week.
If you never restore a tab, it was not important. It was guilt with a favicon.
Dark Reader
The job: Stop letting bright websites punch your eyes at 9 PM.
Dark Reader creates dark themes for websites that do not have one, with controls for brightness, contrast, sepia, and per-site behavior.
It is not perfect on every page.
That is fine.
The point is not aesthetic purity. The point is making long reading and admin sessions less hostile.
Use it if: you read a lot online, work late, or keep opening websites that look like a flashlight in a meeting.
SingleFile
The job: Save a complete web page as one HTML file.
Bookmarks are promises your future self may not keep.
SingleFile is different. It saves the page itself, including the useful bits needed to open it later from one file.
Use it for:
- receipts
- docs pages
- articles you may cite
- pages likely to move
- client instructions hidden behind a login
Do this now: Save one important reference page as a test. Then open it offline.
This is not glamorous. It is the boring kind of useful that saves you on the day a link breaks.
Refined GitHub
The job: Make GitHub less annoying if you use it daily.
If you do not live inside GitHub, skip this.
If you do, Refined GitHub adds small quality-of-life fixes across repositories, issues, pull requests, comments, notifications, and releases.
That is the key phrase: small fixes.
No giant workflow religion. No replacement app. Just fewer papercuts inside a tool you already use.
Use it if: GitHub is part of your workday.
Skip it if: GitHub is something you open twice a month and then close with relief.
Raindrop.io Extension
The job: Save links without turning bookmarks into a basement.
Browser bookmarks usually become a landfill.
Raindrop helps when you actually need a read-later or reference system with tags, collections, search, and browser capture.
The extension is not magic. You still need a simple rule.
The move: Save only links attached to an active project.
Not “interesting someday.”
Someday is where links go to become dust.
If your saved stuff is already chaos, how to build a second brain without losing your first one is the deeper cleanup.
The extension rule
Install fewer.
Make them earn rent.
Every extension should do one of four jobs:
- save attention
- reduce repetitive motion
- preserve important information
- make a daily tool less irritating
That is it.
If an extension is just a novelty, delete it.
If it needs scary permissions and you do not trust the maker, delete it.
If you forgot what it does, delete it with feeling.
Your browser is where your work happens. Do not let it become a junk drawer with Wi-Fi.
For more tool filtering, read tools I regret not using sooner as a freelancer and the ADHD-friendly Chrome extensions list. Same rule applies there too: fewer tools, less pretending.