add-on

Reading Glasses is a nifty Google Chrome extension that lets you read on the Web only what you want to read while blocking out the rest.

A small Reading-Glasses icon will appear to the right-hand side of your address bar after the quick install. While you are reading a body of text, highlight your focus and click the icon. Doing so will white out everything other than the text. The problem with this extension is that it can be very finicky; sometimes it whites out more than you want it to, and sometimes less. It seems that luck may have … Read more

Clipmarks is a Mozilla Firefox extension that allows you to clip and save any portion of a Web page. The extension is great for sharing clips as well as saving them to a personalized note page. Though the add-on holds minor annoyances, it is an easy and simple way to take Web notes.

After the quick installation, a green paperclip icon will appear to the right-hand side of the address bar. To begin clipping, click on the icon and a green bar will appear at the top of the page. Pan over text to select it; an orange box will … Read more

Google is providing its users with an elegant and simple method to transfer links and snippets of text from its Chrome browser to its Android handsets. Available on Thursday, Chrome to Phone requires two installations and a Google account, yet works almost effortlessly to make what you're looking at on your desktop instantly accessible on your smartphone, too. It also requires users to be running Android 2.2 (Froyo) or later.

Users must install the Chrome extension, which frustratingly doesn't provide a QR code or other easy access to the Android marketplace link (available on Download.com). Once … Read more

In their never-ending quest to steal your credit card and bank account numbers, passwords, Social Security numbers, and other sensitive personal information, malware purveyors go wherever the eyeballs are. Lately, the bad guys have increasingly been targeting the links served up by Web search engines.

Two computer security firms recently issued press releases touting the dangers of searching for popular terms, such as the names of starlets or items in the news. Barracuda Labs' 2010 Midyear Security Report highlights the risks of entering a popular topic in Google, Bing, or Yahoo. The company entered thousands of search terms in these … Read more

TabSense, a fast-moving Google Chrome extension, fights the distractions inherent to multiple tabs and windows. Similar to Mozilla Firefox's upcoming "Tab Candy," this Chromium extension efficiently declutters your work space by organizing your tabs all in one spot. While it has a few glitches that need hasty fixing, this new tool is handy for anyone who finds themselves navigating through multiple windows and tabs.

The TabSense icon at the right-hand side of the address bar opens a page filled with boxes that represent your open Chrome windows. Each box contains a list of the window's tabs. … Read more

Similar to Mozilla Firefox's upcoming "Tab Candy" concept, Google Chrome add-on TabSense helps manage your tabs in a streamlined, organized manner. Though in its rookie status--there are still minor bugs--the extension is definitely worth keeping thanks to its simple utility. After the lightning-fast install, a rounded/rectangular icon will appear to the right-hand side of the address bar. A message will say that settings can be configured through the extensions option of the tool menu. In this menu users can uninstall and disable; however, the "options" link takes you to a blank page that merely … Read more

Originally a Firefox add-on, FindThatBand has gone Chrome. Instead of hopelessly searching for music within the endless black hole which is the Web, Google Chrome users can now find their favorite bands by highlighting text.

To find the band, simply highlight its name and hit CTRL twice. A pop-up will instantly appear with a list of 11 music resource sites. This list consists of MySpace, Last.fm, Pandora, Wikipedia, Hype Machine, Amazon, iTunes, Discogs, allmusic, iLike, and Grooveshark. (Last.fm is a CBS site, as is CNET.) Between all of these sites, it is highly likely that you will find … Read more

Remember a few weeks ago when YouTube made a big deal about its new music video page that sorts out every single music video that's hosted on the service? You can now put it to far better use with a new Firefox extension called Scrolling Lyrics Player (SLP) that turns each video page into a honest to goodness karaoke player.

Once installed, SLP will sit just to the right of any YouTube video and do a search for the lyrics of whatever music video or song recording you're watching. It then syncs that up with the timing of … Read more

Google now offers an extension for Chrome that automates the process of adding the secure Google search site as a search engine to the Chrome 6.x branch. Google SSL Web Search is an extension, still in beta, that works with Chrome 6.0.419.0 and later on Windows and Linux computers.

First released in June 2010, installing the extension opens up a configuration window with a single button that will open Chrome's "add search engine" window. Here, you can set a keyword to speed up your use of Google SSL Web search. There are also … Read more