Despite having several options available, Apple devices users rarely use other browser than the built-In Safari browser.
Safari is a solid browser with good functions for web browsing. However, people have different needs. For example someone would want to quickly skim through search results without having to click “next”; someone else might want to protect his privacy and so on.
This is where the Safari extensions come in. They help users customize Safari by adding new functionality to make their life easier.
It isn’t surprising that the web is filled with queries like top Safari extensions, cool Safari extensions, essential Safari extensions, useful Safari extensions and so on.
And no wonder that there are several thousands of extensions, and new ones coming up every day.
Extension categories and installation
In simple words, a browser Extension is a piece of software which plugs-in into your browser providing it with additional functionality. This gives the users tremendous power to customize their browser and make it exactly as they want it.
All Safari Extensions are classified into top level categories as:
- Productivity
- Social networking
- Security
- Entertainment
- Bookmarking
- Search Tools
- Developer
- Shopping
- News
- Translation
- Photos
- URL shortners
- RSS tools
- Other
As the categorization is based on peoples’ interests or the purpose that they have in mind, this categorization helps a lot for people to quickly find the extension that they are looking for. Another way to find your desired extension is to search for it directly.
After finding the desired extension, it has to be downloaded and installed which is a very easy process.
Extensions can be downloaded and installed directly from Safari.
In the Safari menu bar, click Safari -> Safari extensions.
You will see extensions gallery broken down into popular, recent and the categories mentioned above. Just find the right extension and install it.
You can remove extensions or change their settings by going to Safari Preferences -> Extensions and then pointing to the right extension.
Now that we know what an extension is and how to install it, let’s see top 15 extensions.
To appreciate the power that extensions add to Safari, we will see examples from different categories and purposes.
ClickToPlugin for increasing productivity
We all must have experienced that the web pages which have some content via plug-in such as flash, silver-light etc. typically load very slow. Also, many times we are not interested in the content but we are really interested in only the text in the webpage. But text will not load until that content will load. This can be really frustrating especially when we want to do something quickly.
ClickToPlugIn extension helps solve this problem by blocking all contents from all plug-ins. After installing this extension, when some webpage having a plug-in is loaded, the plug-in will not be displayed at all. In its place there will be a placeholder with the name of the plug-in. Just in case you want to see the blocked content, simply click on the placeholder.
It will then enable that plug-in and load the content. You can control this extension in two ways: you can white-list the sites from which contents should not be blocked and/or you set ClickToPlugIn to allow contents from specific plug-ins.
Get it HERE
Buffer for effective social media networking
All of us have multiple social media accounts and many of us have other public profiles such as personal websites etc. Normally we post almost the same content in all social media platforms and we all know how painful it is to do it again and again in different apps or websites.
Buffer makes this like a breeze. After signing up, you can connect whichever social media profiles you want. Once this is done, you will be able to share anything from any website, blog etc. Buffer will smartly capture the page title and images, and includes them in your update.
Another feature of this extension is that you can schedule your posts. Simply fill up the queue in Buffer and set the time when you want to publish it. Buffer will automatically post that content to your social media sites at the set date and time. This is a great feature for weekends or when you are away from those social media sites.
Get it HERE
Disconnect private browsing for added security
Disconnect solves one of our major problems which is our online security and privacy. It protects you from invisible tracking, malwares, and Wi-Fi snooping.
Unless you explicitly white-list the site, this extension will block all tracking cookies. Not only this, it also protects you from being tracked by social media sites such as Google, Facebook, Twitter etc., who even track you when you are not logged in into their service.
By securing your Wi-Fi connection, disconnect also protects you from unauthorized access to your personal information by a hacker by using stolen cookies on your computer.
Get it HERE
YouTube lyrics for entertainment
This extension makes watching music videos on YouTube much more fun. After installing it, whenever you will play a video music in YouTube, this extension will display a small button. If you want to see the lyrics of that video, simply click that button.
The extension will do the heavy lifting for you of searching several sites on the internet for the lyrics and then displaying them to you. This extension works for Spotify too.
Get it HERE
DuckDuckGo for helping in search
DuckDuckGo is actually a search engine. This extension brings that search engine to Safari plus lots of new features.
As you may know, all search engines, be it Google or Bing, tracks what you are searching and keeps permanent record of that to build your profile so that they can bombard you with more “relevant” ads and make more money selling such ads.
All this starting from your seemingly simple search which you thought was private. This tracking also happens even if you put your browser to incognito or private mode. Such mode only turns off few things that your browser records, it doesn’t turn off anything at the search engine side.
This kind of poor privacy terms and conditions from major search engines have led people to look for better alternatives. DuckDuckGo is one of such search engines. It doesn’t track anything or keeps record of anything that you search. The extension also has features such as “!bang” commands which helps to search something only at one particular website.
Get it HERE
PanicButton for helping you in being safe from being caught on undesired websites
We all have definitely done this at one point in our lives, that we are secretly browsing some websites which we aren’t supposed to see in that given setting with the huge risk of someone popping-in any second. And whenever someone comes, our hands go into frenzy to close or hide what we were doing, and this closing or hiding also happens in a hidden way. Despite this some of us have been unlucky and got caught red handed.
Fortunately now we have a good solution to this problem in the form of PanicButton extension. This extension puts a simple button on the browser. Whenever you see the Tiger suddenly coming and you think you will be eaten alive, just press the PanicButton. PanicButton will recue you immediately by hiding all the open tabs and opening ‘safe’ tabs in its place.
During setup, you will be specifying which those safe web pages are. Depending on the settings, it will also optionally password protect the history so that no one will be able to browse back to those web pages. You can also configure key board short cut for pressing this button.
Get it HERE
AutoPagerizer for helping you in faster search
Heavy users of search engines, or heavy shoppers will agree that we spend time on clicking the “next” button in the search results. Then we wait for the next page to load. This can be quite frustrating if you are quickly glancing through the results and skipping to the next page.
AutoPagerizer extension helps in this scenario. It automatically converts separate pages into one long page. As you keep scrolling, it automatically keeps loading the upcoming pages at the end of this page.
Get it HERE
ReadingPack for the avid readers
Many of us might have used services like Pocket InstaPaper which saves articles for reading later, including offline copies for reading if we are not connected to internet later on. These services are fantastic in what they do – which is to save articles. But they cannot find good articles for you.
ReadingPack brings a more holistic solution to this problem. In addition to saving articles, it also helps you find new interesting articles. It connects you to other users who share similar interests as yours, and whenever they will promote some article, you will get a notification and you will have something great to read. Same goes the other way round when you find something awesome and promote it.
This web of users is the main strength of this service.
Get it HERE
Turn off the lights for better video viewing experience
Everyone uses their laptops or computer to watch several forms of videos. Several times we don’t really want to keep the video player in full screen mode, and sometimes it is also not possible to maximize the video player especially if it is embedded in the web page.
Seeing videos like this can be little uncomfortable because of the distractions such as glittering banner advertisements, around the window having the video.
Turn off the lights solves this problem. After installing it appears as a button on the browser to activate this extension. When you will press the button, everything on the screen except the video will be dimmed like it happens in theaters creating a perfect viewing experience.
Get it HERE
PushBullet for connecting your devices
This extension connects all your devices. It enables you to do several things. Few of them are:
Seamlessly see notifications across devices
Reply from any device. For e.g. you can use your laptop to send SMS from your phone, or better still directly chat with your friends from any device.
Send links from one device to another. No need to email links to yourself to get it somewhere else.
Send files between devices. Again, no need to email files to yourself or upload to cloud, to get it somewhere else
Get it HERE
Harakiri mail for protecting privacy and unnecessary spam
I am sure that like me, you would have also faced a situation where you don’t want to give away your email ID. Typical situations for this are online subscriptions, or registering at some sites merely to download couple of contents etc.
One solution to this problem is to have one so called junk email ID, which you would give under these circumstances. You would then periodically login into that email ID merely to delete the emails. The question is why take trouble of logging in and deleing.
Harakiri mail nicely solves this problem. Whenever in this situation simply give them a @harakirimail.com ID. You can see the email by entering the email ID in the Harakiri mail website. All emails are automatically deleted in 24 hours.
All Harakiri email IDs are public. It means that more than one person can give the same email ID, resulting in messages getting mixed up. The solution to this problem is to create your own inbox with a strange or random name which is difficult for anyone to stumble upon.
Get it HERE
Sessions for heavy Safari users
When researching about something, we all face the situation of unknowingly opening up several windows and several tabs in each window, and slowly it becomes so cluttered that we struggle to open more. Many times we want to start a fresh search while not losing out on what we did so far.
Sessions helps us in this situation. With a click of a button this extension saves a snapshot of your session at that time. You can then gladly close those overwhelming windows and start fresh with a new fresh Safari window, knowing that you can restore that snapshot whenever you want.
Get it HERE
Evernote webclipper for keeping interesting stuff from the web
Anyone who browses the internet definitely faces a situation where he stumbles upon something very interesting, which he wants to keep for later, but doesn’t really knows how or when he will use it. Many people do this by taking screen shots or saving the item etc.
A better, quicker and efficient method is offered by Evernote in the form of Evernote Safari extension. With this extension you can save entire web pages including all links and images.
This gets stored in your Evernote account which you can access anytime, anywhere and from any device which has Evernote installed.
Get it HERE
WasteNoTime to waste no time
When working on a computer, people usually keep multiple windows open, of which one is dedicated to websites such as social networks, or news, or anything that they love to keep an eye on from time to time. However, in no time get immersed in those web pages without even realizing how much time they are spending on those websites.
This is where WasteNoTime helps you out. You can tell this extension how many minutes to allow for which website and this extension will keep counting every single minute that you are on that website.
The moment the allowed duration finishes, it blocks that website. If you don’t want to block but only want to know how much time you are spending on which websites, then WasteNoTime can do this also for you.
Get it HERE
Adblock for ad free Browsing
This is one of the most popular extensions of all times. Once installed, it will block those pesky, glittering, distracting, and irritating advertisements when browsing. Even though by default it will hide advertisements from all websites, if you desire you can white-list websites of your choice.
Get it HERE
Conclusion
As you would agree, all these extensions and many more similar extensions are designed to make our lives easier. They are very easy to install and being light weight, they will not slow down your computer or handheld device.
Also, we realize that every person is unique and so are his needs and requirements.
Therefore, it is impossible for us to do justice with every person. There is a very good chance that we might have missed your favorite extension.
If this is the case, then please let us know about it in the comments for our research team to consider when writing the next article.
Also, we are very eager to know your thoughts and opinions on these extensions.
