Chrome Extensions for Hackers
I Googled “Chrome Extensions for Hackers”, and I was disappointed by the failure of Google to understand what I meant when I said hackers. I then Googled “Chrome extensions for programmers”, and was flooded with Firebug (pfft) recommendations - bar one Stackexchange question, which had a single good recommendation - Development and Coding Search (I had a bet with myself in my head that this question would be “closed”, and I was not disappointed.)
So here’s a list of extensions I currently use, which you should probably ignore, since you might already be using most of them. Many of them are security/privacy related; so I guess I should have titled the post “Chrome Extensions for The League of People who care about their Privacy”. But aren’t hackers and privacy minded people? Surely! Are privacy minded people hackers? Maybe. (in the words of the great Prof. Michael Crowley)!
(Note: This extension is now called fPrivacy, but I used it before it was hip, you know?).
Every once in a while, I face the disgusting dilemma of allowing a Facebook application to access my account - I really don’t want to give hundreds of permissions to apps I’ll probably use just once in my life. This extension lets you opt out of giving specific permissions to FB apps - but this comes with a repercussion - you break poorly programmed FB apps - since they cannot handle the misery of you not providing a permission or two - Oh the misery! This extension is open source too, so it alleviates your privacy concerns! Any other excuses?
This is a wrapper for the GPG binary on your Unix-based system, and works perfectly for GMail. Unfortunately, the Decrypt button stopped showing up when I updated to the wonderful new look in GMail. I’ve filed an issue, and waiting to hear back - the developer(s) seem to be replying to issues pretty quickly. Rad!
One of the best alternatives to the extremist NoScript extension - this has a pre-defined rule list (which you can edit), and blocks useless scripts from loading and slowing down your browsing experience. No more Facebook comments on other websites! Yay!
This extension lets you opt-out of personalized advertising and data-tracking. It is written by Google. I’ve seen it all.
Want to read that enticing article on Washington Post Social Reader - but don’t want to install the spammy app? Fret not! You can bypass the app install and read the article / watch the video directly! This extension is open source, so please submit an issue if you find that the extension doesn’t work for an app - the developers said “Pretty Please”.
One of the best additions to your Hacker News browsing experience, this shows a nifty sliding drawer on any page that was submitted to Hacker News at any time. I cannot count how many times I have found priceless HN threads providing commentary on a webpage I was looking at.
This is one of those genius but straightforward things that give me “why didn’t I think of this before” moments. Redirects you to HTTPS versions of “major websites” - works on most websites I visit. Hey!