Chrome: If you want to restore browsing sessions anytime—and not just after a browser crash—Session Buddy for Chrome easily creates custom sessions and restores them whenever you wish.

After installing Session Buddy, clicking on the Session Buddy link in the Chrome toolbar brings up all your current Chrome windows and open tabs. From there you can save entire sessions or selectively edit out tabs from the list before saving. Saved sessions appear to the left of the current session list and remain until manually deleted.

You can use Session Buddy for something as simple as automatically saving your current session on browser close—available in the options menu—or for making custom session lists for various tasks like reading your favorite sites every morning or opening all the sites you use for bill paying.

Session Buddy is free and works wherever Chrome does. Have a favorite Chrome extension to share? Let's hear about it in the comments.

Firefox/Chrome: If you love using your keyboard and shun your mouse, you'll definitely want to try gleeBox, an awesome add-on that lets you effortlessly browse the web without your mouse. Check out the video inside to see it in action.

Click on the picture above for a closer look.

Browsing the web without a mouse isn't easy. Without any add-ons at all you're stuck furiously punching the tab key to move through all the available links on the page. Other add-ons help you to navigate without your mouse but often not very intuitively.

Gleebox offers a highly customizable and intuitive way to navigate web pages via keyboard. At its most basic gleeBox allows you to hit the G key, and every link on the page is highlighted and you can navigate to it by typing part or all of the link name into gleeBox. Check out the videos below to see it in action.

Chrome: We love Gina's Better Gmail Firefox extension, a bundle of user scripts that improves the Gmail experience. Now that Google's beefed up support for Chrome extensions, reader Dimitar Gruev has taken a shot at bringing an unofficial Better Gmail to Chrome.

Almost a year ago our own How-To Geek put together a version of Better Gmail for Chrome, but that was way back when Chrome didn't even have extensions (his were all bundled into a single user script). This new Chrome extension is an unofficial Better Gmail for Chrome that was inspired by Gina's Firefox extension and our earlier Better Gmail for Chrome bag o'scripts.

Once installed, access Better Gmail's options by clicking the wrench -> Extensions -> Better Gmail Options. Tick the boxes of the features you want activated and you're good to go. You can choose to hide little used fields like "Invite Friends," remove ads, show the number of unread emails in the favicon, and more.

Gruev says future versions of Better Gmail will hide spam count, move to next message on delete or archive, and include support for POP3 email. A big round of applause goes to Gruev for putting this together. What kinds of features do you hope for in future versions of Better Gmail? Share your ideas in the comments.

Mac OS X only: Chrome for Mac Beta just updated with support for Chrome extensions. Windows and Linux users have been enjoying support for Chrome extensions for a while, and while Mac users who're subscribed to the dev channel of Chrome have had extension support since January, this is good news for Mac users who prefer the relative stability of the beta release. Ready to get started installing some saucy Chrome extensions but not sure where to start? Check out these 13 excellent extensions, or just head to our Chrome extensions page to browse other extensions we've covered.
The release also brings with it bookmark sync, the bookmark manager, cookie manager, and task manager—so there's a ton of good stuff to in this beta release. [Google Chrome Blog]

Google Chrome: Lightbox is a widely adopted image-preview script—if you've ever clicked on an image and had it fade the background and enlarge the image, that's Lightbox. Image Preview is a Chrome extension that brings Lightbox-style previews to all sites.

Even if you're on a site that doesn't have Lightbox, you can still enjoy that in-tab enlarging of images by downloading Image Preview. Once Image Preview is installed, all images you click on will enlarge within the current tab and provide an in-tab view of the larger image instead of opening the image by itself.

Just like with Lightbox, clicking anywhere on the screen—including the enlarged image—will remove the dimming mask and the image and return you to the normal page. Image Preview is a free extension and works wherever Google Chrome does. Have a favorite extension? Let's hear about it in the comments.

Google Chrome: If you're a frequent Chrome and Dropbox user, this unofficial Dropbox extension puts one-click access to your Dropbox files right on the Google Chrome toolbar.

Once installed, the Dropbox extension places a small Dropbox icon in your Google Chrome toolbar. After your initial sign-in, clicking on the icon presents the menu seen here. You can select between your recently updated files and your folder structure to quickly navigate to the file you're looking for. Clicking on any given file will either display or play the file in your browser or download it to your computer for local viewing.

Dropbox extension is a free and unofficial extension for accessing your Dropbox files and works wherever Google Chrome does. Have a favorite extension or tool for getting the most out of cloud-based services? Let's hear about it in the comments.

Google Chrome: If you've recently moved from Firefox to Chrome, you probably miss the way that Firefox orders tabs. This small Google Chrome extension switches the tab ordering in Chrome to mimic how Firefox handles new tabs.

The default behavior for Chrome is to group tabs together—new tabs open relative their parent tab. If you prefer new tabs to open at the end of the row in the order in which you have opened them, as they do in Firefox, Modified Tab Ordering can make that happen.

In the screenshot above you can see how we opened Chrome, visited Lifehacker.com, then Google, and then returned to the original tab to open a few links from Lifehacker—all the new tabs appeared at the end of the row as they opened instead of appearing, grouped, beside the original Lifehacker tab. It's a small tweak, but if you've got a routine for how you open tabs and read them a little thing like the order they appear in can really throw you off. Note: As several sharp-eyed readers pointed out, as of version 3.6 Firefox has adopted grouped tabs instead of ordered tabs. This extension gives you the old-school-Firefox experience in Chrome for those who prefer ordered tabs over grouped ones.

Chrome: If you've ever wanted to see what people are saying about a web page you're visiting beyond the site's own comments, Chrome extension Twitter Reactions will show you the most recent tweets that are talking about the page.

The idea isn't unlike other universal commenting systems, like Google Sidewiki—but instead of just seeing the comments of Google Toolbar users, you can see what the entire Twitterverse is saying about the page that you're on. It takes a bit of filtering with all the retweets or simple linking going on on Twitter, but it's definitely interesting to see what people are saying beyond the site's integrated comments and who's linking to it—especially if it's your own site or blog (you might be surprised how many people have linked to you on Twitter!).

Google Chrome: Setting a web site to refresh is old hat, but what if you want to refresh multiple sites and keep an eye on all of them? Revolver-Tabs refreshes and rotates your browser tabs.

Revolver-Tabs is a Google Chrome extension that allows you to refresh not just one, but all of your browser tabs, at set intervals. In addition to reloading the page it rotates through the tabs one by one so that the individually refreshed sites are displayed without any interaction from you.

Although the author designed the extension to be used for standalone kiosks or during presentations—both great uses for it—it's also just as useful for keeping tabs on auction sites, status and announcement pages, and other frequently updated sites without any interaction. It's a great candidate to get tossed on your second monitor for watching sites that don't have RSS feeds or that you want to get immediate feedback from without waiting for RSS delays.

Google Chrome: It's easy to fill up the tab bar in Chrome to the point where you can't read the tab titles or easily find what you're looking for. VerticalTab lets you view tabs in a list and search, sort, and more.

VerticalTabs places a small icon in the Chrome toolbar next to the address box. Clicking on the icon displays all your tabs in a vertical list where you can select tabs or drag and drop them via mouse input or using keyboard shortcuts. In the options menu you can change the width and size of the vertical tab display and toggle the tab-count display on and off.

VerticalTabs is free and works wherever Google Chrome does. Have a favorite extension for wrangling tabs? Let's hear about it in the comments.

Google Chrome (Windows/Mac/Linux): If you tend to have tons of small, hard-to-read tabs open at a time, navigate through them with TabJump, a Chrome extension that lets you open recently closed tabs, jump to open tabs, and group related tabs together.

We've all been there before—you open up Wikipedia for a five-minute break, and two hours later you have 30 tabs open. TabJump is a great tab manager for Google Chrome, that sits in the address bar and organizes all your open and recently closed tabs, so you can easily navigate through your sea of open pages. Your open tabs are organized into two colums, one of which shows the tabs related to the one currently in focus, so you can quickly jump between open pages from the same site. You can also lock certain pages, protecting them from accidental closure. If you try to close a locked tab, you'll get a popup message from Chrome asking you if you are sure, preventing you from losing what was really important out of all those open tabs.

Google Chrome (Windows/Mac/Linux): If you tend to have tons of small, hard-to-read tabs open at a time, navigate through them with TabJump, a Chrome extension that lets you open recently closed tabs, jump to open tabs, and group related tabs together.

We've all been there before—you open up Wikipedia for a five-minute break, and two hours later you have 30 tabs open. TabJump is a great tab manager for Google Chrome, that sits in the address bar and organizes all your open and recently closed tabs, so you can easily navigate through your sea of open pages. Your open tabs are organized into two colums, one of which shows the tabs related to the one currently in focus, so you can quickly jump between open pages from the same site. You can also lock certain pages, protecting them from accidental closure. If you try to close a locked tab, you'll get a popup message from Chrome asking you if you are sure, preventing you from losing what was really important out of all those open tabs.

Chrome: FreshStart is an easy to use session manager for Google Chrome that allows you to save and organize your tabs between sessions.

Once you've installed FreshStart the small green and blue icon you see in the screenshot above appears in your menu bar. At anytime you can click on the icon to save the current set of tabs—with the option to exclude tabs by unchecking them—or restoring a previous session.

Your sessions are saved locally in the FreshStart bookmarks folder and synced to the cloud via Google Chrome's bookmark sync feature—if you have the featured enabled.

Chrome: FreshStart is an easy to use session manager for Google Chrome that allows you to save and organize your tabs between sessions.

Once you've installed FreshStart the small green and blue icon you see in the screenshot above appears in your menu bar. At anytime you can click on the icon to save the current set of tabs—with the option to exclude tabs by unchecking them—or restoring a previous session.

Your sessions are saved locally in the FreshStart bookmarks folder and synced to the cloud via Google Chrome's bookmark sync feature—if you have the featured enabled.

FreshStart is a free extension and works wherever Google Chrome does. Have a favorite Google Chrome extension or a Firefox extension you can't wait to see ported to Chrome? Let's hear about it in the comments.

Windows: Google just pushed an update to the stable channel of Chrome on Windows, bringing support for extensions and bookmark syncing to everyone who isn't living on the bleeding edge of Chrome.

The major features in this release (officially labeled 4.0.249.78—uh, we'll just call it 4.0):

Windows: Google just pushed an update to the stable channel of Chrome on Windows, bringing support for extensions and bookmark syncing to everyone who isn't living on the bleeding edge of Chrome.

The major features in this release (officially labeled 4.0.249.78—uh, we'll just call it 4.0):

Google Chrome: Google Voice Notifier, one of the 18 extensions we loved at launch, has seen a major update. It now converts phone numbers on the web to automatic dialing links, and initiates calls and text messages from a drop-down box.

The extension previously did little more than notify Google Voice users of the number of unread SMS messages and voicemails sitting in their inbox, as well as doing a little spin animation when updated and opening the inbox when clicked. In the new version, nearly any phone number in a recognizable format is converted into a click-able link. Hit that number, and a pop-up box asks you which phone you want to connect to. Oddly enough, it doesn't work on Google Maps results, where I'd kind of most want that behavior, but does work from Google search results.

Firefox: Sick of having to start a completely new session (and get rid of your old one) just for private browsing? Firefox extension Private Browsing Window starts your private session in a new window without closing old ones, like Chrome's Incognito Window.

It's not quite as smooth as Chrome's Incognito Windows, but it works pretty well. Private Browsing Window essentially starts a new instance of Firefox alongside your existing session, with a new profile in which Private Browsing is enabled. You don't have all your old bookmarks or preferences in your new private window, but you don't have to end your non-private session, which is certainly convenient. This feature replaces the old Private Browsing feature in the Tools menu and adds a small shortcut in the bottom right corner of your screen. Note that this add-on requires the latest and greatest Firefox 3.6 to run, so if you haven't updated, what are you waiting for?

Private Browsing Window is free and works wherever Firefox 3.6 does. Thanks, Jason!

Windows only: Portable utility FlashCookiesView displays a list of those hidden Flash cookies that web sites use to track where you are going, and allows you to easily delete them.

We've already explained how to clean up Flash cookies in our guide to browsing without leaving a trace, but FlashCookiesView makes viewing and deleting the cookies extremely simple no matter what browser you're using—just open the utility, and you'll see a list of cookies you can view or delete. You'll want to note that even when you use private browsing mode, Flash cookies are still tracking you across sessions—in the screenshot above, the offending cookie was generated in Google Chrome's private browsing mode.

FlashCookiesView is a free download for Windows only, but be sure to read our guide to browsing without a trace for an automated method to clean them up.

Windows/Mac/Linux (Chrome): It's okay to fit a little social networking and not-quite-job-related news reading into your day, but mental limits are hard to stick to. StayFocusd sets timers on the sites you know are addictive, then blocks them when time's up.

Rather than set individual time limits for each site, StayFocusd asks for a total amount of time you want to let yourself spend on all your non-productive sites. Kind of a clever restriction to have, because you just know you'd be heading right over to Twitter once your Facebook timer ran out, and vice-versa. StayFocusd does get specific on site URLs, though. You can timer-block the entirety of Reddit, for example, but leave the link submission section open for use throughout the day.

StayFocusd is a free download, works wherever Chrome Extensions do. For a similar strategy of blocking and controlling time-sink sites on Firefox, check out our guide to saving yourself with LeechBlock.