Chrome: Twitter is a great source for news, articles, and a good way to stay in touch with friends, but if your friends are obsessed with some annoying celebrity that you have no desire to read about, Purge Twitter Trends is a Chrome extension that strips specific celebrity trending topics from your feed so you can read in peace without being forced to unfollow them. More »

Chrome: If Chrome's built-in new tab page looks a little plain to you, or if you like the look of Microsoft's Metro UI, MySites is a Chrome extension that changes the new tab page into a start page decorated with a web search bar and colorful tiles that you can click to go straight to your most commonly accessed sites and favorites. More »

Chrome: Whatever you use private browsing for, sometimes you want to start your secret browsing from the page you're already on. Incognito This moves your current page to a new incognito window, so you can continue browsing privately without starting from scratch. More »

Gmail is Google's golden child, but it isn't perfect. It's full of numerous user interface elements you don't necessarily want or need and there's no way to turn them off. Gmelius offers you a way out of ads, the people bar, and more while also making Gmail easier to navigate. It's a great extension, it's free, and can dramatically improve your experience in less than a minute. More »

Chrome: Most of you use RSS regularly, but also note it's pretty annoying to stumble on an RSS feed that truncates the article for the sole purpose of getting you to click the link and leave your RSS reader. We feel your pain, and Google Reader Inline is a Chrome Extension that lets you read the full article without leaving Google Reader to do it. More »

Chrome: We've mentioned lots of ways to keep your bookmarks in sync across browsers and across computers, but if your bookmarks are older than your choice of browser, it might be time to clean them up, get rid of any duplicates you may have, and get rid of any old, dead links that you may have lurking in an old bookmarks folder from way back. Bookmark Sentry for Chrome does just that. More »

Although there are tons of awesome Chrome themes available in the Chrome Web Store, perhaps you want a more personalized look for your browser. My Chrome Theme is one of the simplest tools to customize Chrome's appearance, such as the background image and tab colors. More »

Chrome: The New York Times is lowering its free article allowance from 20 articles per month to 10. Make those 10 page views more pleasant with Ochs, a Chrome extension that slims down the toolbars, brings high-res art out front, and puts the focus on the reading.More »

Chrome: If you prefer a simplified, clutter-free interface for your RSS feeds, Google Reader Readable is an extension that cuts all the clutter and displays single posts from your feed in a clean, minimal layout.More »

With each update, Facebook has gotten incrementally more cluttered, perplexing, and ornery—and I'm not even talking about all your annoying acquaintances flooding it with inane status updates. Yet, at the same time, it's become a tool few of us can live without. If Facebook has you on your last nerve, here's how to fix some of its biggest annoyances in a matter of minutes—and with only one new addition to your browser. More »

Security is one of our core values, alongside speed, stability and simplicity. From day one, we’ve designed Chrome’s extension system with security in mind. Since we launched the extension system, the state of the art in web security has advanced with technologies like Content-Security-Policy (CSP). Extension developers have been able to opt into these features, and now we’re enabling these security features by default.

Unfortunately, securing extensions with CSP by default is incompatible with the legacy extension system. We’re passionate about extension compatibility, so we’re going to make this change gradually to minimize pain for users and developers.

Users can continue to install extensions that are available in the store regardless of whether they are secured with CSP or not. This means they will not lose any of the functionality they've added to Chrome.

Developers will be able to choose when to enable the new behavior. To ease the transition, we've introduced a new manifest version attribute in the extension manifest in Chrome 18 (currently in beta). When a developer updates his or her extension to use manifest_version 2, Chrome will enforce the following CSP policy by default:

script-src 'self'; object-src 'self' 

This policy imposes the following restrictions on extensions:

1. Extensions can no longer use inline scripts, such as 
   
   . Instead, extensions must use out-of-line scripts loaded from within their package, such as 
   . 
2. Extensions can no longer use eval(). Note: If you’re using eval to parse JSON today, we suggest using JSON.parse instead. 
3. Extensions can load plug-ins, such as SWF files, only from within their package or from a whitelist of HTTPS hosts. 

A recent study from researchers at UC Berkeley suggested that these restrictions, taken together, would substantially improve the security of the extension system:

These defenses are extremely effective: adopting one of the recommended CSPs would prevent 96% (49 out of 51) of the core extension vulnerabilities we found. 

For most extensions, updating them to manifest_version 2 will require the developer to move inline scripts out-of-line and to move scripts loaded from the network into the extension package. Developers are not required to update their extensions to manifest_version 2 immediately, but, over time, more of the extension ecosystem will encourage developers to update their extensions. For example, at some point, we’ll likely start requiring new extensions uploaded to the web store to use manifest_version 2. You can find a complete list of changes and more details about CSP in the extension documentation.

It's no secret that there's big money to be made in violating your privacy. Companies will pay big bucks to learn more about you, and service providers on the web are eager to get their hands on as much information about you as possible. More »

Chrome: Text This To Me is a Chrome add-on that allows you to quickly send yourself SMS messages from your browser with links, notes, and other snippets of text with a single click. Whether you just want to send yourself a URL to open on your phone's browser, or you want to remind yourself to pick up the milk on the way home, Text This To Me gives you a quick way to do it without installing anything on your device. More »

Chrome: If you're a designer or just curious to see what fonts are used on your favorite web sites, the free Chrome extension ‘What's the font?' reveals this information easily. After installing the extension you just need to right-click the highlighted text with the font you want to identify and choose the menu option for ‘What's the font?'. More »

Chrome: Most feed readers default to a long list of headlines and articles with a folder-like navigation tree on the left to help you sift through your feeds and unread posts. It works, but FeedSquares is a Chrome extension that connects to Google Reader and uses tiles to display your feeds instead. Highlighted and off-axis tiles indicate new topics, and you can click any tile to see the posts for that feed, and any article to bring up the full text. More »

Chrome: Bookolio customizes the new tab page to make it more useful. The extension gives you instant access to all your bookmarks and sites you visit the most, as well as quick switching between all types of search engines. More »

Chrome: We've discussed the 20-20-20 Rule before, where every 20 minutes you take a 20 second break and look at an object 20 feet away to relieve eyestrain and rest your eyes. The 20 Cubed add-on for Chrome will automatically remind you to take those breaks so you don't have to set your own timer. More »

2011 was a big year for Google Chrome and all of its users. There are more Chrome users out there than ever before, and tons of great Chrome extensions to add functionality, privacy, and other services to your browser. Here are the most popular Google Chrome-related posts, extensions, and add-ons at Lifehacker during 2011. More »

Chrome: fPrivacy is a new Chrome add-on that gives you granular control over the permissions that Facebook apps request when you add them to or authorize them to access your account. For example, if you add a Facebook app and you're not too comfortable with the app's ability to post to your wall, or access your data at any time, you can deny those specific permissions while granting the other ones required for the app to function. More »

Have you ever wondered what advertising sites track your web browsing? Sheepish is an extension for Chrome that shows you exactly which companies are keeping an eye on you for every site you visit and blocks them from doing so.More »