Depending on the nature of your work online — be it reading or creating something new — web browser extensions can be invaluable. With the growing influence of the converged web experience across devices over the cloud, the following five extensions can help ensure a seamless experience. But do note here that the extensions might take some amount of real-estate next to the address field on your browser. Those who access the web on devices with slightly smaller displays may find them a bit intrusive. Adding too many extensions, rather than just the useful ones, might disrupt the experience.
Evernote: There are several note-taking applications out there but in terms of flexibility and ease of use, Evernote is currently at the top of the tree. The best thing about Evernote is that it is available across platforms as an App on App Stores of all leading mobile OS and as a desktop Application on the Windows and Mac, and users can sync their content over the cloud. Its ‘Web Clipper’ works great as a browser extension or add-on and is available for all leading browsers — Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari — and is useful to create notes out of the web pages.
This can be particularly useful for journalists and researchers who do a lot of reading. For example, I maintain several notebooks on my Evernote account (you can create an account for free by logging on to www.evernote.com) on several topics that I follow. For example, I have a specific notebook that I maintain on my Evernote account titled ‘Technology Leads’ in which I keep clipping web pages when I do my reading online. By syncing it on to my smartphone, I can revisit the notes whenever I feel like it.
Evernote offers both a free service for casual users with limited cloud storage and a paid service for power users with substantial storage space. The service has a >blog, in which innovative uses of Evernote has been highlighted.
Pocket: Previously called ‘Read it Later,’ Pocket is one of the most effective bookmarks management and offline reading tools that makes the web experience even offline. One of the challenges for people who check their Twitter or Facebook feeds on their mobile devices is that they may not be able to check on the embedded web pages comfortably in smaller displays. Often plenty of news articles are distributed on social networks. One convenient way to store them and read them later is by installing the plug-in. While on desktop, just bookmark a webpage you would like to read later. Over the cloud, Pocket will store and push it on demand to any other smart device you would want to access the page, be it your phone or tablet. Like Evernote, Pocket too is available across platforms. Check getpocket.com/apps.
Shareaholic: One of the central activities on the web today is sharing content on social networks. There are the popular uber pervasive social networks such as Facebook and Twitter but there are also several hundreds of niche social networks that are gaining traction with users all the time. The Shareaholic extension is a single-stop entry point to literally the entire universe of social networks across the web. By installing just this one extension, you stand to save a lot of space on your browser.
For bloggers, Shareaholic also has a powerful analytics tool that will help users understand the length and breadth of the reach of their content and the networks where it is gaining the most traction. Visit http://www.shareaholic.com/ to learn more about this extension.
Ginger: This is the odd one on this list but one I would recommend the most. One of the big complaints about the digital natives of today — people who text rather than write — is that they do not care much about spelling or grammar. This often leads to mistakes that make their way to LOL forums.
With Ginger, not only are the spellings checked but also the contextual grammar. Ginger is available across platforms and devices and also as a web browser plug-in. Visit www.gingersoftware.com to learn more.
