What browser extensions do you consider essential?

[JohnyBlue]

Something I keep seeing asked and never getting a decent answer.

The boring answer is often the right one but people want something more dramatic.

Any experience is useful, even if it is just to say you tried it and it was not worth it.

The nuance is always in the detail and that is exactly what gets lost when these topics get summarised.

Interested in real answers rather than the obvious ones

[Shannon91]

From what I saw that checks out. This feels like one of those topics where the longer term effect matters more than the daily noise.

Curious to see how this develops.

I always check startup items and background processes first

[IronQuarry48]

Something I keep seeing asked and never getting a decent answer. The boring answer is often the right one but people want something more dra

Not sure that is universally true. A lot of stuff sounds good until you actually spend a few hours with it.

Definitely worth picking up

[Shannon91]

Feels like the right read on it. A lot depends on who is making the claim and what they are trying to sell alongside it.

Worth keeping an eye on.

An SSD upgrade is still the single biggest performance gain on most older machines

[Brett42]

Not sure I am fully with you on that one. Nice one.

I always check startup items and background processes first

[Rogue Sam]

Seems like it from what I have seen. It is worth looking at who benefits from a particular framing before accepting it.

That is my read on it anyway.

Software bloat is half the problem and it gets worse with every update

[Aura49]

uBlock Origin is the one extension I'd install before almost anything else. It makes browsing cleaner, faster, and far less distracting without needing endless tweaking.

After that, a good password manager extension is probably the biggest quality-of-life improvement. Having unique passwords everywhere is much easier when you don't have to remember them all.

Beyond those two, every extra extension has to justify its place.

[Dave96]

Dark Reader has become one of those tools I miss the moment it's gone. Reading bright websites late in the evening is a lot more comfortable, especially when a site doesn't offer its own dark mode.

It isn't perfect on every page, but it's surprisingly good most of the time.

Simple, practical, and something I end up using every day.

[VidiTechnica]

Less is more when it comes to browser extensions. Every extension has permission to do something, and every one adds a little complexity.

A content blocker, a password manager, and maybe a translator are enough for most people.

The temptation is installing twenty little helpers that each save five seconds while collectively slowing the browser down.