The web is rife with annoyances. Pop-over ads when you visit a page that you have to dismiss, sites that auto-play audio even in background tabs, pages that reload and take all the text you entered with it, they all suck. Here are some browser add-ons that make the web a better place for everyone.
👀Behind the Overlay (Chrome/Firefox) We covered it a while ago, and it still works like a charm, whether that pop-over display is one of those annoying “yes, that’s great/no, I hate nice things” ads, or any other pop-over, like the kind begging you to sign up or in.
🎥Magic Actions (Chrome/Firefox/Opera) YouTube is full of entertaining videos, but it’s certainly one of the most annoying web sites. From abysmal commenters to annoying (but easily disabled) overlays and random resolutions, it can be a pain to get everything the way you want it—and then one change may undo your preferences on another system. Magic Actions fixes all of that. In addition to making sure any videos that can play in HD (or better yet, 4K) do so, Magic Actions also suppresses ads which you may or may not want to do. kills YouTube comment sections, lets you control the volume with your mousewheel, and adds a cinema mode that cuts the cruft and lets you focus on the video you’re watching. All in all, it gives you a YouTube experience that’s more like a media player than a video portal. Plus, it’s one of our favorite Chrome extensions in general, even though it’s also available for Firefox and Opera.
🔎Imagus (Chrome/Firefox)
Tiny thumbnails that don’t open to large images—or worse, only open to large images in the same page or open links instead of larger views—are annoying, and previously mentioned Imagus (available for Chrome and Firefox) fixes them. Instead, just hover your mouse over an image you want to see in a larger view, and it’ll pop up, nice and big so you can inspect it.We used to recommend Hover Zoom for things like this, but ever since a ton of useful Chrome extensions went to the dark side, we can’t anymore, and Imagus is a suitable replacement.
⛔Social Fixer (Chrome/Firefox/Opera/Safari)
If you install one browser extension that’ll make your Facebook experience leaps and bounds better, it should be Social Fixer. We’ve highlighted it several times, shown you how to use it to clean political posts from Facebook, re-order your news feed with it, always see recent posts and easily find posts you’ve interacted with, hide sponsored posts and pages, filter your news feed so you don’t miss important news, and more. If there’s something about Facebook that annoys you, odds are Social Fixer can handle it. Of course, if you’re not a fan, or need an alternative, you can also check out F.B. Purity, available for all the same browsers, and another tool we’ve highlighted before.
🔕uBlock Origin (Chrome/Firefox)
The fact that this site keeps the engine running thanks to ads doesn’t mean that we don’t know that ads are some of the most annoying parts of the web. Maybe they take over entire pages, or they bump your browser around when you’re trying to read or click. Maybe they auto-play or block the page you’re reading until you can dismiss them. Maybe they just slow down your browser. We feel that pain, and uBlock Origin is our favorite ad blocker for Chrome and Firefox and Opera—not just because it gets the job done easily enough, but because it’s incredibly powerful and customizable.
uBlock Origin lets you control what elements load, which don’t, what ads you see, and what you suppress. You can customize it to your heart’s content, and it’s faster and more lightweight than Adblock Plus or Ghostery, each of which have their own problems with selling ads or partnering with ad companies. If you’d like an alternative, consider Disconnect, a browser extension that doesn’t block ads, but does preserve your privacy by blocking tracking—and the only ads it actively blocks are malvertising, which you want to block anyway.
Here is the whole article with 10 lifesavers to help make your internet time less stressful.
Lifehacker top 10
👀Behind the Overlay (Chrome/Firefox) We covered it a while ago, and it still works like a charm, whether that pop-over display is one of those annoying “yes, that’s great/no, I hate nice things” ads, or any other pop-over, like the kind begging you to sign up or in.
🎥Magic Actions (Chrome/Firefox/Opera) YouTube is full of entertaining videos, but it’s certainly one of the most annoying web sites. From abysmal commenters to annoying (but easily disabled) overlays and random resolutions, it can be a pain to get everything the way you want it—and then one change may undo your preferences on another system. Magic Actions fixes all of that. In addition to making sure any videos that can play in HD (or better yet, 4K) do so, Magic Actions also suppresses ads which you may or may not want to do. kills YouTube comment sections, lets you control the volume with your mousewheel, and adds a cinema mode that cuts the cruft and lets you focus on the video you’re watching. All in all, it gives you a YouTube experience that’s more like a media player than a video portal. Plus, it’s one of our favorite Chrome extensions in general, even though it’s also available for Firefox and Opera.
🔎Imagus (Chrome/Firefox)
Tiny thumbnails that don’t open to large images—or worse, only open to large images in the same page or open links instead of larger views—are annoying, and previously mentioned Imagus (available for Chrome and Firefox) fixes them. Instead, just hover your mouse over an image you want to see in a larger view, and it’ll pop up, nice and big so you can inspect it.We used to recommend Hover Zoom for things like this, but ever since a ton of useful Chrome extensions went to the dark side, we can’t anymore, and Imagus is a suitable replacement.
⛔Social Fixer (Chrome/Firefox/Opera/Safari)
If you install one browser extension that’ll make your Facebook experience leaps and bounds better, it should be Social Fixer. We’ve highlighted it several times, shown you how to use it to clean political posts from Facebook, re-order your news feed with it, always see recent posts and easily find posts you’ve interacted with, hide sponsored posts and pages, filter your news feed so you don’t miss important news, and more. If there’s something about Facebook that annoys you, odds are Social Fixer can handle it. Of course, if you’re not a fan, or need an alternative, you can also check out F.B. Purity, available for all the same browsers, and another tool we’ve highlighted before.
🔕uBlock Origin (Chrome/Firefox)
The fact that this site keeps the engine running thanks to ads doesn’t mean that we don’t know that ads are some of the most annoying parts of the web. Maybe they take over entire pages, or they bump your browser around when you’re trying to read or click. Maybe they auto-play or block the page you’re reading until you can dismiss them. Maybe they just slow down your browser. We feel that pain, and uBlock Origin is our favorite ad blocker for Chrome and Firefox and Opera—not just because it gets the job done easily enough, but because it’s incredibly powerful and customizable.
uBlock Origin lets you control what elements load, which don’t, what ads you see, and what you suppress. You can customize it to your heart’s content, and it’s faster and more lightweight than Adblock Plus or Ghostery, each of which have their own problems with selling ads or partnering with ad companies. If you’d like an alternative, consider Disconnect, a browser extension that doesn’t block ads, but does preserve your privacy by blocking tracking—and the only ads it actively blocks are malvertising, which you want to block anyway.
Here is the whole article with 10 lifesavers to help make your internet time less stressful.
Lifehacker top 10