Google Chrome in every sense has become an extension of many who spend a lot of time on the internet. Everything seems faster and the installation of an app doesn't need a restart. Just a refresh works great if its a content specific app. Over the course of many years, after rolling in and out of hundreds of extensions, I find myself content with a set. They are always at work. So much so, that I take them for granted. Here's the list of my top chrome extensions in no particular order.
Auto-Replay for YouTube
You hit upon a song on YouTube and you can't seem to get enough. This app ends up showing you a tiny check-box right below the video. Select it and the video repeats to eternity.Chrome Currency Converter
The holy grail of any ardent online shopper. I often shop online at international websites like Amazon since I often have a free way of getting my shipment to India. Amazon UK provides free shipping on selected items by the way. My usual way to shop would be to look it up and then do a quick Google calculation ( Try googling for '64 GBP in INR'). This app saves all that hassle.Install it, select the currency of your choice and it automatically displays the value you in your selected currency. Invaluable.Evernote web clipper
If you haven't heard of Evernote, you're already missing out. But it's never too late. Evernote lets you collect. Everything. Its like a personal assistant whom you could query anytime for stuff you thought was useful when you read it sometime last year. Its that faithful. Evernote web clipper helps you helps clip web content with a single click. A simple auto-complete will finish the tags up. For example, while planning a vacation last year, I hit upon a ton of destinations, organizers and so on and I tagged them with the word 'Vacation'. A year later, I can still bring that whole list up and help anyone with their holiday planning blues.goo.gl URL shortner
Ever had to pass a really long URL out only to realize its gotten truncated and isn't valid anymore? goo.gl URL shortner comes to the rescue. It sits along side your address bar and when you hit upon a URL you need to pass, just click on the app's icon. It shortens it up and lets you copy it with another link. Saves a ton of agony if you post often on listhost based mailers or messengers.Send from Gmail
Xmarks bookmark organizer
Your bookmarks are yours to keep. No matter which browser you use. Xmarks automatically synchronizes your bookmarks across all the browsers its installed in. Your bookmarks are synced via the Xmarks server. So a crashed computer doesn't make you lose any. It works seamlessly on the background. It can also synchronize your passwords and open tabs. You can chose what you wish to sync ofcourse. I tried the Chrome's inbuilt browser sync for this once and it completely messed up the entire collection. Xmarks works like a charm every time.India Rail Info
This app only works with indiarailinfo.com, but it does what it says really well. The app is needed by the website to show you live status of any train across India in realtime. I happen to stumble upon while a friend of mine was stuck at a railway station. It lets you know which station it's just left and approximately the time in which it is expected at the next one. I couldn't find a link really, so just drop into indiarailinfo.com and the site should prompt you to add the extension.Facebook notifications
I mostly check Facebook to see responses. This extension shows a small pop-up screen indicating an activity in the Facebook notifier. So you never really have to be logged into Facebook with an eye on the tab title.Here's a couple of them for the web-developer in you. Great little extensions which help you debug your designs, show you where the lags are and much more. You could reverse engineer an entire website with these.
Speed Tracer
It helps fix issues in your web applications. Besides letting you know exactly which action has taken up how much a time in page render, it points you to issues with your javascripts, layout issues and the like.FireBug Lite
Its called FireBug Lite for a reason. Its Mozilla equivalent does much more than this can. I often end up switching to Firefox just to use all its bells and whistles. Nevertheless, a good extension to narrow down on issues quickly.