Check out these Chrome Web Store Gems to stay productive and entertained at home

While 2020 has come and thankfully gone, and Chrome extensions have created a lot of problems for users recently, they’re not all bad. Yes, there are bad actors out there, but yes, Google is doing its best to fight against that and protect users. In an effort to point users toward extensions that are worth using and trustworthy, Google has published a ‘Chrome Web Store Gems of 2020’. The goal with these is to give users a kickstart for exploring extensions related to productivity and working from home, so be sure to explore more once you install a few.

We actually missed this one and while 2020 is over, the extensions they’ve chosen to spotlight bring a lot of value in 2021 since we’re all still stuck at home so we wanted to bring attention to a few of them specifically. This month, my favorite two have been OctoShop and Noisli. Let us know in the comments if you’re interested in any of these or if you use any of them already! If you’re of the mindset to avoid extensions entirely thanks to all of this bad news lately regarding them, tell us more.

OctoShop

Octoshop is actually more popular than ever. If you’re like me and the rest of the world and are still trying your hardest to get your hands on a Playstation 5, Octoshop allows you to track products across different websites like Best Buy, Target, Walmart and more. You can even be notified when Sony’s official Playstation 5 direct opens up to sell the console! If you do use this, be certain to mask out a specific price when tracking Amazon though, so that you don’t get fooled by scalpers.

Noisli

Noisli is your digital space for focus. You can enable background sounds like rain, thunderstorms, a coffee shop and more. It’s got a clean and simple interface and even changes colors the longer it sits on your screen! You can change the sounds that play based on your mood or goal such as relaxing or being productive. This is one of my favorite noise makers.

Battle Tabs!

Bite-sided gameplay in your new tab page featuring Vikings and ships! Fight against your friends or random people each time you open a new tab and even queue up multiple matches in between studying or working. Battle Tabs makes me wish we had more new tab page games – it’s a clever way to make use of some dead space.

Additor

Additor helps you organize bookmarks and highlights from web articles, blogs, PDFs, and more. Create notes, an online wiki, and even collaborate with others! This extension is pretty awesome – it’s powerful, yet simple. My favorite feature is that you can collect Youtube videos and more into notes.

More Web Store Gems

• Zoom Scheduler – Schedule Zoom meetings directly from Google Calendar
• Scener – The Watch Party platform that puts the theater in your hands. Disney+ and other streaming services have begun to implement something similar to this, but Scener started the group watching experience!
• Todoist for Chrome – Organize work and life with Todoist for Chrome
• Notebook Web Clipper – Clear the clutter. Clip the web. Save to Notebook.
• Unsplash for Chrome – Quickly search and insert beautiful free photos from Unsplash on any web page.
• Intelligent Speaker – FREE smart reader, runs on leading tts engine. Convert files, blog posts, and more to speech. Listen on any device.
• Huntr: Job Search Tracker – Collect, track and manage your job applications from across the web.
• Hugo – Easily prepare for meetings and take notes in your browser with Hugo for Chrome.

Visit the Chrome Web Store