By Elise O’Keefe

Chrome extensions can be extremely useful in making your life easier.an extension that gives feedback on your writing, there are many other extensions that can be useful for school.Here are some of my tops picks for free Chrome extensions: 

1. Momentum 

Momentum is an extension that customizes your initial chrome tabs. Whenever you open a new tab, you will be greeted by multiple useful features. On the bottom, it gives you an inspirational quote, which allows you to find new quotes for motivation during these tiring times of the coronavirus pandemic. I personally have started a note in my notes app where I write down the ones that stand out to me, which over the years has allowed me to discover new voices. There is also an option to add a daily goal in the middle. It can be anything you would like, and every time you open a new tab for the day, you will be shown this goal. This can help remind you of something you need to keep in mind. If you have more than one goal for the day, three is an additional option to create a todo list. This is helpful in keeping track and reminding you of upcoming events or assignments. Additionally, the background image switches each day to a photo of nature, featuring high quality images from all around the world! 

2. uTab

Have you ever logged onto your computer at 8:59 for a morning class? Maybe you overslept, or maybe you got caught up in finishing a homework assignment. Either way, uTab is a great feature to keep key websites easily accessible. You can pin as many websites as you like, allowing the simple opening of a new tab to have Gmail, Canvas, Zoom, or any other important website to be one click away. This can save time if you are running late, or just save time when you have a lot of work to do. You can make this organized by creating folders, and can also help your computer battery by not forcing you to keep tons of tabs open.  

3. The Great Suspender 

Adding on to the previous extension, The Great Suspender also helps with tab overloads. If you have tons of tabs open, this extension will automatically make them stop running constantly in order to save computer memory and battery. However, this does not mean it will close them or make your progress lost. It is solely temporary, and just by clicking the suspended tab, your work will reappear. It is also customizable in settings, and you can edit how quickly it will automatically suspend a tab. 

4. Picture-in-picture

Have you ever screened your computer in order to take notes on a Youtube video? By downloading Picture-in-picture, you can make notetaking far easier. Picture-in-picture creates a small video in the corner of your screen, allowing you to simultaneously have a full-screen Google Doc and still be able to see the full video (just in a smaller form). This saves so much time when taking notes, and also makes it easier to watch the video and take notes at the same time. It can additionally be used for other platforms besides Youtube, such as Netflix. 

5. Read Aloud

Some people learn better by listening, and if that is what works for you then I suggest trying out Read Aloud. Read Aloud allows you to listen to any article on the internet simply by clicking on the extension. It will automatically read it to you in a Siri like voice, and you can still follow along on the article page while listening. This can be helpful for longer assignments, or when you are doing hours of research and feeling tired.