- Hello, my name is Thomas Frank
and I have a browser tab problem.
I just can't seem to help myself from having 50
or 80 browser tabs open at one time
and completely taking up all my computer's ram,
which is why I now have this little extension
that automatically hides the browser tabs I'm not using
and groups them into projects, and that's not all?
Today we're gonna break down 10
of the best browser extensions out there
for boosting your productivity.
And this video is sponsored by Hover.
So we're gonna focus mainly on Chrome in this video
since it is the most popular browser out there
and it's the one that I happen to use,
but if you're using something else like Firefox or Safari
fear not, a lot of these extensions are on multiple browsers
so when I call each one out you're gonna see some icons
to show which of the major browsers
that extension is also on.
So with all of that out of the way
let's get into our first extension,
the one that I teased in the intro, called Workona.
This is probably my new favorite extension on Chrome
because to make a bit of an admission here
I'm a really bad tab hoarder.
My friends love to make fun of the fact
that I often have 50 or 100 tabs open,
but that's just my nature.
I always have multiple research projects going on
and before I know it the browser header bar
on my computer screen is just this unintelligible mess
of tiny slivers of tabs.
I can't even see what they are at that point
and that's the problem
that Workona helps people like me to solve.
It basically gives you this dashboard
where you can create multiple projects
and then group your tabs into those projects.
Now if you've watched my past videos
you've probably heard me talk about an extension
called TabCopy,
which lets me basically copy all the tab links
to my clipboard, but I gotta say this is better.
In addition to letting you do that,
if you wanna just paste your links somewhere else,
it also saves all of your tabs in organized projects
and you can even close those tabs
after saving them as resources
so you can keep a bunch of different websites
in a specific project without having to keep them open.
You can also switch between projects
and Workona actually suspends the tabs that you're not using
and hides them if they're not an open project
so you only see what is relevant to the project
that you're working on.
So basically Workona makes context switching
a lot better within Chrome but it also encourages you
to be working on one specific project at a time
because you know the grouping of tabs you have open
are only related to that project.
Our next extension is called Habitica Pomodoro SiteKeeper,
which is kind of a mouthful
but it is now my pomodor app of choice.
So, if you're unfamiliar with the pomodoro technique,
I've got a whole video on it
and I'll link to that down in the description below,
but in short it is probably the most effective
and easiest to use productivity technique out there.
You simply pick a task you wanna work on,
set a timer, an actual timer for 25 minutes,
and work on just that task during the duration
then you take a break
and because you're using an external timer to guide you
and because you're reframing your task
as work for just 25 minutes, it's an extremely effective way
to get over the resistance you feel to doing a tough task.
I use pomodoro sessions all the time
to get myself doing things that I don't want to actually do.
And I've tested a lot of pomodoro apps out there.
This is now my favorite one
because I use a habit tracker called Habitica.
Now, if you haven't used Habitica before
it uses RPG and video game elements
to sort of build a habit-tracking app
that keeps you a bit more motivated to track your habits,
especially if you're a nerd like me.
But I will note that even if you're not into the RPG stuff,
Habitica is a fantastic habit-tracking app,
possibly one of the best out there
because it's open source,
which means it has a ton of advanced features
that don't cost anything
where other apps that have similar features
always want you to pay, which is pretty nice.
And in keeping with that way of doing things
this extension for pomodoro timing
has a lot of cool features
that a lot of other pomodoro apps that I've seen
want you to pay for, like tracking your pomodoro stats.
A lot of 'em want you to pay for that.
This one does it for free
and it does a few other cool things as well,
namely it connects to Habitica
and adds pomodoro-based habits to your habit tracking.
It also has a site blocker
so you can add whatever sites you want to its block list
and during pomodoro sessions
all of those sites are gonna be blocked.
You can also add costs to websites
and if you add a cost to a website
it's gonna be blocked all the time,
even outside of pomodoro sessions
and you can get into them for a limited amount of time
by paying gold from Habitica.
Now, personally I love having this extension
connected to Habitica since I use the crap out of it,
but if you don't happen to use that
or you want something a little less nerdy,
there is another extension called Tide,
which has a pomodoro timer,
it's got the stat keeping for free,
it's got the site blocker, so it's very similar
but it doesn't have the Habitica connections.
So check that out as an alternative.
Next up on our list is an extension called AudioBlogs,
which translates written articles into podcast narrations
that you can send to your phone,
which are narrated by a scarily good AI narration algorithm.
This thing is way better than it has any right to be
and I have never heard a text-to-speech algorithm
that works anywhere near as good as this thing.
Sometimes it gets inflections wrong,
sometimes it's a little wonky,
but 95% of the time it's perfectly listenable.
- [Narrator] This guide was originally published
in March 2012.
Since then, hundreds of students and even non-students
have created their own personal websites using it.
- And the reason I have this on my list is because for me
one of my top priorities and values in life
is daily, low-level movements, walks and bike rides
in addition to my sessions in the gym
and more intense exercise.
For me, this is a non-negotiable priority in my life
and when I go for these walks and bike rides
I love to listen to usually audiobooks
so I can keep learning or keep myself entertained
while I'm out on them.
Right now I'm actually listening to a book
called Walkable City,
which is kind of making me hate the way we Americans
design our cities, but I digress.
Sometimes, I'm on my computer, I come across an article,
and I wanna read that
but I also wanna go out for a walk or a bike ride.
So AudioBlogs let's me turn that article
into a podcast narration
and listen to it while I do that.
Next up on our list we've got uBlock Origin,
which is a great lightweight ad-blocking extension
for most browsers.
There are a lot of ad blockers out there.
I like uBlock Origin because it is again lightweight,
it doesn't use a lot of resources,
and if you want you can add sites to a white list
so you can support them and see their ads if you trust them.
But I have long held that an ad-blocking extension
is almost as necessary for computer security
as an antivirus program and here is why.
A lot of website owners do not place their own ads.
They have third party ad placement extensions
that they put on their pages
and they trust the third party to place those ads
and there have been many instances
where those third party networks have placed ads
that contain malware or exploits.
So I am not going to trust my computer security
to every website in the world that I happen to go to.
I use an ad blocker as a default
and then I white list sites if I trust them.
And one other really nice thing
that uBlock Origin let's me do is add filters,
which can block certain elements of websites.
For instance, that what's happening section on Twitter
is always full of these like sensationalist headlines
that just suck me in and waste a ton of my time.
I never wanna see what's happening on Twitter ever again
and luckily in the my filters section of uBlock Origin
I can paste this little line of code
and that is exactly what happens.
It gets hidden and that is just. (chef's kiss)
Readwise, the next extension on our list is Readwise
and if you've seen my previous videos
you will know that I absolutely love Readwise.
This is a wonderful highlighter app
that allows you to make highlights from Kindle books,
from podcast episodes, from actual print books
if you use their phone app with the camera
and the built-in text recognition feature
and in anything that you read on the internet.
With the extension installed,
all you need to do is highlight some text, right-click,
and send that highlight to Readwise.
This is a great way to keep a collection
of the things that you want to remember.
If you saw my iPad productivity video
from a couple of months ago
you will know that I talked about an app called Command
on the iPad,
which is a browser that let's you make highlights
that actually stay on the webpage even if you refresh
and then automatically sends those highlights
over to Readwise, which is freakin' sweet
and I really wish that Command was on desktop browsers.
Unfortunately, it's not but for now
we at least have the Readwise extension
which while it won't leave those highlights on the webpage
will send them to your Readwise account
and if you have one of their sync options turned on
can send the highlights over to RemNote or Rome Research
or if you're like me, to Notion.
And while we're talking about Readwise
we also have to talk about Pocket,
which is the next extension on our list.
Unlike Readwise, Pocket is an extension
that just lets you save webpages.
Readwise really wants you to make a selection
and kind of save a snippet of text.
Pocket is just for like eh,
I wanna save this cool webpage that I found for later
and that's exactly what I use it for.
If I come across an article that I don't have time to read
and wanna read later or if I come across
just like a cool app that I wanna share with my audience
I will hit that Pocket button in my browser
and it saves it to my little Pocket list,
which I can go and review later on.
And another cool thing about Pocket
is their mobile apps have the ability to download articles
for offline reading.
So, if you're somebody who commutes on the subway
or you take a lot of flights
or you somehow have a lot of time or you're offline,
pocket can be a really, really useful app
and extension combo.
Next up on our list
we have an extension called Notion Boost.
So, as you probably know, if you follow this channel
or my other channel Thomas Frank Explains,
I am a huge user of Notion.
I basically run my entire business through it.
I've got my task management in it
and I write all my articles and do all my research in it.
I absolutely love Notion
but there is a feature that I have wished Notion would add
for a really long time and it's a feature
that's in a lot of other notetaking and writing apps.
That is a floating sticky outline.
I wanna be able to see all of my headings
and be able to zoom to them
and a lot of other apps have this.
Google Docs has it, Dropbox Paper has it, Obsidian has it,
Slite has it, unfortunately Notion does not.
They do have a table of contents block
but when you put that somewhere
it just stays where you put it
and you have to scroll up to find it.
Not that useful.
So Notion Boost adds Notion, at least in the browser,
to that hallowed collection of apps
that have the beautiful sticky floating outline
on the sidebar.
It does a few other things as well,
but that is absolutely the coolest thing for me
that it does.
I've got a lot of really long articles I write in Notion,
I've got huge research documents,
and having that sticky sidebar is really, really nice
for being able to zoom to different sections.
Next up we have Web Clippers.
There are web clippers for Notion, for Evernote,
and for OneNote
and these extensions basically take the entire content
of a webpage or at least the text part
and pour it over to the note taking app that you're using.
Now personally I don't use web clippers very often
because I've got a combination of other apps
that basically do the same thing for me.
If I want to make sure a bunch of tabs are saved
in my resource section, well I've got Workona for that.
If I'm reading an article and I wanna highlight something,
I've got Readwise for that.
And if I wanna just put something in my big jumble of stuff
that I can go look at later, I've got Pocket for that.
But for some people Web Clipper is going to be the thing
that fits the bill.
So we're mentioning it here
and I'm gonna mention specifically
the ones for Notion, OneNote, and Evernote
because they're the ones that I know about.
Before I move on to the next extension on our list,
which might possibly be the most useful one
for most people watching this video,
I do wanna say that if you're enjoying this video
maybe consider hitting that Subscribe button.
I've actually got a brand new
best note taking apps video in the works
that's gonna compare some of the newcomers
like Rome Research and Obsidian with our old standards.
So if you like these kind of videos
that one is coming in the very near future
and you're gonna want to be subscribed so you don't miss it.
Plus, according to my analytics, only 30% of you
are actually subscribed when you watch my content.
And I know every YouTuber says that these days,
it's kind of a trope,
but subscribing really does help support the channel
and push it out to more people on this platform.
So if you do enjoy this content
and you wanna help support it,
you wanna help support me as a creator,
consider hitting that subscribe button
and thank you if you do.
All right, next extension on our list
is called News Feed Eradicator for Facebook.
Even though it says for Facebook in the title,
this is an extension that can eradicate the newsfeed
in a ton of different social media websites;
in YouTube, in Twitter, in LinkedIn, and Facebook.
Instagram may not be on the list there
but most of the distraction usual suspects are
and ya gotta do is hit a little checkbox
and the feed on that website
is going to be deleted essentially.
It's gonna be hidden so that allows you to use social media,
if you're somebody like me
who needs to make posts on social media
or you wanna check your mentions
and engage with your audience,
without getting sucked into your feed.
It's something that I keep on almost all the time
only turning off
if I really wanna check the feed for a specific reason.
And that brings us to our last extension of the day
which is called Reader View and Reader View,
like the Reader View on mobile Safari
takes a page full of distracting elements
and boils it down to its essentials,
namely the content that you wanna read.
It also gives you typography options, which is pretty sweet.
You can change the font size,
you can change the line height, it's pretty nice.
Now, some web designers like yours truly,
design a website so extensions like this aren't needed.
If you go on any of my websites; collegeinfogeek,
thomasjfrank, we've got single column, minimalist,
distraction-free columns of text.
It's designed for pleasurable reading.
But designers like me seem to be in the minority.
It seems like almost every website out there these days
has a popup asking you to subscribe, their email newsletter,
there's a sidebar, there's mid-content ads,
all kinds of crap that is just distracting
and makes the page load slower.
So an extension like Reader View is really, really nice
for being able to get rid of all of that
and just read the thing that you came to read
and there are a couple of other cool features as well
built in.
There's a dark mode filter
and actually some light theming options.
There is a text-to-speech mode,
which is honestly pretty bad.
I would just use AudioBlogs if you really want that,
but there's also a built-in higlighter and like in Command,
the highlights you make persist
even if you refresh the page.
Now it's not gonna send your highlights to Readwise as well
so there is a couple of different actions to take
if you want both those things to happen.
That's why Command is still the gold standard
for researchers as far as I'm concerned,
but it is pretty cool
having that highlighter feature at least.
So, for all this video we've talked about extensions
that can make you work more productivity on the internet
but what about making the internet
work more productively for you?
Well, that's exactly what happens
when you have your own online presence
where you can connect with people
or you have your own platform or you own your content
and where you can maybe make connections
with potential employers, potential clients,
people who you could work with.
That's exactly what I do on my website thomasjfrank.com.
It shows off my work and helps me build my personal brand
and if you haven't started building
an online presence for yourself,
it's something you should definitely think about
and at least take the first step to doing,
which is getting your own domain name.
Even if you're not ready to build your own website yet,
getting that domain name locked down is crucial
because if somebody goes out and registers it
before you can get it, well you're kind of out of luck.
That's how I am with thomasfrank.com.
I couldn't get that so I at least got thomasjfrank.com,
but that could've been taken as well.
So, as soon as you can go over to Hover
and register yourself a domain name.
Hover is a great place to do it
because unlike a lot of other places out there
they have a completely hassle-free
and speedy checkout process.
They're not trying to upsell you on a bunch of stuff
like a lot of other websites and registers are.
They also have over 400 extensions to choose from,
your .coms and .mes,
which are great for your professional presence,
but also more fun ones like .lol and .ninja.
I use thomas.lol for my music stuff.
And once you have your domain,
they also have a feature called Connect,
which lets you easily hook that domain up
to online website builders and online store builders.
So, if you're ready to claim your domain,
make sure nobody else can take it,
go on over to hover.com/thomasfrank to buy it.
Along with your first purchase using that URL
you're gonna get 10% off
and you're gonna be able to support my channel.
I work really hard
to make sure that my content is research backed and detailed
and has a high production value and,
because most of the stuff that I create is free,
supporting the sponsors who support me
is actually the best way to support this channel
if that's something you wanna do,
and if it is, thank you!
Beyond that, make sure you're subscribed to this channel.
If you like content like this
and you wanna see some more in the future, like I said,
I've got that note taking app comparison coming up.
That's a much more detailed topic than this one
but I am hoping to get it up in the next month or two
and if you would hit that Like button.
YouTube's algorithm absolutely uses engagement factors
like likes and comments
when it's determining how far to push a video,
so big thanks to you if you do hit that button
and if you have other extension recommendations
you wanna make, let me know down in the comments.
Let me know what I missed,
let me know what's good for other browsers.
And beyond that I've got a couple of other videos
right here and here you can check out.
Make sure you're subscribed right there
or don't do any of that and go I don't know
drive a motorcycle off a ramp
through a bunch of flaming hoops like Evil Knievel
'cause as always, I'm not your dad
but I will see you in the next video.
Thanks for watching.