Five Must-Have Chrome Extensions

Google Chrome is quickly becoming the preferred browser choice for the FOSS community but, like many open source projects we love, the real fun starts when we can tweak something into suiting our exact needs. There are loads of extensions available for Chrome these days -- some open source, some not. Let's take a look at a few of our favorites.

Lazarus: Form Recovery - Ever start to fill out a long web-form only to have it time out before you're finished? This extension autosaves everything you type in online text boxes for speedy recovery if the site times out or your browser crashes. Download this little gem, let in run in the background. Simply click the Lazarus icon the next time your text accidentally vanishes, choose the correct text from the drop-down menu, and the text will reappear instantly.

Chromed Bird - This Chrome extension for Twitter allows users to see all Tweets in a unified timeline, preview URLs before clicking them, and create sort URLs on the fly. Compose, reply, retweet, and more, without ever leaving Chrome or opening a new browser window. You can even track read and unread Tweets, and get a notification whenever a new Tweet arrives.

Xmarks - This amazing tool for bookmark synchronization already made the cut as one of our most beloved Firefox extensions, now it's available for Chrome, too. It keeps all your bookmarks and passwords updated across all the computers, mobile devices, apps, and browsers you use daily. Give this extension a try and you'll wonder how you ever got along without it.

Fastest Chrome - Like it's brother Fastest Firefox, this extension takes browsing to the next level. It displays relevant results in a search from shopping outlets like Amazon, instantly looks up definitions of highlighted words, and adds related articles from Wikipedia. Fastest chrome automatically stitches multiple web pages together in one long form so you don't have to constantly click "next" while reading a long article on the Web, and turns text URLs into links on the fly.

Webpage Screenshot - If you spend a lot of time getting screenshots on the Web, this extension makes quick work of the job. Capture a PNG image of any Web page in a single click, including long pages you'd normally have to scroll to capture. Screengrabs can be full-size, or you can resize to your liking.

While these are some of our favorite extensions for Chrome, we encourage you to poke around the gallery for yourself and see what other goodies you can unearth. If you can't find exactly what you're looking for, check out Google developer Matt Cutts' tutorial on how to write a Chrome extension in three easy steps.