Here’s a list of the best Safari extensions you can download onto your browsers right now in order to extract some more goodness from them. There are tons of such enhancements available out there, but we’ve sifted through the most prominent ones in order to create this compilation for you.
Just like on Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, extensions are a huge deal on Safari for those who use the Mac OS. Support for them was first introduced by Apple back in 2010 with the release of Safari 5, and they have flourished quite beautifully over the years.
If you’re unaware of how to get going with these interesting Safari extensions, there’s no need to worry as it’s a pretty easy process. Once you’re inside the browser, you need to click on Safari and then on Safari extensions in the menu bar. You will now be taken to a gallery which is populated by all the extensions available out there.
Some extensions can also need to be downloaded from other websites. In such cases, detailed instructions on how to install them will indeed be provided by the makers.
Once you’ve installed them and wish to interact with them, you can head into Preferences > Extensions. That’s all you need to know about these extensions before we introduce you to some of the finest ones available out there. Without any further ado then, let’s get going with the list.
1 – YouTube Lyrics
If the name hasn’t explained to you the utility of this Safari extension yet, it is meant to instantly offer you the lyrics of any song you’re listening to on YouTube. A window pops up right beside the video in order to show you words to the song. This window can be moved, resized and closed as per your preference.
The makers of YouTube Lyrics have made sure that it uses multiple sources for grabbing the lyrics in order to ensure that they are accurate. What the name of this extension doesn’t tell you is that it even works with Grooveshark, if that’s your go-to music destination these days.
2 – PanicButton
Not all the stuff that you watch on the Internet is appropriate enough to be seen by the people around you. You need your privacy at times, and when people intrude that all of a sudden, it becomes difficult to shut down your browser quickly. PanicButton is to aid you in such situations.
This addition to our useful Safari extensions is a one-click solution to closing all your tabs with just a toolbar button. What’s great is that you can also configure a keyboard shortcut to do the same. There are several other options as well, like the ability to set a ‘safe page’ to appear when the button is clicked.
3 – F.B. Purity
This Safari extension is a delight for those who constantly spend their time on Facebook. It basically offers you a massive list of filters you can apply to the website when you’re browsing it. With F. B. Purity, you can block everything from spam, ads, sponsored stories, and animated GIFs to trending topics and much more.
Not only does it provide you with these awesome filters, but it also gives you the ability to create your own. This way you can stop content related to a particular topic or a post about something from your friends from appearing in your News Feed.
4 – AdBlock
Of course! Who can forget AdBlock! It’s one of those tools that is first on the download list of anyone who is setting up their browser for the first time. AdBlock makes all the ads from your web pages vanish automatically so that you can rest assured that you won’t be clicking on any of them, even accidentally.
AdBlock is particularly useful for those who use YouTube a lot and can’t stand the video ads on the website. This extension also allows you to whitelist pages you wish to see ads on.
5 – Sessions
Sessions is a great organizing tool that saves sets of tabs for you to be able to access them later. This inclusion in our best Safari extensions lineup allows you to save your entire browsing session in the form of tabs. This way, you can start afresh any time, knowing that you can access all your open tabs later.
Sessions has been designed to be lightweight and easy to use by its makers. It even has the facility to enable automatic backups if you don’t wish to save your sessions manually each time. This awesome piece of software is a must-have for those who constantly find their browsers littered with tabs, not knowing what to do with them when they are shutting down their computers.
6 – ClickToFlash
Adobe Flash is famously not allowed on Apple’s iOS devices, but it still thrives on the desktop Safari browser. ClickToFlash is the tool that takes it off the latter as well. The pesky bits that not only slow down your browser but also make the web pages look a little too flashy than they actually are can now be completely removed thanks to this extension.
The Flash content is replaced by a placeholder, on which you can click if you wish to enable it, just in case. Or, you can take advantage of its advanced whitelisting tools to dictate terms. This great tool even allows you to replace Flash videos with H.264 videos on select websites like YouTube. A bonus is that this extension also leads to small improvements to the battery life of your MacBooks.