Google Chrome

The reference Chromium build — what most of the web is actually tested against.

What it does

Chrome is where DevTools features land first — the Lighthouse panel, performance traces, coverage, the network waterfall with throttling profiles. For front-end work it is the baseline, and for anything that has to work for the general public it is the browser most of that public is using.

It is also the profile that keeps Google service logins, which is why the Docs, Sheets and Slides shortcuts in /Applications are Chrome web apps.

Extensions

Manifest V3 changed what an extension can do here: blocking webRequest is gone, so a content blocker now submits a capped set of declarative rules instead of inspecting traffic. That is why the list below differs from the Firefox one — same jobs, weaker versions of a few of them.

Blocking and privacy

Extension	Does
uBlock Origin Lite	The MV3 build. Full uBlock Origin no longer runs on Chrome at all — see the Safari notes for the same trade-off
Privacy Badger	Learns which third parties track across sites and blocks those, rather than working from a list
PopUpOFF	Kills overlays, cookie walls and newsletter modals, with a per-site aggressiveness setting
DuckDuckGo Search & Tracker Protection	DuckDuckGo as the search default, plus tracker blocking and an email alias service
User-Agent Switcher and Manager	Spoof the user agent per site, for the pages that refuse a browser by name
FastForward	Skips link shorteners and gateway pages. Pulled from the Web Store, so it loads unpacked from a release build

Credentials and keeping things

Extension	Does
Bitwarden	Autofill from the Bitwarden vault, including TOTP codes
Karakeep	One-click save to a self-hosted Karakeep instance, which archives and tags the page
Linkwarden	The same idea for Linkwarden — a bookmark manager that keeps a full snapshot
Tab Session Manager	Save and restore whole windows of tabs, with automatic periodic snapshots

Downloading and capture

Extension	Does
Video Download Helper	Detects media on a page and downloads it. Needs the companion app for anything that has to be muxed
MeTube Downloader	Sends the current URL to a self-hosted MeTube server, which runs yt-dlp for you
FireShot	Full-page screenshots, including the part below the fold

Sites worth improving

Extension	Does
Refined GitHub	Dozens of small GitHub fixes — one-click merge conflict resolution, linked issue previews, a usable diff
SteamDB	Price history, real review scores and Steam Deck compatibility, inline on the store page
Augmented Steam	Store and library additions — lowest recorded price, wishlist tools, region comparisons
Keepa	Amazon price history as a chart on the product page, with drop alerts

Changing how pages behave

Extension	Does
Tampermonkey	Runs userscripts against matching pages. Anything the other extensions do not cover
Installing a site as an app	Built into Chrome — ⋮ → Cast, save and share → Install page as app. Firefox needs an extension for this; Chrome does not

Two Chrome-specific notes. Extensions are per profile, so an extension installed in the work profile is not present in the personal one — deliberate, and the reason profile switching is worth using rather than fighting. And an extension pulled from the Web Store can still be loaded from disk: unzip the release, then chrome://extensions → Developer mode → Load unpacked. It will not auto-update, and Chrome nags about it on every launch.

An extension sees every page you visit, and updates silently. Extensions change hands, and a popular one bought by an ad network is a recurring story. Install few, prefer ones with source you can read, and review the permission prompt — “read and change all your data on all websites” is exactly what it says.

Notes

Chrome auto-updates itself through its own updater (com.google.keystone), so Homebrew’s version lags and brew upgrade is largely ceremonial. Headless Chrome from this install is also what site crawlers and screenshot tools drive.

Alternative to

Alternative	Type	Trade-off
Chromium	Open source	The same engine without Google’s proprietary additions
Microsoft Edge	Built in	Chromium with Microsoft’s services and vertical tabs
Brave or Vivaldi	Open source / Free	Chromium with privacy or customisation layered on
Safari	Built in	Better battery life on a Mac, and the only engine iOS actually runs