All businesses need to save time and thankfully Google Chrome is available to help! A range of Chrome extensions are also at hand to make life smoother, and not only streamline your browsing experience but streamline your tendency to become distracted.

Image Search

“Image Search” is a perfect tool for taking the trawl out of trawling the net for that perfect picture for your presentation or article. While there are other tools, this particular extension will work its way through “Flickr” and “Photobucket” along with all the other usual suspects. The tool allows you to customise details such as size and type, which means the images that the search returns should be a perfect fit in more ways than one.

Copy without Formatting

Copying web sourced information to a single research document is easy enough, although if you’re in the habit of compiling large research documents it can result in garish and difficult to read documents complete with a host of unnecessary formatting. “Copy without Formatting” does just that; it’s not a big or clever extension but it simply saves a bit of time. Time is money and we all like saving both.

Split Screen

For anybody who spends much of the day in front of several screens with numerous tabs open the term “split” usually refers to the splitting headache acquired during the day. Ok, I know, I need glasses. However, “Split Screen” for Chrome is a delightful little screen splitter that displays multiple pages on one window. This means that flicking through information is no longer a case of trying to find the right tab, on the right window, on the right screen only to realise it’s actually on the laptop over in the corner. While I may still need glasses, life is smoother with “Split Screen”.

Evernote Clipper

More than ever we’re bombarded with content and information, and very occasionally something useful crops up. Normally it’s the wrong place and the wrong time to use it, but thanks to “Evernote” a final solution is at hand. The “Evernote Clipper” makes life even easier; a simple extension that drops that must have webpage onto your “Evernote” and means that you never lose that important note again. Of course, you’ll never go back and use it but for information hoarders it’s a dream come true.

Screen Capture

Yes, the ‘print screen’ capture technique is old, cumbersome and not terribly satisfying. “Screen Capture” gets round the awkward problem of only being able to capture the bits that are on your screen. This extension grabs the whole web page you’re on for use, study or research, at a later date. It’s a great little tool and saves a ton of time cutting, pasting and cutting and pasting all over again.

AdBlock

If you use the web for recreational browsing the occasional advert is not so bad. If you use it for research for work purposes, the deluge of ads is enough to send you ever so slightly stark raving mad. “Adblock” is the perfect tool to remove unnecessary ads and pop-ups. Much time, frustration and hair pulling averted.

Shareaholic

If you’re addicted to sharing (no bad thing, when you think about it) then the “Shareaholic” extension is for you. With a time saving click it allows you to share content across a range of platforms including, but not limited, to Twitter, Facebook and Digg.

Tab packager

Similar in some senses to “Evernote” this little extension readily captures the three hundred tabs you’ve got open for research purposes and drops them into a unique page for you to load up later when you need to go back to said pages and reference and double check information. It’s especially useful for projects that require intensive research over a period of time, when ready access to all those pages you’ve forgotten about can come in incredibly handy!

Carlo Pandian is a business graduate and has written on PC shortcuts for QuickBooks accounting software and several browsers. Google Chrome extensions save time and money – not to mention distraction being driven to it. With simple, effective solutions Chrome offers a great browsing experience.