Most of us don’t think about what browser we use on Android — Chrome comes preloaded on almost every Android phone, it syncs perfectly with Google products, and it even has a lot of really great features like the Listen to this page feature, which generates an AI podcast to “read you” the content of any webpage.
You can use other chromium-based browsers like Kiwi if you want to get extensions, or you can just use Firefox, which is a mature browser that has a universe of extensions you can run on mobile. While Firefox lacks the deep integration with Google services like Chrome, its ability to run extensions gives it a range of added capabilities that are worth paying attention to.
5 Chrome extensions I always keep installed
If you are using Google Chrome, these are the extensions you should install permanently.
Chrome is fine
But it still doesn’t support extensions (for some reason)
Chrome on desktop has been able to support extensions—which are lightweight browser enhancements, like password managers, screenshot grabbers, and so much more—for many years. But why doesn’t Chrome for Android support extensions? The real reason is unknown, but chief among them might be security, memory usage, problems with interface scaling, plus the fact that most existing Chrome extensions rely on mouse and keyboard input and would have to be re-engineered for a phone.
To make a long story short, getting extensions to work on Chrome wouldn’t be as easy as flipping a switch and could cause a lot of compatibility problems for the billions of devices that run Chrome browser on mobile today.
Firefox on Android can do more
Extensions add killer features
There’s a huge list of extensions you can use on Firefox for Android. I list my favorite three below, but other extensions worth mentioning include: ClearURLs, which removes tracking elements from URLs; Bitwarden password manager; Web Archive to see old versions of websites; YouTube background player to play YouTube videos in the background, Volume Booster to boost sound from media you play in the browser; GeoSpoof which spoof’s your browsers location and timezone, Auto Reject cookies to block all cookies, and many more. In all, there are over 6500 extensions to choose from, all of which are free and hosted by Firefox with user reviews and ratings.
- OS
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Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS
- Price model
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Free
Here are some of my favorites:
- AdGuard AdBlock: frankly, I don’t believe in blocking ads because websites like MUO rely on ad revenue to pay people like me to write articles for you to read, and I think it’s unfair to block ads on content you’re getting for free. But if you want to block ads, it’s your prerogative. There are multiple ad blocking extensions available in Firefox, and they work as advertised.
- Dark Reader: even though I really don’t like dark mode, many people do. In fact, there’s a paid app for iPhone that gives you dark mode on all websites. Or, for free, you can download Dark Reader on FIrefox for Android, and give every website you visit the dark mode treatment. It works great.
- Read Aloud: this is a fantastic extension that will read aloud any web page you’re on, and will even play in the background so you can minimize the browser and still listen to the page. You can even set multiple voices with different accents (you can have British English, American English, and several others) and you can adjust the playback speed if you’re like me and like to listen to everything at double speed.
- SoundLift Volume Booster: most of the phones I use have pretty loud stereo speakers, but if you’re like many with an older phone that has only one speaker, this extension can raise your volume 600% and give you volume far beyond what your phone can offer. Just don’t leave it at 600% for long, or you could damage your speaker.
- Search by image: a super quick way to do a reverse Google image search, perfect for identifying the origin of an image by running it in Google Images. You can trigger this by tapping and holding any image, then choosing to search by image. It’s a big time saver so you don’t have to first save the image, then upload it into Google images.
Is it worth switching to Firefox?
It depends on your needs — but I’m staying with Chrome
There’s no way I’d fully switch to Firefox because I rely on Chrome’s deep integration with Google services. But it’s likely that within the list of 6500 Firefox extensions, there might be a couple with must-have features that would earn Firefox a permanent spot on my phone as my secondary browser or choice, at least until Google gets its act together and finally adds extensions to Chrome for Android.
