There are thousands and thousands of extensions and apps in the chrome store. Google and chrome store do the best they can, but they can’t necessarily do all the security analysis needed. In this article, I will discuss about the best chrome extensions for security and privacy. These extensions will give you a secure browsing experience. They will protect your personal data from hidden trackers and also provide you with protection from dangerous malware. These chrome extensions are really important for you to have, and they can also be used on other browsers.
Bitwarden
If you go to https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/extensions and scroll down, you will find a lot of extensions you can use them according to your need. But for now, just type Bitwarden, this is the first extension that you can install. It’s a free password manager, and this will secure your login information for all your devices. Keeping your password safe is very important, and that is exactly what Bitwarden does for you.
Adblock Plus
Many of you reading this article would already have this in your tool belt. But for those of you who don’t know what Adblock Plus is. It is what its name implies, pretty much an extension to block ads from the web pages that you are visiting, especially on pages where there are so many ads actually to look at, and they just pop up everywhere and can totally make you think that you have just been hacked or you just installed some sort of virus.
Adblock plus is the best known ad blocker for chrome, installation is quick and easy, and the benefits are obvious. Just point your browser at an ad heavy site, the Adblock plus icon displays a running count of everything it blocks, and you will probably find most pages display far more quickly. The other major highlight of Adblock plus is its extreme configurability. All I can say is that most websites rely on advertising, so maybe think about disabling ad blockers on friendly sites.
WOT (Web of Trust)
The other extension for security I want to talk about is the web of trust, also known as WOT. This helps with website security checks, safe browser, surfing and protection from viruses. The thing I love about this extension is that you can check if a link is safe or not before you actually click on them and visit them. They will have a circle next to the external links and show color. If the color is green, then you know it’s known to be safe, whereas if you see yellow, you will know it has some dangers to it, and red is obviously dangerous. Also, another cool thing about this extension is that it blocks all harm from a website when you actually click on them by mistake or by accident. And what actually stops it from loading harmful pages is that it will ask you if you really want to visit the page or not, and it gives you the option to exit.
LastPass
The next security extension that I want to mention is called LastPass. This extension allows you to securely keep all your different passwords in one centralized encrypted location, pretty much a password management tool that has helped me log in safely and securely, knowing that I don’t have to input the password, especially when people are around. Also, it helps with the annoyance of remembering too many passwords for different logins. I know it’s like remembering so many different passwords and always hate clicking on those “forgot my password” links and redoing the whole process of creating a new password. This extension actually prevents all that from happening. The way that it works is that LastPass creates an encrypted object on your computer, it only ever gets decrypted locally on your own machine. This means that someone breaking into the LastPass database won’t be a concern, nor if someone actually intercepts your network traffic and tries to hack in that way. So, your passwords are safe, and what’s important to remember about LastPass or pretty much any password manager for that matter is that it’s only as strong as your master or main password. So use one password that is not used anywhere else and turn on multi-factor authentication to actually increase the security of it.
It’s no secret that using secure passwords everywhere is a vital part of staying safe online. LastPass solves the problem by creating a different strong password for every site, storing it locally in an encrypted world, and automatically filling web forms and logins as required. You just need to remember a single master password, and LastPass takes care of almost everything else on its own. Unlike some password managers, there is no need to add all your usernames and passwords to a database. Before you can use it, just install the extension, and whenever you log in to an online account, it will ask whether to save it, it’s wonderfully convenient.
Ghostery
When you want privacy for browsing on the Internet on Google chrome, Ghostery is the best Chrome extension. This extension deletes all the trackers which are available on a website relentlessly. It will save all the tracker information that was found on a website, and you can learn about each tracker and how they work. Ghostery is capable of disabling all advertisements, social media odd analytics data trackers. As a user, you can choose which website can track your browsing data. So, if there is a website that you completely trust, you can allow them to track you and if there are websites would you want to block, you can easily disable their tracking using Ghostery settings.
Avast Online Security
Avast is a very popular brand when we talk about antiviruses. Avast now also offers a Chrome extension to enhance the security for Chrome users. Avast online security is a Chrome extension that helps you browse safely over the Internet. It scans malicious content present on every website you go to. It uses a small icon to display the result and also provides a rating of the website depending on the community ratings. It helps you identify it’s a particular web page you are looking for is official or fake. This extension also comes with a “do not track me” feature which blocks suspicious advertisers from stealing your data anonymously.
PureVPN
Many people on Internet use VPN to encrypt and hide their internet traffic data for safe browsing. PureVPN is one of the most popular Chrome extensions which allows you to use VPN and add another level of security and privacy. The PureVPN team has said their encryption is military grade and is capable of keeping the user data protected all the time. If you are using this extension, the hackers won’t be able to steal your data until and unless they know how to decrypt your identity. PureVPN also protects against malware attacks, blocks data trackers and ads, etc.
Click&Clean
This Chrome extension is very popular and one of the best when we talk about security. It keeps all your browsing sessions private and secure without making the sessions slow. Just by a single click of a button, you can delete all the private browsing data you want. The user interface of this extension is very attractive and easy to use. Apart from cleaning cookies, passwords, history, cache, Click&Clean also gives you the option for data clearing and password generation in the Incognito mode.
Final Thoughts
So, these were the best Chrome extensions for security that you must have on your Google Chrome browser. The actual stability and safety of each extension can vary greatly, but depending on the fact that an extension is extremely popular and has a high user rating does not guarantee that it is safe. My suggestion would be not to use any random extension and go for the extension list mentioned in this article for better security and performance. Go ahead, add these security chrome extensions, and experience them.
