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Home / Features / 10 of the best Google Chrome extensions (that are guaranteed to waste your time)

10 of the best Google Chrome extensions (that are guaranteed to waste your time)

What's that? You had lots of important work to get done today? That's too bad...

Browser extensions can be incredibly useful, helping you streamline your productivity and increase your work rate without ever having to fire up another app or programme.

Then again, they can also prove to be dangerously distracting, often in rather useless and pointless ways.

Here’s a selection of some Google Chrome extensions we’ve come across which range from fairly useful to utterly pointless. Enjoy:

Do It!

It’s Monday afternoon, you’re flagging after a boozy ‘spoons lunch, and the Google spreadsheet you’re staring at is about as exciting as, well, a spreadsheet. Luckily for you the motivational intensity of everyone’s favourite Hollywood crazy-man Shia LaBeouf is a mere button click away. Popping up in the corner of your browser, he’ll scare you into productivity in an instant. We dare you to say no to those eyes.

Download it here

Tab Dating

Tab Dating

“How did your mother and I meet? Well, one day I opened up a new Chrome tab. I was planning to carry out some research on Colonel Sanders’ secret spice recipe, but instead your mother popped up as part of this extension which pairs you up with like-minded people on Facebook. Before I knew it, I had forgotten all about those spices and had set up a date with her at the local faire the following weekend. God bless the Tab Dating Chrome extension”.

Download it here

nCage

Nicholas Cage is one of the finest thespians to have ever graced the soil of this good green Earth. For those of you who feel that same way (and may we take this opportunity to tell you how handsome and attractive you all are), this extension will be the only one you’ll ever need. It replaces every single photo on each site you visit with pictures and gifs of Mr. Cage himself, making your browsing experience infinitely better in the process.

Download it here

cats.

cats.

This extension presents you with a new picture of a cat each and every single day, at the press of a simple button. And that’s it. No fancy effects, no distracting animations, just a photo of a kitty (or occasionally a bunny or a dog) to brighten up your day. There’s only one cat per day, mind, so if you need a heavier feline fix then you may have to search elsewhere. We hear there are a fair few cats pictures on the internet, so you’ll probably find them easily enough.

Download it here

Adorable Hamster Pet

Keep killing your pet hamsters with your negligence and short attention span? Ditch the shoebox funerals and funky cage smells for this little fellow, who’ll happily be spinning around his wheel long after you’re dead and buried. Feed him little food pellets, watch as he follows your cursor around and… well, that’s pretty much it. Also, we don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl, but we’re not sure how to go about finding out.

Download it here

Cloud To Butt Plus

Cloud To Butt Plus

If you haven’t heard of this classic extension then you’ve been living with your head in the butts. The premise is simple enough – it takes the word cloud and automatically swaps it to the word butt. Each time it does its job, you’ll chuckle heartily to yourself, perhaps with a slight shake of the head, basking in a fleeting moment of safe and sensible humour before getting on with your day. You rascal you.

Download it here

Meow Met

Meow Met

If the previous extension supplying only one cat per day isn’t enough for you, then Meow Met is your saviour. It overrides the standard New Tab page with a randomly selected cat from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s online collection. Clicking on a picture lets you learn more about it, so it’s an educational tool above all else, really.

Download it here

Shove

Shove

Shove is a potentially very useful extension that lets you remotely open up anything you fancy in someone else’s browser. Clearly it’s ripe for lots of abuse, but both parties need to agree that they’re willing to participate before any shenanigans ensue. The idea behind it is to let you quickly share interesting content with your friends, but we all know it’s going to be used to show off questionable websites during important presentations. #onlinebants

Download it here

Cenafy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xrDR4YzMnU

John Cena, if you’re not already aware, is a hulking mass of a bloke who gets paid to pretend-fight people in a WWE ring for money, and he’s also somehow evolved into a meme. This particular extension gives you a 1 in 100 chance of loading up any website as normal, before his entrance video takes over your screen and music is blasted through your speakers or headphones. We’re not entirely sure why you’d want to subject yourself to this, but perhaps you like to live dangerously.

Download it here

PanicButton

PanicButton

If you’ve installed all of the above extensions then your browser probably looks like Internet Explorer in the early 2000s, pre-adblock and pop-up blockers – aka a godawful mess. If you’re in the office and someone noteworthy happens to pop by, you’ll find this particular extension very handy. Click one button, and all of your open tabs are immediately closed, hiding all evidence of procrastination in an instant. All of your open tabs are saved in a bookmarks folder too, so you can pick up your important time wasting exactly where you left it off.

Download it here

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About

Esat has been a gadget fan ever since his tiny four-year-old brain was captivated by a sound-activated dancing sunflower. From there it was a natural progression to a Sega Mega Drive, a brief obsession with hedgehogs, and a love for all things tech. After 7 years as a writer and deputy editor for Stuff, Esat ventured out into the corporate world, spending three years as Editor of Microsoft's European News Centre. Now a freelance writer, his appetite for shiny gadgets has no bounds. Oh, and like all good human beings, he's very fond of cats.

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