Safari provides a solid out-of-the-box browsing experience for Mac users. It focuses on speed, efficiency and simplicity in exploring the modern web. However, Safari‘s minimalist approach lacks some of the customization power offered by other major browsers like Chrome and Firefox.
That‘s where browser extensions come in – they allow you to enhance Safari in small yet meaningful ways tailored to your personal needs and preferences. The right extensions can unlock greater productivity, privacy, and enjoyment in your daily browsing.
As Apple continues updating Safari to support more robust extensions, its catalog grows increasingly compelling for power users. Let‘s explore 10 fantastic options that will upgrade your time spent in Safari.
The Benefits of Safari Extensions
Before highlighting specific recommendations, it‘s helpful to consider why you should care about extensions in the first place.
Customization – Extensions let you modify Safari to best suit your individual browsing style, adding functionality not found out-of-the-box. For example, quickly saving articles to read later, translating foreign languages, or streamlining online checkouts.
Privacy – Certain privacy-focused extensions block online trackers and advertisers, allowing you to reclaim control of your web activity and data. This also speeds up page loading.
Productivity – The right workflow extensions can save you tremendous time on repetitive tasks inside Safari, from filling out forms to taking research notes.
Usability – Some extensions simply make interacting with webpages easier, like adjusting brightness while watching videos or preventing tab clutter.
Performance – With over 20% of all web traffic now occurring on Safari, the browsing experience matters more than ever. Extensions keep Safari competitive.
The usage and adoption of Safari extensions continues rising year-over-year. With reliable performance and Apple‘s focus on privacy, Safari deserves consideration alongside Chrome and Firefox. Extensions only increase its appeal.
Now let‘s get into the top extension recommendations across various categories:
1. Grammarly – Writing Enhancement
Key Features:
- Advanced grammar, spelling, punctuation, and style checking
- 250+ Grammatical rule checks
- Readability score and vocabulary enhancement suggestions
- Available on free and premium paid plans
Best For: Writers, bloggers, students, professionals
Grammarly needs no introduction – it‘s the gold standard for instantly enhancing writing quality inside a browser. The Safari version performs all the key functions of the famous Grammarly app directly while you‘re typing into forms and text fields.
Catch everything from basic spelling and grammar mistakes to stylistic inconsistencies and poor readability. Right-click on any underlined issues to see suggestions. Register for a free account or upgrade to premium monthly plans to unlock further analysis around vocabulary, engagement, and clarity.
Seamlessly integrated into Safari, Grammarly saves tremendous time proofreading and editing – let the AI tool handle it instead!
Pros:
- Easy-to-understand error explanations
- Real-time writing corrections and metrics
- Customizable to match brand voice guidelines
- Available across all other browsers and devices
Cons:
- Free version has limited functionality
- Can suffer lag in large documents
- Requires an internet connection
2. Honey – Shopping Assistance
Key Features:
- Automatic coupon finding at checkout
- Cashback rewards on purchases
- Price drop monitoring
- Universal wishlist creation
Another famous product now available as a handy Safari extension, Honey intelligently saves you money on all online purchases. It automatically tries coupon codes at checkout at over 30,000 supported merchant sites and applies whatever saves you the most money.
Going beyond promo codes, Honey also tracks prices on items you save to notify you of price drops. And you earn cashback rewards that accumulate over time and can be redeemed for gift cards.
Talk about guilt-free shopping! Honey takes the frustration out of saving and lets you profit simply by buying items you want online.
Pros:
- Counts down the actual savings at checkout
- Cashback requires no extra effort from you
- Easy to use with simple install
Cons:
- Automatic nature could enable overspending
- Cashback restricted to gift cards
- Benefits limited outside shopping contexts
3. 1Password – Password Manager
With cybercrime on the rise, strong unique passwords are more critical than ever for maintaining online safety. But how do you manage dozens or even hundreds of complex passwords across all your logins? Enter 1Password.
1Password securely stores all your passwords behind one Master Password plus Touch ID for Mac login. Then Safari autofills your credentials into login forms and checkout pages with a single click. Store more than just passwords too – credit cards, wireless networks, identities, and secure notes.
Top-tier encryption and optional two-factor authentication keep all your private data safe. 1Password also automatically generates strong random passwords so you don‘t reuse insecure credentials anywhere.
Touted as an Editors‘ Choice password manager by PCMag, this veteran tool will completely transform password security.
Pros:
- Industry-leading data encryption
- Customizable categories and folders
- Option for family plan sharing
- Integrates across platforms
Cons:
- Full functionality requires paid subscription
- Setup has a learning curve
- Lack of free alternative browser version
4. Videoryn – Video Enhancement
Love watching YouTube but constantly annoyed by suggestions for more videos popping up as the video ends? Meet Videoryn – a Safari extension built specifically to improve the YouTube watching experience.
Videoryn removes all recommended video thumbnails playing over the end of what you‘re currently watching. This keeps you distraction and interruption-free. Parameters are customizable so you control exactly if and when suggestions appear.
For YouTube addicts, Videoryn lets you immerse completely in videos without anything else vying for your attention. Stay in the zone!
Pros:
- Keeps suggestions hidden during end of videos
- Lets you finish videos peacefully
- Available for free
Cons:
- Only enhancement for YouTube
- Requires user-adjustment to personalize
- Disable for playlist functionality
5. Checker Plus for Safari – Reading List Manager
Safari actually offers a way to save webpages and articles for later reading through its built-in Reading List feature. Problem is, the reading list itself isn‘t that advanced – no tagging, organization, or sharing options.
Checker Plus for Safari resolves this by upgrading everything you can do with your Safari Reading List. It expands possibilities likebookmarking articles, highlighting passages, adding notes, categorizing content, exporting to services like Evernote and Pocket, and more. Up your article reading and research game!
Pros:
- Breakthrough organizational features for Safari Reading List
- Easy content sharing to other apps
- Syncs across Apple devices
Cons:
- Requires adjustment from native reading list
- Additional features in paid version
- No support for bookmark imports
6. Evernote Web Clipper
Speaking of taking better notes while browsing, Evernote Web Clipper lets you save webpages, articles, images, recipes, products, and anything else into your Evernote account with just one click. This immensely boosts research and organization.
The Evernote extension for Safari even lets you annotate what you‘re clipping or highlight specific sections. Everything gets stored to associated notebooks inside Evernote for quick search and retrieval later. Best-in-class integration.
And if you love Evernote already, the Web Clipper supercharges how you collect and manage Safari content.
Pros:
- Imports web content directly into Evernote
- Adds text annotations and highlights
- Tagging and organization features
Cons:
- Requires existing Evernote account
- Clutter if you‘re not an EN user
- Additional OCR and PDF options for paying EN subscribers
Additional Top Extensions for Safari
Here are 4 more stellar extensions providing unique value:
Saladict – Instant pop-up dictionary for any text you highlight while browsing. Includes English pronunciation.
BehindTheOverlay – Bypasses common login, signup, and cookie popup overlays blocking you from accessing content.
Turn Off the Lights – Darkens everything except the video you‘re watching on sites like YouTube, Netflix, Twitch and more.
StopTheNews – Uses AI to remove news article paywalls that would normally block you from reading. Democratizes journalism access.
And many more niche tools exist extending Safari specifically for developers, researchers, writers, enterprises, educators, and beyond.
How to Evaluate Good Safari Extensions
With Safari‘s rising extension catalog, how do you identify quality options actually worth installing? Use this criteria:
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Purpose – Does it serve a clear use case and enhance how you browse?
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Ratings & Reviews – What do other users report about utility and performance?
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Security – Has it undergone privacy and security testing without major vulnerabilities?
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Compatibility – Does it integrate appropriately with latest Safari and macOS versions?
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Development Activity – Is it actively maintained by the developer with updates for bugs/issues?
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Price – If paid, is the functionality premium enough to justify ongoing costs?
Also watch out for extensions that haven‘t been updated in long periods or have very low download numbers – possible red flags.
Vet thoroughly before hitting install!
Optimizing Extension Usage
While extensions unlock tremendous new potential, take care not to go overboard installing anything and everything that looks interesting. Too many unnecessary extensions can negatively impact Safari performance with longer page loading times, laggy typing, crashed tabs, and reduced battery life.
Follow these best practices for keeping Safari speedy:
- Only install extensions fulfilling your personal workflow needs
- Disable or delete extensions not being actively used
- Check for background extension activity eating resources
- Monitor overall Safari memory and CPU usage
- Make sure extensions auto-update alongside Safari version upgrades
Take advantage of extensions without compromising the performance that makes Safari so appealing.
How Apple‘s Approach Compares
Compared to Chrome and Firefox, Apple maintains tighter control over its browser extensions system – vetting submissions to its developers catalog and restricting access to certain low-level functions for security reasons.
This closed approach means Safari offers fewer extensions overall compared to the open web models backing other browsers. However, it allows Apple to ensure higher average quality and stability. Safari extensions also look and feel more integrated into the macOS experience.
The trade-off is reduced flexibility and customization in some advanced use cases. Still, Apple has invested more recently in bringing compatible extensions for Safari to parity with Chrome and Firefox. The outlook remains strong.
As WebExtension support expands – allowing developers to create extensions working across multiple browsers – Safari‘s catalog diversity grows. More migration occurring here as well!
The Future of Safari Extensions
Thanks to the above improvements, Safari‘s extension ecosystem enters an exciting new era after years lagging behind alternatives. Expect significant continued growth in:
- Numbers – more developers can now port extensions from other browsers over to Safari using WebExtensions
- Quality – leverage learnings and best practices from mature Chrome/Firefox extension markets
- Functionality – tap into newer APIs for additional capabilities like service integrations
- Adoption – benefit from rising Safari popularity on Mac and iOS
This spells great news for users who can anticipate an ever-expanding selection of polished Safari extensions in coming years.
Transform How You Browser with Safari Extensions
Safari provides a perfectly capable out-of-box experience for most casual browsing needs. However, its pared-down approach lacks deeper customization power for power users relative to Chrome and Firefox.
This is where thoughtfully selected extensions come into play – transforming Safari into a personalized productivity and research tool tailored to your unique needs. From saving money shopping to translating foreign articles to organizing your reading list, they offer targeted solutions not found in the base browser.
Approach Safari extensions as handy tools on your utility belt rather than merely nice-to-have add-ons. Keep your choices lean and opt for true workflow enhancers reflecting how you browse daily. Avoid unnecessary bloat.
Soon Safari will feel like a browser built just for you thanks to extensions. Now master the web on your own terms!
