10 Chrome Extensions for the Muslim Man

Evernote Web Clipper

Every come across a new hadith you really like and then months later can’t find it again? Or read a great article and want to reference it weeks later and can’t remember where you read it? Evernote webclipper is perfect for this. You have to make an Evernote account (free) but once you do, the webclipper will sync any selection to your devices for later perusal. You can clip a whole article or just a paragraph. Highlight what you want, right click, and then “Clip selection.”

Ublock Origin

Having some sort of ad blocking extension is a must. AdBlock Plus isn’t a bad option but uBlock origin performs most of the same tasks without eating up as much memory . It’ll filter out ads seamlessly and block third party tracking cookies.

 Auto text expander

There’s an interesting debate among scholars whether it’s acceptable or not to use an abbreviation like (saws) or (pbuh). Well, thanks to auto text expander, you don’t have to worry about typing out “sallallahu alayhi wa sallam” every time. Set auto text expander to change (saws) to ﷺ  and (swt) to ﷻ. You can set other text expansions too but these are the only two I use.

Time tracker

This is exactly what it sounds like. It tracks your time. It’s really easy to not notice how much time you’re spending on the internet. This extension tracks your time by each website. It resets weekly and shows a breakdown by raw time as well as percentage on each website.

Huruf

For some reason, most programs have weird default settings for Arabic. Oftentimes, the Arabic will look tiny and then you’ll have to zoom in to read any Arabic words. This extension not only increases the size of the Arabic, it gives you a few options to choose different Arabic fonts. Definitely a useful extension to have when you’re trying to read the Arabic portion of a hadith.

Pushbullet

This extension syncs your Android text messages to the extension so you can type out responses to texts on your computer. Makes it a lot faster and easier to text and doesn’t require you to get out your phone. There’re a few other useful features like pushing text/pictures/files between your phone and computer with just a click. Sorry iPhone users though, the iOS version doesn’t have the texting capability.

MyAzan

You know when you open up a new tab, the blank screen that greets you before you type in your website? Well, this extension changes that into prayer times. Whenever you open up a tab, it’ll show you the time of the next prayer. There’s a small prayer time schedule at the bottom showing the prayers for the day. Definitely a useful extension.

Arabic Keyboard

Ok, so this isn’t really a chrome extension but I felt it should go here. Having an Arabic keyboard is really useful. This one is phonetic which makes it much easier to type with. Switching between English and Arabic takes literally a second. Best of all, you can change around the letter on the keyboard to fit your preferences (for example, I mapped the letter ي to the “I” key instead of “Y”).

Advanced Profanity Filter

This might seem excessive but I personally like it. It filters out curse words so that you see asterisks in their place.

Smile Always

Assuming you are like most people and shop on Amazon.com with some frequency, this is a great Chrome extension to use. It automatically redirects you to smile.amazon.com. For those who aren’t aware, if you shop on Amazon Smile, Amazon will donate 0.5% of the amount you purchased to a registered charity. Islamic Relief USA is on the list of registered charities (as is my local masjid….check out if yours is as well). It’s an easy way to get money going to a Muslim charity and doesn’t cost anything extra.