When Google Chrome came out in 2008, I installed it on my Windows laptop, and I instantly was a believer. The front page, which shows all of your most-visited web sites was spectacular. It was quick to bring up compared to the other browsers. Last but not least, it was created using WebKit, which is what Safari, my favorite Macbook browser, was developed using. However, I couldn’t use it 100% because of two reasons: 1. Not all sites support it and 2. It had no extensions. This all changed last year when Google Chrome began supporting extensions. If you haven’t been able to install any, then you probably need to upgrade to the newest Google Chrome. The way you will know this is that the Install button on the extension page is grayed out.

This is a four-part blog series of the 20 Google Chrome extensions that you will find useful if you are a Freelance Writer.  Here are the first five Google Chrome extensions.

1. Feedly

Freelance Writers should constantly be reading the latest news and blogs.  This is a great way for getting story (or blog) ideas.  Feedly is an app that makes catching up with your feeds easy.  After installing Feedly, you should see the icon next to your Chrome’s address bar.

They recently added a way for you to know how many feeds you need to read. If you haven’t checked out Feedly, you need to. It has a way for your to share it throughout all the social networking sites (e.g. Twitter, Google Buzz, Facebook, etc.), so you are able to quickly show all of your friends.

2. Google Mail Checker Plus

Google Mail Checker Plus allows you to check your Gmail inbox.  The reason that I chose this one over the others is that it’s the only one that allows you to preview your unread email. Additionally, it has a lot of options that you can modify to fit your needs.  You can even change the icon, if you choose to.

After making the modifications that you want, any time you have an unread message, the icon will start shaking. It’s great for people who get so wrapped up in their work (me) that the only way to get their attention is to flash something over their face.

3. Evernote

When you are browsing the internet, you need to have something that will save all the clips that you collect.  This is where Evernote comes in.  It can capture anything that you want in a contained place.  This Google Chrome extension is great because you can quickly click the Evernote icon next to the address bar, and what you wanted to clip is quickly saved.

4. Aviary Web Capture

There are times when you will need to capture screenshots of certain sites.  Aviary is already a wonderful app in itself.  I wrote about it in “Aviary, a Web Alternative to Adobe Creative Suite“.  They now have a Google Chrome extension to help you capture screenshots of things you see around the webosphere.  After you press the Aviary icon, click the Capture Visible Portion of Page link.

It will open up a new window that will show what you captured. Like Fireworks and Photoshop, you are able to modify your capture by cropping, resizing, adding text, shapes, etc.

5. AddThis – Bookmark, Email, Share, Translate

AddThis allows you to share any content with over 200 social networking sites.  The ones you can access from the Google Chrome extension are the most popular ones.  If you click the More link, you will be able to access the rest.  If you are a social media lover, then you need to install this app.