5 great browser extensions for ChatGPT
The buzz around ChatGPT has subsided. What remains is a quite useful tool to auto-create and process texts. Naturally, blog articles, like the one you're reading, are handcrafted with love–but ChatGPT still helps me to save time and effort in my everyday life. Because, the artificial intelligence can do a lot more if you let it! Browser extensions, also called add-ons, yield better search results, sum up entire pages, and even do my internet research for me every now and then! Here are five decent browser extensions that rely on ChatGPT to provide their services.
ChatGPT » summarize everything!
The web is packed with intriguing information just as much as it is littered with redundant and extraneous data, and it often involves some scrolling to separate the wheat from the chaff. Other times, you're just looking for the core message and have no need of the padding. The "ChatGPT » summarize everything!" extension is therefore among my favorites. It adds a button to your browser's toolbar that opens a small popup with a summary of the site you're visiting. In most cases, core statements are reliably identified and further details presented below as list entries. Many times, you no longer even need to look at the actual page–and it even works with different languages and YouTube Videos!
ChatGPT for Google
We're all familiar with the shortcomings of search results delivered by Google Search. You get a list of links that match your query but straight answers to complex questions are usually absent. The usual routine is to follow a few seemingly promising links and continue your search there. "ChatGPT for Google" adds a sidebar to the search results with the AI's musings about your query–and these can be quite fascinating! Many questions are instantly answered and there are usually pointers to improve the query. Also, looking right after each search took some getting used to, but I'm at the point where I wouldn't want to do without the extension for a single day!
ChatGPT Writer
Are you answering your emails in a browser and in need of assistance? Then feel free to try out "ChatGPT Writer". Simply copy the contents of the mails you receive into the system clipboard, open the extension, and paste them into the text field provided. Then, add a brief description outlining the nature of the intended response e.g., "Send a kind refusal". ChatGPT Writer will create a professional-looking text in no time that usually requires little manual tweaking. It's a great timesaver, even though results may feel slightly canned. In other words: I wouldn't use it to respond to my grandma Irma's golden wedding anniversary, but it's good enough for a quick reply to a (unsolicited) commercial request!
You don’t need professional texting skills to benefit from ChatGPT
WebChatGPT
ChatGPT currently comes with a major drawback: Its knowledge doesn't extend beyond 2021, so it cannot answer questions related to current day affairs satisfactorily. "WebChatGPT", also used on ChatGPT's own website, mitigates this issue by additionally processing current data straight from from the web. It includes a few additional options in the shape of sliders, and its responses usually take a bit longer to compile, but they successfully bridge the gap between 2021 and the present. You'll find the online links used to compile the response below each text. ChatGPT can now finally answer questions on current day affairs! If you want to take it a step further, allow access to web pages with search results from Google or Bing.
FancyGPT
If there's one aspect that ChatGPT anything but shines in it's visuals. Millions have been poured into the development of the AI but the user interface is a bland as a 90s waiting room without magazines. Regular users even talk of "GPT blues" whenever they visit the site. Enter "FancyGPT". It offers multiple UI skins, from subtle shades to flashy neon, and can export responses to image, PDF, or plain text formats. It won't turn ChatGPT results into works of art, but the visuals will be less bleak. Besides, the export feature is definitely handy.
All extensions are free and available for Chrome / Opera / Edge, and, with a few exceptions, Firefox. Some offer paid features as a Pro upgrade, but you can possibly live without them. Others require you to manually set the desired language, or grant them access to Google and Bing search results. All of them require an active (free) ChatGPT login to access ChatGPT's features! You may want to restart your browser in case an extension doesn't immediately work as expected after installing.
P.S. If you want to know more about the privacy policy of ChatGPT, or the aforementioned extensions, check out the links. If you feel uncomfortable about an application, please don’t use it.
