Transcription
Browsing the internet can be pretty cumbersome nowadays, from pop-up windows and login screens that block the content, or video players that don't follow the rules of the web browser.
Well, I'm gonna show you 13 Safari extensions for Mac and iPhone that's gonna take away a lot of those annoyances from browsing the web. Now, I'll put links to all these extensions down in the video description, but on your Mac, in order to install them, you'll wanna go to Settings, and then go over to the Extensions tab. Here you'll see all the extensions you have installed. Some of them have standalone apps, some of them you just manage here. And if you really want the extension to work everywhere, you need to click Allow on every website. You'll need to do this on your Mac, iPhone, and iPad.
Now, when you do allow these extensions to operate on every website, they can see the websites you visit. So, it's important to download extensions you trust, but I've been using the 13 I'm recommending in this video for quite a while and haven't had any issues. And on your iPhone, the process is gonna be a little different. If you go to Safari, you'll see your address bar, either down here or up at the top. Tap this little symbol in the bottom left, and then you'll see your extensions up here. You may need to scroll to the top to go to Manage Extensions, where you can toggle on and off different extensions.
So, first up is an extension called Vity Mode. It'll live right here in the toolbar of Safari, and as soon as you start playing a video, whether it's on YouTube or other websites, Vity Mode can give you way more controls than the built-in player. For instance, I can increase the playback speed, and you get way more granular control over that speed here. You can adjust the volume, airplay it right from this menu, and it'll bring up all your Airplay devices. And you can also set defaults for Vity Mode. If you want the skip forward time to be longer by default, change that here, and you can set a default playback speed for all your videos as well. Vity Mode also has a picture-in-picture option where you can just tap it here, and it'll pop in picture-in-picture on your Mac.
Vity Mode also works on your iPhone. If I have a video playing, I can go to my extensions, and then go up to Vity Mode, and I get all those same controls. Skip forward and back, change the playback speed, and I can also pop it into picture-in-picture, swipe up to go home. And if you ever have a website that doesn't follow the normal video player rules, this will help force things like picture-in-picture.
If I have a utility to force picture-in-picture on any video, a great extension is over-picture. Here I can click it in the toolbar of Safari, pops it down in a picture-in-picture, and I can pop it back. And it also works on your iPhone. I can just tap over-picture, and there it is in picture-in-picture. I also really love over-picture on the Mac because you can just use the letter P key on your keyboard to enable picture-in-picture quickly.
Now this next extension is called Banish. This is macOS only, but what it does is whenever you go to a website, let's say a Facebook link, and it obscures the content. So, ever since the European ruling about cookies, you've had to see a lot of these banners on websites, often obscuring lots of content, or bringing it down so you're not seeing the full page.
Well, once you have Super Agent installed and running on your devices, it will automatically accept or reject cookies depending on your device. So, if you want to see a lot of these banners on your website, you can go to that same URL in Safari, and then I can still see the content that was posted without having that login window blocking my view. So, if you want to see a lot of these banners on your website, you can go to that same URL in Safari, and then I can still see a lot of these banners on your website. So, if I go to that same website in Safari with Super Agent running, I don't get that cookie pop-up because it's already rejected or accepted the cookies that I specified. And I can change these settings both on the Mac and iPhone if I go to the application and hit the settings icon, I can choose my cookie preferences like turning off advertising and performance cookies, but leave on functional cookies like remembering your login. And now I don't have to see that cookie banner on any of my devices anymore.
The next extension is called Noir, both for Mac, iPhone, and notably... Vision OS. With Noir, you can force dark mode on any website, even if it doesn't natively support it. Here on YouTube, I just enabled Noir, and now I have full dark mode. I have found this necessary for Apple Vision Pro, because many websites are just this dark white, and when you're in Apple Vision Pro, especially in immersive environment, a lot of websites seem to burn your retina. But Noir is available for Vision OS 2, and will default websites to dark mode.
This next extension is called Vinegar, and it's specifically for videos from YouTube. I have vinegar running on my Mac and this iPhone. You can see it will replace the built-in YouTube embedded player with a regular HTML5 video player. Now you don't get all the features as the YouTube player like sharing or opening into the YouTube app, but if you prefer just a straight HTML video player you do get quicker access to the AirPlay symbol right here. And you can even hit these three dots for things like picture-in-picture and playback speed. Vinegar can run on your iPhone or your Mac and it really cleans up the video experience.
The next extension is called Honey which is actually from PayPal. Honey will find deals or other prices whenever you're looking at a product on the website. With Honey running, you'll see this little pop over on the right hand side. I can click that and actually see a graph of the price over time. I can also get alerted about future price drops. Maybe if I'm shopping for an item on something like Best Buy, I can click the Honey icon here in Safari and then compare the prices at 9 other vendors. Here I can see the price at Walmart, Best Buy, Amazon, and get price comparisons across multiple websites. And if you're shopping at an online retailer that might have promo codes available, looking at the Honey extension, you can see store coupons that might be working right now.
is Mapper. I actually talked about this in my 42 great iPhone apps you've never heard of. You can check out that video above or in the description. But if you're an Apple Maps first user, you know a lot of times when you Google a business it will show you the Google Maps result. Well with Mapper installed it runs in the background and if I tap Get Directions it will actually open that in Apple Maps instead of Google Maps. Any Google Business result you see on the web it will automatically redirect it into Apple Maps.
Next for those of you who might be doing web development or just like to look at website code at CHU HTM. I'll go into my iPhone extensions. This works in Safari on the desktop as well. I can go to a CHU HTML and just see the source code for the website right here very easily. I can edit the code, change the font, and even share the code of this page, send it in a message, airdrop it to myself as an HTML file. Great for checking that website code on the go.
Now this next recommendation is a content blocker and this can be controversial, but what I like to do is whitelist websites that I visit often that I know support themselves with advertised banners on their site. So, I'm going to go ahead and click on the website. And this way, those ads still show up on the websites I visit the most often. And honestly, I use Reader to read a lot of stuff via RSS feed. And then there's no ads anyway. But Magic Lasso is my content blocker of choice. Here you can set allowed websites that will show you ads even when you visit. And Magic Lasso is running. And it also blocks trackers and annoyances. Again, on iPhone, iPad, or Mac. And if you ever need to view a website without content blockers on, just tap the symbol on the bottom left. And you can turn off content blockers right here. And it'll refresh the page without it running.
Next, when it comes to save it or read it later. There are lots of them out there, but I actually really like Anybox, and they have an extension in Safari both for the Mac, iPhone, and iPad, and when you click a website, you can star it, add it to a folder, or tag it. You can also add a brief comment about whatever link you're saving, and when you click save, you can see it show up in Anybox right here. Anybox also has a today view, you can look at start items from the past, and even browse by sources like which device added this link to Anybox. Plus when you're on your iPhone or iPad, you can just tap the share button and tap any box right here and it'll add a as well.
Another extension I use to save links is Bear. Bear can live right here in your toolbar and when I click that extension it will automatically open Bear and save that to a new note. It actually saves the entire website, images, URLs, and all.
And finally, a fun Safari extension is the Wayback Machine. You might already be familiar with it, but you can put it right here in the toolbar of Safari and then view this page at a date. You can look at the oldest or the newest and after it loads you can see what the Apple website looked like on April 30, 2011. That is a blast from the past. That's- for sure.
In one other word on extensions and Safari profiles, you can actually set which extensions are active for which profiles here in the Safari settings. For instance, for my beard.fm profile, I can go over to Extensions and check or uncheck which extensions I see in the toolbar for Safari. This also applies to Safari profiles on your iOS devices. If you go to Settings and then Safari, scroll down until you get to your profiles towards the bottom. If I tap a profile, I can actually manage the extensions I see per profile right here.
And those are 13 Safari extensions to make browsing the internet a little easier. If you have extensions that I missed and that you love, I'd like to hear about them down in the comments. Or if you have any questions, you can leave them there as well. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel before you go, hit that like button, and if you're into shortcuts, I have a ton of videos on that. I actually have an entire playlist walking you through from Beginner Steps, Shortcuts 101, all the way to Advanced Automations and Workflows. I'll leave that playlist right up here. And if you're curious about Apple Vision Pro, I have several videos on that, but one of the most fun videos I've ever seen is what my friends and family reacted with Apple Vision Pro their very first time. You can check out that video right up here. Thanks for watching. I'll catch you next time.