Hey folks,

Quick rant turned project. Anyone else notice YouTube quietly stopped letting you click channel names in half the places it used to? Go to your History — the channel name is just gray text now. Watch Later, same thing. The list of videos on the right while you're watching something? Plain text. Any playlist you're playing through? Plain text.

So if I spot a video and think "huh, who made this, what else do they have," I can't just click. I have to either open the video first or paste the name into search. Tiny thing. Broke me after a while.

So I made a little extension that just... unbreaks it. Channel names are clickable again. One click and you're on the creator's page, like the good old days. Works in your History, the sidebar while you're watching, Watch Later, other playlists, the standalone playlist page — basically every spot where YouTube took it away.

There's also a toggle in the toolbar in case you genuinely prefer the plain-text channel names inside playlists and just want the rest fixed. Everything outside playlists stays clickable either way.

Other stuff because this is r/chrome_extensions and someone always asks:

• Free.
• Doesn't phone home. No tracking, no analytics, no accounts, nothing. Didn't feel like building any of that, definitely didn't want to maintain it.
• No ads, no popups, no "please rate me 5 stars" nags.
• The one toggle syncs with your browser sync — flip it on your laptop and your other signed-in browser picks it up.

Chrome Web Store: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/clickable-channels-for-yo/mnemigfbjboniccenbgfnipeonjdmofi

If you find a spot on YouTube where channel names are still un-clickable and my thing misses it — please yell at me in the comments and I'll add it. Bug reports, "why didn't you just X" takes, feature ideas — all welcome.

I kept running into the same annoying workflow:

I’d see a useful post on X —

a strong hook,

a launch post,

a product demo,

a meme format,

an ad angle,

or just a good content structure

and then I’d save it somewhere random.

Sometimes I liked it.

Sometimes I bookmarked it.

Sometimes I took a screenshot.

Sometimes I pasted it into notes.

The problem was that none of those turned into an actual reusable library.

So I built a small Chrome extension called HookVault.

It lets you save public X/Twitter posts into a local swipe file with:

- source link

- post text

- author info when available

- media type

- tags

- personal notes

- used / unused status

- search and filters

- CSV / JSON export

It’s local-first and uses chrome.storage.local.

No account, no backend, no cloud sync, no data collection.

Also, it is not a video downloader. It saves the post context for research/inspiration, not the video file.

I mainly built it for creators/builders who study what works on X and want a cleaner way to organize examples.

Would love feedback on the workflow:

Do you currently keep a swipe file?

And if yes, where do you keep it — Notion, bookmarks, screenshots, something else?

Link:

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/hookvault-save-xtwitter-p/dpamdgndkneedmfplgnnbdogiakajcpo

I kept running into the same issue during work/research sessions: too many tabs open with duplicate pages everywhere.

So I built a small extension for myself and have been refining it for a while.

It:

• Detects duplicate tabs automatically
• Highlights them visually
• Lets you clean them up quickly

Extension store: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/duplicate-tab-manager/fdflknjbngphmbmeeanpaapopfpcfkhn

Would genuinely love feedback/suggestions.

I’ve been building Chrome extensions for a while, but recently ran into a problem with my own setup:

I had ~27 extensions installed…
and couldn’t confidently answer:

→ which ones I actually still use
→ which ones overlap
→ which ones might be risky

Chrome lets you manage extensions, but it doesn’t really help you decide what to keep

and once you install enough, things get messy fast

So I built a small side project:

Extension Manager & Cleaner
https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/extension-manager-cleaner/kkkbalogfpcbhmgobjohlcamikmaedia

What it does

• scans all installed extensions (locally only)
• highlights ones that need attention
• detects overlaps (e.g. multiple wallets / ad blockers)
• shows enabled vs disabled breakdown
• suggests actions like:
  • keep
  • disable first
  • review permissions

Why I built it this way

I initially wanted to detect “unused extensions”

but quickly realized:

that’s actually really hard to measure reliably

So instead, I focused on signals like:

• permissions scope
• duplication
• whether it’s enabled
• whether you’ve reviewed it recently

What surprised me

I had:

• 4 crypto wallet extensions enabled at once
• overlapping extensions doing similar things
• a few I didn’t even remember installing

Also learned that extensions can request pretty deep access to your browsing data depending on permissions

so this felt more like a browser hygiene / safety problem than just cleanup

Tech

• Chrome Extension (Manifest V3)
• chrome.management API
• fully local (no backend, no tracking)

Still figuring out

• how aggressive suggestions should be
• how to define “high attention” better
• whether to add periodic review reminders

Would love feedback from other builders:

• how do you manage your extensions today?
• would you trust a tool like this to suggest removals?
• anything obvious I’m missing?

For the TLDR People in case you don't want to read all of this:

I have too many extensions, my workflow already eats all my RAM, so I built an extension that lets you disable all extensions in one click (with a whitelist), or automatically toggle them based on what site you're on. Free to use, and the per-site rules.!

Link: Shutup Extensions - Chrome Web Store

____________________________________________________

The Problem:

So basically I'm one of those people who installs every extension they find useful. You know how it goes, you find something cool, you install it, then you forget about it. Before you know it you've got like 30 extensions sitting there eating your RAM for breakfast.

I got tired of going back and forth turning things off manually every time my browser started acting up. Like I don't need my shopping extensions while I'm coding, and I don't need my dev tools while I'm watching YouTube. But doing that manually every single time? Nah.

The Solution

So I built something for myself. Just a simple thing to kill all extensions at once and keep the ones I actually need running. Showed it to a few friends and they all said the same thing... "wait I need this too". So I cleaned it up and actually published it.

It's called Shutup Extensions Pro. The free version lets you disable/enable all your extensions in one click with a whitelist so your important ones stay on. The Pro version adds per-website rules so extensions turn on and off automatically depending on what site you're on.

You can try it here: Shutup Extensions - Chrome Web Store

How it Works (Transparency):

Here's how the smart mode works under the hood if you're curious, i am a fan of open-sourcing things because others might do it better than me at somepoint:

// every time you switch tabs, we wake up and check where you are
chrome.tabs.onActivated.addListener(async ({ tabId }) => {
  const tab = await chrome.tabs.get(tabId);
  const domain = new URL(tab.url).hostname;

  const { domainRules, whitelist } = await chrome.storage.local.get(['domainRules', 'whitelist']);

  // does this site have its own rules? use those
  // no rules? cool, fall back to your whitelist
  const rule = domainRules.find(r => domain.includes(r.domain));
  const keepEnabled = rule ? rule.extensions : whitelist;

  const allExtensions = await chrome.management.getAll();

  for (const ext of allExtensions) {
    if (ext.id === chrome.runtime.id) continue; // not gonna disable myself, that would be awkward

    const shouldBeOn = keepEnabled.includes(ext.id);

    if (ext.enabled && !shouldBeOn) {
      // chrome.management.setEnabled is chrome's own API
      // not a hack, not a workaround, it literally unloads the extension
      // service worker? dead. content scripts? gone. RAM? yours again.
      await chrome.management.setEnabled(ext.id, false);
    }

    if (!ext.enabled && shouldBeOn) {
      await chrome.management.setEnabled(ext.id, true); // welcome back buddy
    }
  }
});

// so you're on github? only your dev tools stay alive
// switch to youtube? dev tools sleep, your ad blocker wakes up
// 20 extensions installed, only 3 running at a time
// your browser stops acting like it's running a marathon

I'd really appreciate it if you guys checked it out and gave me some honest feedback. I'm still working on it and want to make it actually useful for people, not just me lol

Small Disclaimer & Note:

the extension currently claims 80MB Released-Ram usage per extension turn off, it's a hardcoded value, originally i designed it to be an actual dynamic value but Chrome & Edge Web Stores Policies dictates that i cannot do that (//var savedMB = disabled * 80;)