Last Friday, 11pm, I broke under 40 open tabs

Last Friday at 11pm, my client was chasing me on WeChat for a proposal. I had 40 tabs open — contract, reference images, that sentence I promised last week — couldn't find a thing.

I panicked for 3 minutes before realizing: my browser wasn't slow, I just had no tools. This post is about 5 extensions that have saved me for a year.

The 5 extensions, and who's already using them

Bitwarden — password manager. I used to memorize passwords until a phishing site stole one of my accounts. My friend Ating (Xiaohongshu side hustle) got burned the same way — she spent a weekend importing 80+ accounts, now logs in in 1 second.

uBlock Origin — ad blocker. A designer I know, Xiao Chen, says every work site loads 2-3x faster after installing it.

GoFullPage — full-page screenshot. When a client says "send me that page," I used to stitch WeChat screenshots for 5 minutes. Now one click, full-page PNG. Linda, a PM I work with, asks me for these before every review.

Loom — screen recording. When clients don't want to read, I record a 2-min voiceover and drop the link. Azhe (freelance designer) in my community says this cut his weekly communication time by 8 hours.

Toby — tab grouping. I made this mistake before: thinking more tabs = more work. My brain had already given up.

What it costs to set this up today

Money: $0. Free tiers cover everything. Bitwarden's free plan supports unlimited passwords; the other 4 are fully free.

Time: 1-2 hours total. I installed them all in one National Day break last year, about 10 minutes each — mostly manual stuff like importing old passwords and setting up groups.

Tech barrier: near zero. Search the name in Chrome Web Store, click "Add to Chrome." Bitwarden will ask you to set a "master password" first (the master key to all your passwords) — forget it and you're done for. Write it on paper, keep it at home. I didn't write mine down once and nearly lost everything.

First step: Three dots top-right of Chrome → "Extensions" → Chrome Web Store → search "Bitwarden" → install → in the popup, decide on that master password. Pick a sentence you don't use often but can remember (e.g., "I fell off my bike learning to ride in 2008").

If you're in one of these 3 stages, here's what I'd pick

Just starting (no clients yet / building followers): Install uBlock and Loom first. uBlock cleans up browsing (scrolling Xiaohongshu 30 min less is normal); Loom lets you record your SOP and drop it in your fan group in 3 min.

Have 1-2 clients (taking on work): Add Bitwarden and GoFullPage. Clients hate when you "can't find things" — these two kill that at the root: never forget passwords, one-click page screenshots.

Scaling up (3-10 clients / starting to hire): Full set of 5, plus Toby. When juggling multiple clients, "context switching" is the most expensive cost. Toby gets you back to Thursday's work state in 1 second Monday morning.

Last thing: if you only have a few browser tabs and Chrome's built-in password manager is enough for you, don't move. I ran naked for two years before switching — it's not that serious.