Category Archives: Things I like

Android apps I use

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See also: Chrome extensions I like

Here’s a list of all the apps currently installed on my Android smartphone. My favorite ones are boldfaced. Please note that a few apps require root access; if your phone is not rooted, these apps will not work.

Let me know if you think I’m missing anything. I’m interested both in superior alternatives to the apps I currently use and in completely novel apps.

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Latest update: 5th July, 2017

My favorite films of the 2000s

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Inspired perhaps by Luke’s movie recommendations, I have decided to pick my favorite films of the 2000s.  More specifically, I’m picking one film –my favorite– for each of the ten years comprising that decade.  Future posts will list my favorite films for other decades.  I may revise this post as I watch new films, or as my tastes change.

I should note that I barely watched any films during the second part of the decade. This may explain why my picks for the last five years of this period are more mainstream, and arguably lower in quality.

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

Latest update: 1st March, 2014

Android apps I like

An up-to-date list of all apps currently installed on my Android phone can be found here.  Please note that you need an AppBrain account to see the list (the service is free, and you can easily create a new account by linking it to your Google or Facebook profile).

As I no longer use AppBrain, this post is now out of date. See this post for my current list of Android apps.

Latest update: 11th March, 2015

Blogs I like

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These are some of the blogs I like.  When this is not otherwise obvious, author names for individual blogs, or for group blogs with a primary author, appear in parentheses.  If you think I’m missing something I would enjoy, please let me know. All-time favorites are boldfaced.

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Latest update: 30th May, 2022

Chrome extensions I like

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See also: Android apps I use

These are the Chrome extensions I currently use. My favorite ones are boldfaced.

  • Application Launcher for Drive. Open Drive files directly from your browser in compatible applications installed on your computer.
  • Bitly. URL shortener.
  • BuiltWith Technology Profiler. Find out what the website you are visiting is built with.
  • Bypass Paywalls. See paywalled content from all the major media outlets (e.g. Financial Times, The Economist, etc.) as well as other sites.
  • Browserpass. Browser extension for pass, the standard Unix password manager.
  • CLUT: Cycle Last Used Tab. Toggle between your current and last used tab with a keyboard shortcut. I use this extension hundreds of times per day.
  • Contact Out. Find a person’s email, as long as they have a LinkedIn account.
  • Dark Reader. Dark mode for every website. My personal settings are here.
  • Don’t add custom search engines. Prevent Chrome from auto-adding custom search engines.
  • Get RSS Feed URL. Adds one-click subscription to Chrome’s toolbar.
  • Ghost Text. In combination with Atomic Chrome, this extension lets me enter text (e.g. writing a comment or editing a Wikipedia article) directly from Emacs.
  • Google Docs Offline.
  • Grammarly. Spell checker and more.
  • I still don’t care about cookies. Do you like clicking a consent button every damned time you visit a new website? Then why are you not using this extension? [Mostly relevant for EU residents.]
  • Keyboard Shortcuts for Google Translate. Provides keyboard shortcuts on the Google Translate page.
  • My IMDb. Highlights the movies you’ve already seen (voted for) when searching IMDb or displaying actor/director pages.
  • Print Friendly & PDF. Improves the print version of a web page by removing ads and fixing broken layout.
  • Return YouTube dislike. For inexplicable reasons, although YouTube still lets users dislike videos, it no longer displays the number of video dislikes. This extension restores the dislike count.
  • ReviewMeta.com Review Analyzer. Adjusts Amazon’s ratings to exclude fake reviews.
  • Shut up. “If you’ve ever gone to a website and read its comments section, you’ll have seen that it’s just a vitriolic, idiotic wasteland. Why subject yourself to that?”
  • Tag Assistant. Helps troubleshoot installation of various Google tags including Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager and more.
  • uBlacklist. Blocks specific sites from appearing in Google search results. My list of blocked sites is here.
  • uBlock Origin. A fast, potent, and lean ad-blocker. I shared some customizations here.
  • Unhook. Hides YouTube related videos, comments, shorts tab, suggestions wall, homepage recommendations, trending, and other distractions. I set it to replace the home feed with my subscriptions.
  • Vimium. Provides keyboard shortcuts for navigation and control in the spirit of Vim. My settings are here.
  • Wayback Machine. Reduce annoying 404 pages by automatically checking for an archived copy in the Wayback Machine.

With thanks to Tom Ash, Ryan Carey, Sam Deere, Peter McIntyre, Claudia Shi, James Ting-Edwards and Matthew van der Merwe for valuable suggestions.

Latest update: 20th February, 2024