7 of the Best Chrome Extensions for Reddit Users

Wish you could customize your Reddit experience at least a little? Just use some of the best Chrome extensions for Reddit users to clean up comments, go back to the arguably better old design, and even make reading comments easier. While Reddit is great, it really could use some upgrades, and these extensions are a nice boost.

1. Best for Reddit’s Original Look: Old Reddit Redirect

Reddit’s more modern look is okay, but if you prefer the original forum style, get it back with Old Reddit Redirect. It’s a simple Chrome extension that redirects you to the old Reddit style, but with current content.

Once installed, either refresh your current Reddit tab or open a new one to see the difference. The top half is Reddit’s new design, while the bottom half is how the same page looks after using Old Reddit Redirect.

You don’t have to adjust any settings or anything else. Just install, reload Reddit, and enjoy. It works quietly in the background, so you can enjoy Reddit as it was meant to be – the nostalgic forum look.

2. Best for Customizing Reddit: Reddit Enhancement Suite

Reddit Enhancement Suite, better known as RES, only works on the old version of Reddit. However, if you install Old Reddit Redirect first, RES still works to customize the look and feel of Reddit. It takes some getting used to, to find the changes you can make, but it’s well worth it. If you want to customize your Reddit feed, try these solutions.

Once you’ve installed the extension, open it, and select Options. Change aspects of the appearance, turn on keyboard navigation, automatically filter content, and more.

When combined with the previous extension, it’s easily one of the best Chrome extensions for Reddit users who want more control over their experience. Think of it as the Reddit power user extension.

3. Best for Viewing Reddit Comments Everywhere: Comet

Did you just find a great web page or YouTube video and wonder what other Reddit users think about it? Just install Comet. This is one of the best Chrome extensions for Reddit users to instantly see Reddit chatter about a specific page or video.

Once installed, browse YouTube, and you’ll see the usual YouTube comments replaced with Reddit comments, if any are available. Simply click the YouTube icon at the top right of the comment section to switch back to YouTube comments.

But, this doesn’t just work on YouTube. Check out discussions about Wikipedia pages and most any website you visit. If the Comet extension lights up orange next to your address bar, click it to view Reddit discussions. If it doesn’t light up, then no one’s currently talking about it – or at least hasn’t linked to it.

4. Best for a Mobile Experience: Companion for Reddit

The mobile version of Reddit is a bit cleaner than the desktop version. Get a similar experience on your desktop by installing the Companion for Reddit Chrome extension. Scroll through Reddit in a smartphone or tablet style. It even shows notification counts directly on the extension icon.

The sidebar collapses into an expandable menu on the left. It doesn’t do much else, but since it opens in a separate window, you can keep Reddit open without taking up valuable browser real estate.

Manually click the extension’s icon at any time to open Reddit this way, or set it to auto-open Reddit when your browser starts. In my experience, posts and comments loaded faster than on the standard browser version, which is a nice bonus.

5. Best for Viewing Images: Hover Zoom+

Hover Zoom+ lets you finally view larger versions of Reddit images without having to click on the image and open it in a new window. Simply hover your mouse over the image and poof, enjoy the zoomed in version. Move your mouse away, and the zoomed in version goes away.

What I love about this is that it isn’t just for Reddit, though it’s extremely helpful on there. It works on a variety of sites, but definitely not all. For example, it worked well on Amazon and Wikipedia, but not on most news sites I tried.

If you want to further customize Hover Zoom+, open the extension options, and select various shortcut keys to exit a zoom, open it in a new tab, lock the image, and more. Even with these keys, it’s still a breeze to use.

6. Best for Searching: Reddit Search on Google

Did you ever search for something on Google, then wish you’d just searched Reddit? One of the best Chrome extensions for Reddit users is Reddit Search on Google. Quickly toggle between a normal Google search and one specifically with Reddit results.

The extension doesn’t require any permissions and doesn’t read your data. Surprising, I know. All it does is add site:reddit.com to your Google search term without you having to manually type it in.

Once installed, open a Google search page, and search as usual. Click the Reddit logo to view just Reddit results. You’ll even see points, upvotes, and comment numbers listed with every result.

7. Best for Cleaning Up Comments: Reddit Comment Collapser

Discussions are obviously the best part of Reddit, but when you have thousands of comments, things get out of hand quickly. Reddit Comment Collapser lets you collapse entire comment threads and easily see where the first comment in the thread is.

The bad part is that it only works on the old version of Reddit. You’ll need to either use the Old Reddit Redirect extension or visit old.reddit.com to see the old version.

When you view a post in the old version, hover your mouse to the left of any comment until a vertical bar lights up yellow. Click this to collapse all comments in this particular thread. It’s much easier than endless scrolling or accidentally collapsing the wrong comments.

If you notice deleted comments, try these tricks for viewing the content anyway.

Use Reddit Your Way

Chrome extensions for Reddit users give you some extra options for enjoying Reddit, even if Reddit sometimes does crazy things users hate. If you’re new to Reddit, make sure you know the most popular acronyms. Or, if you’re fed up with Reddit, move the discussion elsewhere with these Reddit alternatives.

Image credit: Pexels. All screenshots by Crystal Crowder.