I’ve liked Chrome’s speed ever since it came out, but for a good while after Google’s browser was first released, I stayed with Firefox because it offered much more functionality and features with its add-ons — until Google opened up Chrome to extensions. Within a couple weeks after extensions were added, Chrome leapfrogged Firefox as my primary browser.

I still love Firefox and use it for certain things that Chrome still can’t handle well, such as working in WordPress or opening files instead of saving them. Nonetheless, the extensions have allowed me to get close to the best of both worlds — the speed of Chrome and the functionality of Firefox. Here are some of my favorite Chrome extensions:

Click&Clean: This is really a feature that needs to be built into Chrome itself, but until that happens, Click&Clean is what I use to clear browser data such as cookies and the cache. My only complaint is that while Firefox clears its browser data silently when you close your browser, Click&Clean pops up a screen that sometimes stays on for more than a couple seconds, and on my slower computer, it often just opens an empty browser window instead.

MeasureIt: A handy tool for designers that allows you to measure a part of the screen. I started using this tool while I was still on Firefox, and it was one of the main reasons I stayed on Firefox, until the Chrome extension came out.

Eye Dropper: On Firefox, Colorzilla was kind of the companion tool to MeasureIt. I’ve found Eye Dropper to be a solid substitute for it on Chrome. It lets you sample colors from a Web page. The color wheel is also a nice touch.

Chromed Bird: Probably the best in-browser Twitter client I’ve used. While many of the extensions on this list are things that replicate what I was able to do on Firefox, I feel like Chromed Bird is one extension that’s superior to any Firefox counterpart I’ve been able to find (and believe me, I’ve looked). I like it because it’s very compact (a small icon that you click to open a drop-down box rather than a whole sidebar or another toolbar) but still offers all the important functionalities, such as the ability to retweet the old-school way and the ability to search Twitter within the extension itself.

DayHiker: A quick and easy way to check your Google calendar. If nothing else, you gotta love that icon.

Search Center: When extensions first came out, one thing I looked for was something that can replicate the quick-search box in Firefox that allows you to quickly search different sites without having to go to the site first. There were some extensions that did that, but only for a limited number of the most popular sites. Some of them alleged that you can add other sites, but I could never get them to work. Recently, though, I discovered Search Center, and it actually makes it easy for me add a site search engine.

FittrFlickr: This extension pimps up Flickr by, among other things, adding a lightbox feature for quick picture viewing, adding quick links to see the different sizes of a photo and the EXIF data, and implementing keyboard shortcuts.

Handy Google Shortcuts: There are a few extensions that all do basically the same thing — make it easy for you to access the different Google applications. This is the one I use, and I like it.

Better Gmail: This was a must-add for me. It gives you more control over your Gmail interface, such as hide ads, highlight the row that you’re mousing over, and fix the page width.

Picnik Extension: I had the Firefox equivalent of this tool, too. It lets you send an image or a screenshot of the current page from your browser to Picnik, the online photo-editing site. It’s a quick-and-dirty way to grab and edit images, especially while you’re blogging.

Lightshot: I just discovered this today and it looks like a promising substitute for the Screengrab add-on I had on Firefox. It takes screenshots and lets you select specific areas of the screen to capture as well. One plus it has over Screengrab that I’ve already discovered: If you’re running two monitors, Lightshot actually captures both screens, not just the one that the Chrome browser is running on.