10 Best Chrome Extensions for Students

Most studying now happens in a browser tab. The right Chrome extensions handle small, repetitive jobs, like citing a source, blocking a feed or reading a long chapter aloud, so you can spend your time on the actual work.

These are the 10 best Chrome extensions for students, one for each study job. We checked every listing on the Chrome Web Store on November 7, 2026. Each one installs from the Chrome Web Store, so it works on a Chromebook as well as on Windows and Mac.

Full disclosure: we make ArticleAudio, the read-aloud pick. The other nine come from other companies and are here on their merits. Nothing is sponsored.

The list at a glance

1. ArticleAudio: best for reading and listening

Text to speech is one of the most useful things a student can add to Chrome. Listening helps you get through long assigned readings, rest tired eyes, and keep your place in dense text.

ArticleAudio is a read aloud Chrome extension that reads course pages, online textbooks, articles, PDFs and AI chat answers in natural AI voices. Click the toolbar icon to listen to the whole page. To hear one passage, select it and press the keyboard shortcut, or right-click and choose Listen with ArticleAudio.

• Whole page or one passage: listen to a full chapter or course page, or select a single paragraph.
• Follow Along Highlight: each word is highlighted as it is read and the page scrolls with the audio, so you can read and listen at the same time.
• Controls: speed from 0.5x to 2.5x, 5-second skip back and forward, five voices, and MP3 download.
• AI chats: a play button next to each reply in ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity.

• Best for: assigned readings, textbooks, research pages and AI answers you would rather hear than read, and students with dyslexia, ADHD or reading fatigue who find it easier to hear and see the words together.
• Watch out for: it is a browser extension for computers and Chromebooks, so it doesn’t work inside phone apps such as the Canvas Student app.
• Cost: free to try with 1,000 words and no credit card. Premium removes the word limit. See pricing.

Add ArticleAudio to Chrome

Canvas, Blackboard and other learning platforms

A lot of course reading lives in your school’s learning platform. On Canvas, ArticleAudio reads module pages, assignment instructions, the syllabus, announcements and discussions. Listen to the whole page, or select one discussion reply to hear only that post. It runs in your browser, so your school doesn’t need to turn anything on.

Course pages in Blackboard, D2L Brightspace and Moodle are web pages too, so it works the same way there: open the page and listen, or select the part you need.

eTextbooks and online textbooks

Open textbooks such as OpenStax are easy to listen to: open a section on openstax.org and play it, with each word highlighted as it’s read. When a course opens a publisher eTextbook inside a Canvas page, ArticleAudio finds the reading inside the embedded reader and reads the pages on screen. It does the same in browser e-book readers such as Libby and Kortext.

Pages shown only as images, such as scanned books, can’t be read aloud. For articles and background reading, see the guides for Wikipedia and turning articles into audio.

Read PDFs aloud

Many course readings are PDFs. Open the PDF in Chrome, select the text you want to hear, right-click and choose Listen with ArticleAudio. If the textbook has a web version, like OpenStax, listen to that instead so you can play a whole section at once.

Listen to ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini answers

AI explanations can run long. ArticleAudio adds a play button next to each reply in ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity, so you can hear the whole answer in one click or select just the part you need. There are step-by-step guides for ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini.

2. Grammarly: best for writing and grammar

Checks grammar, spelling, punctuation, clarity and tone as you write emails, discussion posts and most other text boxes on the web. It also includes AI drafting help.

• Best for: Essays, discussion posts and emails to professors.
• Watch out for: Sentence rewrites, plagiarism checks and AI-content checks are part of Pro. Read your course rules on AI writing help.
• Cost: Free, with a Pro upgrade.

3. Zotero Connector: best for citations and research

Saves articles, books and PDFs from the page you are on into Zotero, a free, open-source reference manager, so you can build citations and bibliographies later.

• Best for: Research papers, theses and anyone collecting more than a handful of sources.
• Watch out for: The extension can save straight to a zotero.org account, but organizing sources and inserting citations into your paper uses the Zotero desktop app.
• Cost: Free and open source.

4. Glasp: best for highlighting and notes

Highlights text on web pages, PDFs and YouTube, saves the highlights to your Glasp library to tag and search, and summarizes videos and articles with AI.

• Best for: Collecting quotes from many sources while you research.
• Watch out for: Highlights are public by default. You can make pages private on every plan, including Free.
• Cost: Free plan. Glasp also offers a free Student plan for university email addresses.

5. Liner: best for AI summaries

An AI sidebar that summarizes web pages, PDFs and YouTube videos, answers questions next to your search results and translates pages. It also has a highlighter.

• Best for: Getting the gist of a long video or PDF before you dig in.
• Watch out for: Free answers come with ads and limited credits. Check your course’s AI policy before using AI on graded work.
• Cost: Free, with a Pro upgrade.

6. LeechBlock NG: best for blocking distractions

Blocks the sites you choose during set hours, after a daily time allowance, or both. It also has a lockdown mode for exam weeks.

• Best for: Flexible, rule-based blocking at no cost.
• Watch out for: Its optional password is designed to slow you down, not to stop you completely. Set your rules before you need them.
• Cost: Free.

7. OneTab: best for tab overload

Collapses all your open tabs into a single list that you can restore one at a time or all at once.

• Best for: Clearing a pile of research tabs at the end of a session without losing them.
• Watch out for: Your lists stay on your device unless you use “Share as web page”, which uploads them.
• Cost: No sign-up needed.

8. Google Dictionary (by Google): best for looking up words

Double-click any word to see its definition in a pop-up, with an optional history of the words you looked up.

• Best for: Vocabulary-heavy readings and students reading in a second language.
• Watch out for: The pop-up does not work in tabs that were open before you installed it. Reload them first.

9. OpenDyslexic for Chrome: best for dyslexia-friendly reading

Switches the fonts on web pages to OpenDyslexic, a typeface designed for readers with dyslexia, with an optional low-contrast mode.

• Best for: Trying a dyslexia-friendly font across the web with one switch.
• Watch out for: Font preference is personal. Some readers find it helps and others do not, so test it on a few long readings.
• Cost: Free.

10. Dark Reader: best for eye strain

Gives websites a dark theme, with brightness, contrast, sepia and font controls and per-site settings.

• Best for: Late-night study sessions and anyone who finds bright white pages tiring.
• Watch out for: If a page looks wrong in a forced dark theme, switch it off for that site. Install the listing from Dark Reader Ltd; look-alikes exist.
• Cost: Open source.

Best Chrome extensions for dyslexia and reading support

For readers with dyslexia, ADHD or plain reading fatigue, four picks on this list work well together. ArticleAudio reads text aloud and highlights each word as it’s read. OpenDyslexic for Chrome changes page fonts, Dark Reader cuts glare, and Google Dictionary explains unfamiliar words without leaving the page.

Try them on a few long readings and keep what helps. They work alongside, not instead of, support from your school.

Using these extensions on a school Chromebook

Chromebooks run extensions from the Chrome Web Store, so all ten install on a Chromebook the same way they do on Windows or Mac. On a school-managed Chromebook, your IT admin decides which extensions you can add. Some may be blocked and others may already be installed for you. If one you need is blocked, ask your school’s IT or accessibility office.

How we picked

We chose one extension for each study job and kept the list to ten. On November 7, 2026, we checked each Chrome Web Store listing to confirm the extension is still available, has been updated recently and does what we describe. We skipped extensions that haven’t been updated in over two years.

We don’t quote prices, ratings or user counts because they change often. Check the listing before you install.