YouTube offers an endless supply of excellent videos, but its interface leaves much to be desired. There is no way to stop videos from automatically starting to play as soon as the page loads; if you want to watch a high-resolution version of a video, you must pick it from the video menu each and every time; and the page is full of distracting elements such as comments and video recommendations. Google Chrome extension Magic Actions for YouTube (free) lets you fix all this, and much more.

Magic Actions for YouTube also shows up as a bar under all videos on YouTube, so you can easily access its settings and see what percentage of the current video has buffered so far. It lets you hide page sections, too, so if you don't like the comment threads on YouTube you can simply make them all go away.

Note: The Download button takes you to the Chrome Web store, where you can install the latest version directly into your Chrome browser.

—Erez Zukerman