Given how much time we spend in our browsers for work and play, browser extensions are a great way to boost your productivity.

Safari’s extension library is a little harder to find than Chrome’s – it’s part of the App Store on your Mac, and you can’t search for extensions directly. It’s also worth noting that extensions in Safari are nowhere near as popular as in Chrome. While Chrome has more than 216,000 extensions, Safari has a fraction of that number, though Apple doesn't publicly state how many have been approved.

That means less choice, but better security. Apple keeps much tighter control over the extensions that are published compared with Chrome.

Extensions for Safari work quite differently to Chrome. You need to install them from the Mac App Store, then go to Safari > Settings > Extensions and tick the box to turn on each extension.

That same Extensions screen is also where you can turn them off again, uninstall them or adjust what websites they can run on, which is worth checking before you give an extension access to everything you do in the browser.

Safari extensions to try

StopTheMadness Pro is a very popular and powerful extension on a mission – to wrestle back control of your browser from marketing-heavy and restrictive websites. It stops sites from disabling browser features such as text selection, copy and paste, right-click menus, drag and drop, autofill and keyboard shortcuts.

It blocks annoying marketing videos that autoplay when you load the website and forces Safari’s standard video controls to appear, so you can decide how much of a video you want to watch.

It also has several security features: StopTheMadness Pro automatically strips tracking parameters from URLs and blocks common tracking techniques, plus it has a number of other customisations to create a better browsing experience.

Safari’s search box xSearch is a massively powerful research tool. You can set up short text shortcuts that search specific websites without needing to visit the site. For example, if you like to browse secondhand goods on eBay, you can create a shortcut such as “eba” and then type “eba iPad” straight into Safari’s address bar to search eBay for iPads. You will see the results of the search straight away, without having to load the eBay website.

Spotlight and Shortcuts hooks into xSearch, so you can trigger searches from Finder or other apps outside of Safari.

MousHero adds an automation menu to Safari’s right-click options. You can create up to three custom actions that can launch apps or run automations using the webpage you’re on as the input, such as the page URL, page title, selected text or a link you’ve clicked. It’s much faster to send a client some information from a tax office webpage or paste it into a document. You can even launch a repeatable workflow from Safari using Apple Shortcuts.

Wipr 2 and Hush essentially both do the same job: they clean up the web by blocking ads, trackers and the usual pop-ups and cookie nags that slow down pages and clutter your screen. What sets Wipr 2 apart from the dozens of other ad blockers is that it removes the ads and reformats the page so there aren't big white gaps where the ads were. It’s a much more pleasant reading experience. Hush is a little more lightweight but also very popular.

Grammarly gives you quick access to writing suggestions while you work in Safari. Even though you now get a lot of the functionality of Grammarly with the AI upgrades to Gmail and Microsoft Outlook, Grammarly is still popular because it has company-specific templates that can be used across any app or form where you need to type text.

1Password and Bitwarden (the extension is downloaded with the app) give you quick access to a password manager while you work in Safari. Browsers have reasonably decent password managers these days and Apple’s password manager is built into the operating system itself. However, third-party password managers make more sense if you are also using other browsers such as Chrome as well as Safari, or want team features.

The security trade-offs of browser extensions

Extensions sit inside your browser, so they often get the same ‘view’ of your work as you do: what pages you open, what you type into forms and, in some cases, the session cookies that prove you are logged in. That makes them a tempting target for crooks.

In Chrome, the problem is worse because the ecosystem is enormous and constantly under attack. A campaign in December 2025 used Chrome extensions to steal credentials, route traffic through attacker-controlled proxies and hijack accounts at scale.

Safari is not immune, but the problems often look like Mac adware and browser hijacking, including campaigns that push ads, redirects or unwanted search behaviour, rather than high-value account takeover. Because Safari extensions come via the App Store and the catalogue is smaller, these attacks occur less frequently.

Five ways to choose safer Safari extensions

1. Start with ‘least privilege’

Avoid anything that wants to read and change all data on all websites, unless it genuinely needs that level of access. Prefer per-site permissions where possible.

2. Pick known developers

Go for established brands or vendors you already use in your stack and make sure they have an official website.

3. Check the crowd signals

Look for consistently strong reviews, not a handful of five-star comments that read like they were written by the same person.

4. Review the listing

A clear privacy policy, a real support site and regular updates are good signs.

5. Keep your extension list short

Install one at a time, audit them quarterly and remove extensions you do not use. If you run a firm, consider an allowlist policy (a cybersecurity whitelist of permitted tech) for staff browsers.