5 Cool Chrome Browser Extensions That Help You Visualize Your Browsing History

5 Cool Chrome Browser Extensions That Help You Visualize Your Browsing History:

The importance of clearing your browsing history is often drilled into us. It is a question of privacy because a snooper can easily enter your history folder and see the sites you have visited. A hacker can so easily enter a site and compromise your account if you have setup a weak password.

But the reverse is also true to a certain extent. You need your browsing history to go back to an important website and retrieve some information. Sometimes, your browsing history also tells you a lot about the quantity and quality of time you spend on the internet.

Try out the following Chrome extensions that give you a visual picture of your browsing habits via your browser’s history.

History Trends

History Trends displays your browser history in the form of an interactive statistical chart. But you don’t have to be a statistic student to understand all the graphs and lines. You can click on the graphs and filter your history according to the criteria available. Trends display your top ten visited domains and their URLs; daily stats and the busiest days with the daily visit counts. Graphs also break down the data to day, week, and month (time series graphs). A useful stat is the ‘transition type’ which basically plots how the browser navigated to a particular URL on a particular visit.

Visual History

Visual History again is an extension for the ‘scientifically inclined’. Browsing history is displayed as an intersection of nodes and sub-nodes. The interactive graph displays your browsing behavior as inter-relationships. For instance, two pages are linked together if you browsed them consecutively in less time than 20 minutes. Nodes are also color coded – older pages are in blue, current ones are in yellow. The tool has a zoom feature and along with the mouse, you can play around the graphic.

History Analyzer

From interactive graphic tools, we go to a simple one. History Analyzer is a very simple Chrome extension which takes your browsing history and puts it on a pie chart. Each slice of the pie represents the percentage of hits for that domain. The color coded pie chart tells you at a glance the domain which has been getting the most attention from you.

Chrome History X

Chrome History X replaces the default history and gives you a few richer tools to work with. It displays two fields which helps you search and manage your browsing history by date and keyword. You can delete selected histories or take the usual route of clearing all your history data in one go. A single click lets you visualize your browsing history with the help of a bubble chart. Associations between websites are shown by intersecting bubbles.

HistoryStats

History Stats provides you with what may seem like a dull display of sites visited; but take a closer look. The Chrome browser extension breaks down your browsing history into sites and the total number of visits and most recent visits to those web sites. You can sort your browser history by ascending or descending order of visit counts and last time visited. You can also go for selective deletion of historical links.

Admittedly, we don’t really care about our browsing history. It seems on the face of it, something that should be deleted when our browsing session is done with. But dive into it once in a while. Browsing history gives us a few footprints to follow to enhance our productivity. For instance, a glance with the help of these visual Chrome extensions can tell you that you are spending a lot of time on Facebook and not elsewhere. Alternatively, you are reaching a specific website in two hops, which you can reach in one to save some time.

These 5 Chrome extensions help you visualize your browsing history. But do tell us if you find them productive enough once in a while.