SiteLauncher for Chrome

SiteLauncher is a handy Chrome extension dedicated to users who frequently access favorite websites. It provides shortcuts to URLs though the keyboard, thus enabling you to quickly go to pages without having to type their address in the search bar. It's also available for Mozilla users.

Once the add-on gets installed from the Chrome Web Store, it asks you whether you prefer using keyboard shortcuts or standard navigation. The hotkey mode gives you the possibility to launch websites by pressing a designated key while the standard navigation mode simply displays the list of all websites and lets you click it with the mouse.

However, this doesn't mean that the site manager isn't also shown in hotkey mode. On the contrary, this method encompasses the standard navigation mode since it provides quick site access through both keyboard and mouse. The app also gets integrated into the right-click menu for swiftly adding the current webpage to the site launcher.

A list of default top sites is reveals in the site manager when clicking the SiteLauncher icon (or press Ctrl+M). This includes Amazon, Booking, Google, IMDb, Reddit and others. The sites have preset keys assigned but you can change them into something else or remove the sites from the list.

New websites can be added to the manager by specifying the URL, title (how it will appear in the list) and key. Icons are automatically identified by the app. If you accidentally select a key that's already being used by another site, the application warns you and gives you the possibility to override the current command. Conflicts are avoided this way.

SiteLauncher also has a feature for sorting websites in different groups, which will appear on different lines of the site manager, in order to help you organize content better, especially when handling many sites. Moreover, you can set the tool to open shortcuts in new tabs, hide the right-click menu entry, pick another theme, as well as export settings to file and import them later on another computer (if you don't use a Google account for data synchronization across all your devices).

The speed dial extension for Chrome worked smoothly in our tests. The only downside we can think of is the fact that you are limited to 26 websites with a designated key because SiteLauncher can only assign letters, not numbers, symbols or a combination of two or more letters (aliases). Nevertheless, this is the type of software that can help boost your productivity when juggling numerous webpages.