As you might have guessed from my Enabling Extensions in Safari 5 post, I’ve  been keeping an eye on extensions as they get released, and trying to figure out what suits my web browsing habits the best. So far, I’ve found three extensions that I really think are worth having: AdBlock, Lucidica, and YouTube5.

1. AdBlock for Safari

If you’ve used AdBlock before, in FireFox or Chrome, you’ll be right at home with the Safari version. AdBlock, as the name might suggest, blocks ads. Simply, when you load a web page with an ad on it, it automatically removes that ad, and you never have to see it. Clean, simple, and it prevents you from seeing those annoying Flash banner ads that flash away at you – or even worse, the Flash ads that start playing all sorts of weird audio on their own, without you doing anything. AdBlock for Safari can be found here.

2. Lucidica for Google Reader

Next up, Lucidica for Google Reader. If you’re a fan of clean -Helvetica-based- design, and a Google Reader user, this is one you should take a gander at. It makes the Google Reader experience much more elegant and refined, streamlining everything to make the experience as clean as possible. The best way to explain is to show a “before and after”. So, the before:

Google Reader without Lucidica

Now, the “after” image, using Lucidica:

Google Reader with Lucidica

I think the screenshots can speak for themselves here. You can download Lucidica from this page.

3. YouTube5

Example of the YouTube5 HTML5 player from a TopGear video.

This extension is for the Flash haters. As Steve Jobs once stated, “Flash is the thing that causes the most crashes on our computers” (or something to that effect). It’s a CPU hog, and can be really nasty at times. The YouTube5 extension will automatically replace the Flash video player on YouTube (or sites where YouTube is embedded) into the standard HTML player, which actually has a working fullscreen button. If you’re a simultaneous YouTube junkie and Flash hater, this is one extension that deserves a treasured place on your hard drive. The YouTube5 extension is available from this link.