Quickly access Wikipedia in Google Chrome

Wikipedia has become very popular among students and all those looking for all kinds of information. If you are someone who looks up Wikipedia very often, then you can use the Wikipedia Companion extension in the Chrome browser to make your Wikipedia browsing much easier. Here is how :

  1. Visit https://chrome.google.com/extensions/ in the Google Chrome browser.
  2. Click on the blue Install button to install the Wikipedia Companion extension

    Installing Wikipedia Companion extension

  3. It will prompt you for confirmation. Click on Install to proceed.

    Confirm the installation of the Wikipedia Companion

  4. After Wikipedia Companion is installed in your Chrome browser, you will find a Wikipedia icon on the top-right of the Chrome browser window. When you click on this icon a mini-browser window is opened. You can type the search string and press Enter to search Wikipedia. In the following, example snapshot I have searched for “Valentines Day” and the Wikipedia Companion has opened the mobile Wikipedia site :

    Wikipedia Companion extension in action

  5. Inside this small pop-up window, Wikipedia Companion shows only the mobile version of the Wikipedia site (the site which opens when you access Wikipedia on your cellphone, mobile phone etc.). If you want to open the full webpage, then click on the Open in Tab button.

    Open new tab from Wikipedia Companion

  6. You can also change various options by clicking on the Option button. You can change the primary and secondary langauges, font size and popup window width etc. Click on the Save button when done.

    Wikipedia Companion options

The Wikipedia Companion extension is certainly one of the best Chrome extensions and is a must-to-have extension for the school and university students. The main benefit of using this extension is that it saves both your time and the internet bandwidth by accessing the mobile version of the Wikipedia website.