If you use Reddit on a regular basis, there's one browser extension that you absolutely need to install right away: Reddit Enhancement Suite (RES). It adds countless new features and improvements to the site -- once you start using it, you'll never go back.

Why do I use it? Because it allows me to filter out a lot of negativity and it lets me browse Reddit productively (yes, it's really possible to be productive on Reddit). But the RES extension is useful for way more than just that.

Download Now: Reddit Enhancement Suite (Free)

The RES extension is available on Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Safari. Think you can live without it? Here are some of the most game-changing features that will convince you to install it pronto.

1. You Can Filter out Content with RES

The most useful and important feature in the Reddit Enhancement Suite, at least in my experience, is the ability to filter out certain subreddits from showing up on the Front page and the All page.

  1. Open the Settings console.
  2. Navigate to the Subreddits section.
  3. Navigate to the filteReddit feature.

Here you can add your own filters. Keywords and subreddit names are the most commonly used, which will hide posts that contain said keywords and posts that belong to the filtered subreddits.

reddit-enhancement-filter-settings

This RES feature is really useful for blocking things like political spam (e.g. Trump, Sanders, etc.) and annoying content (e.g. meme-heavy subreddits like /r/youdontsurf and /r/wheredidthesodago).

reddit-enhancement-filter-subreddit

A neat trick is to hover over a subreddit's name on the All page, which brings up a popup box that you can use to add that subreddit to your filter list in just one click.

2. RES Can Block NSFW Content

While Reddit has a built-in preference that asks if you want to view NSFW content, it's not the best at filtering it all out. That why you need the Enhancement Suite's NSFW filter feature.

  1. Open the Settings console.
  2. Navigate to the Subreddits section.
  3. Navigate to the filteReddit feature.

Toggle the very first option, called NSFWfilter, to ON and that's all you need to do. Now all posts and subreddits labelled NSFW will automatically be hidden while browsing.

reddit-enhancement-filter-nsfw

Why would you need this feature? A lot of people use it so they can Reddit at work without having to worry about inappropriate thumbnails and what not. Others use it as a way to help overcome and defeat porn addiction.

Combined with subreddit filtering, this feature is superb.

3. You Can Use RES to Show Images/Videos

One of the more nifty features is the ability to open and display images/videos right on the page without having to open a new tab or visit the direct link to the image/video itself.

  1. Open the Settings console.
  2. Navigate to the Browsing section.
  3. Navigate to the Inline Image Viewer feature.

By default, this feature is enabled. Here's what it looks like:

reddit-enhancement-inline-media

This makes it so much easier to browse through the Front page or the All page or any individual subreddit as you don't have to waste time opening up tabs or navigating back and forth. Click to open, view the media, click to close, done.

4. You Can Switch Between Reddit Accounts

There are many reasons why you'd want to juggle several different Reddit accounts. For me, I have three of them that are split between my three main interests: writing, photography, and gaming. But with throwaway accounts and novelty accounts, that number can shoot right up.

reddit-enhancement-account-switcher

Fortunately, the Enhancement Suite has an account switcher so you never have to track any of this yourself. You enter each account/password combination and you can switch between them with a dropdown menu.

  1. Open the Settings console.
  2. Navigate to the My Account section.
  3. Navigate to the Account Switcher feature.

As far as I know, there's no limit to how many accounts you can keep stored.

5. RES Has Keyboard Shortcuts

Another big thing about the Enhancement Suite is that it has keyboard shortcuts for quick actions and navigation. For example, by default you can press the A key to upvote a post or the Z key to downvote a post.

These keyboard shortcuts can come in handy when a subreddit tries to hide the upvote/downvote buttons through CSS styling.

reddit-enhancement-keyboard-shortcuts

Other shortcuts exist for things like jumping from post to post or comment to comment, moving to the top or bottom of a thread, expanding or collapsing inline images and videos, quick navigation to the Front page or All page or your inbox, etc.

All keyboard shortcuts are customizable.

6. You Can Tag Reddit Users (With Notes)

What I don't like about Reddit is how everyone is essentially anonymous. The community is so big -- there are over 36 million user accounts -- that names don't really stick out. That's why I like the user tagging feature.

In essence, you can create custom tags on users and use them as little notes to remind yourself of who this user is and what they've done. If they're really mean, write "Jerk". If they're kind and helpful, write "Awesome". If they're good with Linux, write "Ubuntu expert".

reddit-enhancement-tag-users

The feature is on by default but you can toggle it by:

  1. Open the Settings console.
  2. Navigate to the Users section.
  3. Navigate to the User Tagger feature.

There's another feature, called User Highlighter, that tags users based on their relation to the current thread: thread authors are tagged blue, subreddit moderators are tagged green, and site administrators are tagged red.

7. RES Tracks New Comments in Threads

If you only browse the Front page or All page of Reddit, then you probably only visit each thread once: you check out whatever content was linked, then browse the comments a bit, then move onto the next thread.

reddit-enhancement-new-comments

But if you're an active participant in a smaller, tighter-knit subreddit, then you probably check into individual threads multiple times. Fortunately, the Enhancement Suite can tell you when a thread has new activity.

  1. Open the Settings console.
  2. Navigate to the Submissions section.
  3. Navigate to the New Comment Count feature.

8. You Can Subscribe to Reddit Threads

Similar to the new comment tracking feature is the ability to subscribe to Reddit threads and notify you when new comments are made. This is the better option if you specifically want to track all of the discussions in a certain thread.

reddit-enhancement-subscribe

I don't use this RES feature nearly as often as I should, but the few times I've used it, it has really come in handy. In any thread, click the Subscribe button. That's it.

9. RES Can Disable Subreddit Themes

Hop into any popular subreddit and you'll probably find that it's highly themed. Game-related subreddits are colored to match the game itself, political subreddits match their candidates, gadget subreddits match their gadgets, and so forth.

A lot of these themes are interesting at first but quickly lose their appeal on repeat visits. Some are just poorly designed, making it hard to browse and read people's posts. The Enhancement Suite makes it easy to rectify this.

reddit-enhancement-theming

With the extension installed, every subreddit has a checkbox in the sidebar labelled Use subreddit style. As soon as you uncheck it, that subreddit's theme disappears and you get the regular Reddit theme.

The extension also provides a Night Mode option that you can toggle in the settings dropdown menu, which turns all of Reddit into a dark gray.

10. RES Has Never-Ending Page Loads

The last feature I want to highlight will probably kill your productivity if you aren't careful about it, but it really makes browsing Reddit much easier: the never-ending page load. No more having to click Next Page! Just keep scrolling.

reddit-enhancement-never-ending

This is another default feature, but you can disable it:

  1. Open the Settings console.
  2. Navigate to the Browsing section.
  3. Navigate to the Never Ending Reddit feature.

You can also change if it auto-loads the next page or if you have to manually click to load it.

The Enhancement Suite Is Just the Tip

If you consider yourself a newbie to Reddit, check out our quick crash course on the Reddit site. A lot of people try to avoid Reddit at all cost because they've heard how toxic it can be, but once you start using the Enhancement Suite, you'll find that Reddit isn't always full of crap.

Download Now: Reddit Enhancement Suite (Free)

Note that the RES extension is only one of many ways to improve Reddit. There are a lot of other neat Reddit tricks and hacks you can use to make the site more fun and friendly to use.

Do you use the Reddit Enhancement Suite? Why or why not? If you don't use Reddit at all, what are your reasons for that? We'd love to hear from you in a comment down below!