The best thing about Google Plus is it’s sleek notification bar.

The notification bar stays on top, no matter what Google service you are using. You may be checking emails on Gmail, reading blog posts in Google Reader, catching up with Google calendar events – the Google Plus notification bar will alert when you whenever there is some activity on your Google Plus circles.

But there are situations when you may want to get Google plus notifications without opening your Google Plus account.

There is Facebook, Twitter, Google reader, Gmail, Quora and so many other social networking websites that you may be monitoring. Constantly checking through all these sites becomes a really hectic job and above all, it kills your time and productivity. If you are like me and don’t like opening too many browser tabs, you may want to get Google plus notifications on any website, not just Google services.

This is when you need Surplus – a neat Google Plus extension for Google Chrome which lets you catch up updates of Google Plus friends from any website, there is no need to open your Google Plus account every now and then.

The extension adds a neat notification menu at the right top corner of Google Chrome and pulls in updates from your Google Plus notifications feed. The updates are shown in real time and you can monitor whether any of your friends have recently commented on a post, tagged you in a photo, added you to their circles by clicking the drop down menu.

From the screenshot above, notice that I am getting the same notifications as I get in my Google Plus account. Whenever any of my friends engage with me in any activity, the extension icon turns red, showing an unread count of Google plus notifications directly in Google Chrome. Flawless!

You can also see the details of a notification directly from the notification bar. This includes commenting on threads or hitting the plus one button for selected threads which you like.

Here are a few more Google Plus tips which you will love reading:

1. Stop notifications for specific posts in Google Plus
2. Turn off email notifications for Google Plus mentions

This extension is a lifesaver for me because I find it really difficult to manage comments and notifications of Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus all at the same time. With this extension installed, I can participate in conversations at Google Plus, without having to keep it open in a new browser tab or window. Pretty neat!

Note that the extension works only when you have signed into Google Plus account at least once. If you sign out of your current Google account and start using another Google account (Gmail or Google Apps), the notifications will stop.

Another downside is that you can’t compose status updats or share links from the Chrome notification bar. In order to share an update with Google Plus friends, you have to login to your Google plus account.

Otherwise, the extension is really useful. Do give this a try!