I used to have Avant Window Navigator installed to have quick view of opened applications and a network speed monitoring applet.

It was actually confusing to have two panels instead of just one. So imagine my delight when I found there are Gnome Shell extensions for window list and network monitoring 

To show list of running applications there are Window List extension and Window Icon List, for network speed monitoring applet I installed NetSpeed extension.

Installed Window List extension looks like this : 

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The icons are too big for my taste, therefore I like Window Icon List better since it shows little and neat icons and not just that it comes with handy Show Desktop shortcut.

Unfortunately if you have many apps opened, the many icons will overlap Gnome Shell clock, the fix is to install Frippery Move Clock extension to move Gnome Shell Clock to the right of the screen. Problem solved.

With Window Icon List and Frippery Move Clock installed, my desktop looks like this :

click for bigger resolution

Which one is better? Your choice of course.

keyword : gnome shell extension, window list, network speed