The 1 most popular Chrome extensions have been tested
After testing the 1 most popular Chrome extensions, the study proves that extensions can have a significant impact on the display time of a web page, but also on the consumption of resources of your computer. This can therefore have negative consequences on the performance of your computer, but also on its autonomy.
Display time of the example.com site depending on the extensions installed // Source: DebugBear
To give you a specific example: if no extension is installed, loading the example.com page takes about 40 ms of CPU Time. If you've installed Evernote or Grammarly (an extension for checking English language grammar), it goes over 500ms. These extensions add code each time a web page loads.
The Evernote extension, which I have used for several years, is used by 4 million users today. It adds a 2,9MB script loaded to each page, a total of 140ms are spent analyzing and compiling this code. After the packet is loaded, it needs to be evaluated, which takes another 300ms.
While these extensions don't necessarily block page content, some extensions can even temporarily stop a web page from loading. Most plugins introduce only a minor rendering lag, however adding up all of your installed plugins can have a significant impact.
Ad blockers consume a lot of RAM
Personally, I use Google Translate which checks if the loaded page needs to be translated, Dashlane too, a password manager which checks if there is a login form or even Antidote, a spell checker which searches for text fields ... I also use Google Keep which allows to save notes on the fly, without forgetting some tools dedicated to web development (ColorZilla, JSON Viewer, Clear Cache…). A large list of extensions, and yet I sort through these extensions regularly to remove some.
Source : DebugBear
Among the popular extensions, there are many extensions dedicated to data privacy as well as ad blockers. Ghostery, one of the most popular extensions, loads 160KB of JavaScript and adds 120ms of CPU Time for example. Ad blockers can speed up the loading of a web page, by blocking ad scripts, however they take up a lot of space in the RAM used by the browser. This is mainly due to the storage of the blocked domain lists.
Source : DebugBear
Based on the tests, DDG Privacy Essentials blocker seems to perform the best, as it manages to reduce the number of requests by 95% and the download weight by 80%.
Conclusion: sort out your extensions
This study is interesting because it allows us to understand that the use of extensions on a web browser is not anecdotal: these extensions consume a lot of data, of RAM and they can slow down the loading of each web page. If you are using a laptop, they can also decrease battery life. So sort out your extensions, determine which ones are really useful and which ones you no longer use.
Finally, this study also puts into perspective the consequences of the arrival of extensions on our smartphones which could reduce their autonomy in the event of abuse.
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