Chrome extensions are a great way to improve internet browsing, but some of them can slow down your browser. The development team behind DebugBear, a website optimization service, analyzed 5,000 extensions to see how they affected Google Chrome. According to their findings, some can cause longer loading times on websites, although it depends on how the data is processed. Some are better than others.
DebugBear claims that extensions that process data “before a page is rendered will have a much worse impact on the user experience.” VPNs seem to be among the worst at this, with some causing up to a second of delay. It makes sense why loading times would be particularly bad with a VPN, since they “route traffic through an intermediary server.” Other extensions that can cause long loading times include Trancy AI Subtitles and Klarna Pay Later.
Extensions that run their code “after the page has loaded” can also affect Chrome, but apparently to a lesser extent. Processing times can cause a website to slow down as the software overloads the hardware, but not always. Monica AI Assistant, for example, was found to add “1.3 seconds of processing time”; However, it actually reduces the page loading speed. This is because extensions like Monica run “as soon as the page starts loading.”
Page interactions
Even if an extension doesn't create slow loading times, it can cause slow page interactions, meaning that clicking on a website may not feel snappy. Avira Password Manager Reportedly Adds a “160 Millisecond Delay When Clicking on…Random Content [headings]”. Of course, 160 milliseconds is less than half a second, but we can't help but wonder if the delays add up.
Say, for example, you have seven extensions, each of which individually adds a delay of 160 milliseconds. Now, imagine if all those delays turned into a huge performance drop. That's a full second of delay added to a web page. it's possible? To be honest, we don't know, since DebugBear doesn't indicate whether lag from these tools can accumulate or not.
What is true is that most ad blockers can improve your browsing experience. Websites with tons of ads directly cause slowdowns, and without an ad blocker, DebugBear found that the average CPU processing time on ad-heavy websites was 57 seconds. With uBlock Origin installed, the time is reduced “to just under 4 seconds”, saving your computer precious power.
uBlock Origin seems to be one of the best ad blockers you can add to Chrome along with Malwarebytes and Privacy Badger. AdBlock Plus is one of the worst, as it requires a lot of processing time: more than 40 seconds.
What you can do
So, if you are a frequent Chrome user and are experiencing browser slowdowns with extensions installed, there is not much you can do to fix the problem. Fixing extensions ultimately falls to the developers who created them. But there are a couple of things you can do to help.
First of all, the easiest thing you can do is to uninstall the offending tool or restrict it to enable it only on certain sites. DebugBear also recommends using its Chrome Extension Performance Finder tool to help you find the best, lightweight extensions for the browser.
Be sure to check out TechRadar's list of the best ad blockers for 2024. uBlock Origin is the best, but there are other great options.
