Roughly 60% of Chrome users never uninstall an extension once it lands in their browser — even when they stop using it entirely. The Chrome Web Store currently hosts 111,933 extensions, yet 86.3% of them have fewer than 1,000 active users. This article covers the numbers behind unused Chrome extension statistics in 2026: how many extensions sit dormant, what that costs in performance, and the security risks most users aren’t aware of.
Unused Chrome Extension Statistics
- The average Chrome user installs 8–12 extensions but actively uses only 2–3 of them.
- 86.3% of all Chrome Web Store extensions have fewer than 1,000 active users.
- 60% of Chrome extensions have gone without a developer update for more than 12 months.
- Over 350 million users run extensions classified by researchers as “security-noteworthy.”
- 53% of enterprise employees have installed browser extensions with high or critical permission scopes.
How Many Chrome Extensions Does the Average User Actually Use?
Research published in 2025 puts the typical Chrome user’s installed extension count at 8 to 12 add-ons. Active engagement — defined as regular, deliberate interaction — drops to just 2 or 3 of those. According to data from an analysis of Chrome extension usage patterns, around 60% of users never remove an extension after installing it, regardless of how often they use it.
That gap between installation and active use is consistent across user types. Enterprise employees show a similar pattern: LayerX’s 2025 Enterprise Browser Extension Security Report found that 52% of corporate users have more than 10 extensions running at once, with most going largely unexamined by IT teams.
Chrome Extension Distribution: Who Has More Than 1,000 Users?
The user distribution across the Chrome Web Store is skewed sharply toward the low end. DebugBear’s 2024 analysis of 111,933 extensions showed that just 0.24% of extensions reach 1 million users. The rest — the vast majority — have tiny or near-zero audiences.
Source: DebugBear Chrome Extension Statistics 2024; TrueList Google Chrome Statistics
| User Count Range | Share of All Extensions | Approx. Extension Count |
|---|---|---|
| 0 users | 10.3% | ~11,529 |
| 1–15 users | ~39.7% | ~44,437 |
| 16–999 users | ~36.3% | ~40,631 |
| 1,000–999,999 users | ~13.46% | ~15,066 |
| 1 million+ users | 0.24% | ~270 |
Source: DebugBear (2024), TrueList Chrome Extension Statistics
The data also shows that only 13 extensions across the entire Chrome Web Store have surpassed 10 million users. Those include Grammarly, uBlock Origin, Google Translate, and Honey — tools that see genuine, repeated daily use. Everything outside that narrow band sits in a long tail of minimal or zero engagement.
Chrome Extension Categories and the Productivity Imbalance
Over half of all extensions in the Chrome Web Store fall under the productivity category — 55.5% of the 111,933 available. Despite the volume, only a fraction of these productivity tools accumulate meaningful user bases.
Source: DebugBear Chrome Extension Statistics 2024; AboutChromebooks.com
How Unused Chrome Extensions Affect Browser Performance
Even when idle, installed extensions consume system resources. A 2025 empirical study in Empirical Software Engineering examined 72 extensions and found that inactive add-ons still contribute to increased CPU load and battery drain. Browsers running more than 10 extensions show measurably worse performance than those running minimal setups, according to Chrome tab and resource analysis data from 2025.
| Extensions Installed | Relative Performance Impact | Key Resource Affected |
|---|---|---|
| 0–2 extensions | Baseline | Minimal CPU and RAM overhead |
| 3–5 extensions | Low impact | Slight memory increase per add-on |
| 6–9 extensions | Moderate impact | Background checks accumulate |
| 10+ extensions | Measurable slowdown | CPU, RAM, and startup time affected |
Source: Jin, Li & Zou — Empirical Software Engineering (2025); DebugBear Performance Analysis (2024)
DebugBear’s testing of 5,000 extensions found that 87% use under 10 MB of disk space individually. The cumulative effect of several installed — but unused — extensions still adds up. Each one requires memory allocation and periodic background checks on every page load.
The Security Risk of Keeping Unused Chrome Extensions
Dormant extensions don’t stop collecting data. Research cited by Carnegie Mellon University’s Information Security Office identified more than 30 malicious extensions in December 2024, with 20 of those stealing credentials and session cookies — many installed on browsers where users had forgotten they existed.
A separate February 2026 investigation by The Register found 287 Chrome extensions leaking user data. According to Chrome permissions statistics, 60% of extensions haven’t received a developer update in more than 12 months, leaving an estimated 350 million users running what Stanford researchers classify as security-noteworthy extensions (SNEs).
Source: Carnegie Mellon University ISO (2025); GitLab Security (2025); The Register (Feb 2026)
The Manifest V3 transition, which disabled all non-compliant extensions by Chrome 139, also revealed how many users had forgotten about add-ons they installed years earlier. As of August 2025, 73.4% of extensions had migrated to Manifest V3 — meaning roughly 26.6% were either removed or disabled, many sitting unnoticed in browsers. You can review which Chrome extensions were banned or removed in 2024–25 for a full breakdown of what got pulled.
Unused Chrome Extensions in the Enterprise
The enterprise picture is sharper. LayerX’s 2025 Enterprise Browser Extension Security Report, drawn from tens of thousands of real corporate users, found that 99% of employees have at least one browser extension installed. Despite that near-universal presence, most organizations have no formal policy to track or audit them. The most commonly blocked Chrome extensions in enterprise environments include uBlock Origin (78% block rate) and several GenAI tools with excessive permission scopes.
| Enterprise Metric | Figure |
|---|---|
| Employees with at least one extension installed | 99% |
| Employees with 10+ extensions installed | 52–53% |
| Extensions with high or critical permissions | 53% of users affected |
| Extensions from non-official stores | 17% |
| Extensions deployed via sideloading | 26% |
| GenAI extensions with high/critical permissions | 58% |
Source: LayerX Security Enterprise Browser Extension Security Report 2025
The Chromebook security guide recommends periodic extension audits as a baseline step, particularly for users managing work accounts. Chrome’s built-in Safety Check now runs passively in the background, flagging unused permissions and extensions that haven’t been updated — a direct response to the volume of dormant add-ons accumulating across user profiles.
How the Chrome Web Store Extension Count Has Changed
The total number of extensions available on the Chrome Web Store dropped from 137,345 in 2020 to 111,933 by mid-2024 — a 18.5% reduction driven by Google’s quality enforcement and the removal of inactive or policy-violating add-ons. The average extension across the full store has about 12,304 users, a figure skewed heavily by a small number of dominant tools. With Chrome’s global user base sitting at 3.83 billion in 2026, even a small percentage of users keeping unused extensions translates to hundreds of millions of dormant installations running unexamined on devices worldwide.
FAQ
What percentage of Chrome extensions have no active users?
About 10.3% of Chrome extensions — roughly 11,500 of the 111,933 in the store — have zero active users. Another 39.7% have fewer than 16 users, according to DebugBear’s 2024 analysis.
Do unused Chrome extensions slow down your browser?
Yes. Even inactive extensions consume memory and trigger background checks on page loads. Browsers with 10 or more installed extensions show measurably reduced performance compared to minimal setups, regardless of how often the extensions are actively opened.
Can unused Chrome extensions collect your data?
Yes. Installed extensions retain their permissions whether or not you use them. Research identified over 35 extensions collecting user data despite appearing inactive. A February 2026 investigation found 287 extensions still leaking browsing data from millions of users.
How many Chrome extensions does the average enterprise employee have?
According to LayerX’s 2025 report, 52–53% of enterprise employees have more than 10 browser extensions installed, and 99% have at least one. Over half of those employees have installed extensions with high or critical permission levels.
How do I find and remove unused Chrome extensions?
Open chrome://extensions in your address bar to see all installed add-ons. You can disable or remove them from that page. Chrome’s Safety Check also flags extensions that haven’t been updated or used recently.
