Most modern browsers support extensions, so there is a fairly large number of them available, and installing the right ones could greatly improve your productivity. However, installing several extensions can slow down your browser and cause it to lag severely. Also, if you install a malicious extension, it could infect your computer or spy on your activity, possibly capturing sensitive information such as credit card details or passwords. Even well-intended extensions can contain bugs which could open up security holes in your browser. For the above reasons, it is helpful to install extensions only from trustworthy sources. It is also important to install only the ones you need, and if you find that you don’t need an extension anymore, uninstalling it will help reduce clutter and speed things up. This article explains how to remove extensions from Chrome and Firefox, two of the most popular web browsers in the world.
Disable and uninstall extensions in Google Chrome
Google Chrome (and Chromium) provides an easy way to disable and remove extensions. Simply click on the hamburger menu, hover your cursor on “More Tools,” and then select extensions or type chrome://extensions in the address bar.
Chrome will redirect you to a page where you can see all your installed browser extensions. Simply scroll down and click the trash icon next to the extension you want to remove. A popup will appear, and you have to click “Remove” to confirm removal. If you want to simply disable an extension temporarily without uninstalling completely, you can do that by unchecking the “Enabled” checkbox next to the trash icon. You don’t need to restart Chrome after removing an extension.
If you’ve set up sync in Chrome, this will also disable or uninstall the extension across all your computers.
Disable and uninstall extensions in Firefox
In Firefox you can access all your installed extensions by using the “Ctrl + Shift + A” keyboard shortcut or clicking the menu button and then clicking “Add-ons.” You will be redirected to the Add-ons manager.
On the left-hand side click “Extensions.” From here you can disable or remove the extensions using the corresponding buttons. Some extensions require you to restart your browser before they are completely removed, so be sure to do that if you see a “Restart now” link.
Bottom Line
Installing extensions is a useful way to add new functions to your web browser, but it is necessary to not to go overboard with this so that your system stays responsive and secure. I hope this guide has been helpful enough in demonstrating how to get rid of unneeded extensions in Chrome and Firefox. Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
