The extension of Google Chrome helps you to extend its capabilities. It will also help you in improving productivity, privacy, and usability. Before using any browser extension, you should know how to manage the Chrome extensions. If you don’t manage the extensions properly it can easily make your browser slow and cluttered.
You need to analyze the settings of each extension installed in Google Chrome. Let’s know about how to manage, disable, or remove extensions from the Chrome browser.
How To Manage Chrome Extensions?
When you open Google Chrome, you will see icons of different extensions installed in your Google Chrome browser. These icons will appear next to the address bar and located on the top-right of the screen. Some of the extension’s icons remain hidden.
If you want to see all the extensions installed in Chrome:
- Click on three vertical dots just below the top-right corner.
- Navigate to More tools and click on Extensions.
There is another way to manage Chrome extensions. Right-click on the extension’s icon and from the dropdown menu click on “Manage extensions”.
A third simple way is also there to manage chrome extensions. All you need is to copy-paste the following URL chrome://extensions/ and press Enter. You will see a page with a list of all installed extensions and can be managed from here.
Enable/Disable Chrome Extensions
After you have opened the Extensions page by using one of the above-mentioned methods, you will get a list of all extensions you have installed on your Chrome browser. To quickly find an extension, you can search for the extension name on the top of the Extensions page.
All of the installed extensions will have a toggle button. To enable or disable any chrome extension, simply just turn it on or off.
You can configure the extensions by clicking on Details. After clicking on it, you will see a list of options. For the best experience with the extension, you can customize its settings.
Check Chrome Extension Settings
To analyze the permission granted and settings of any chrome extension, go to chrome://extensions page and click on the Details button of any extension. Just check the permissions given to the extension and remove the one which is not suitable.
The “Site access” is an important chrome setting you need to look out for. An extension can read and change all your data on specific websites or all websites that you visit. The “Site access” settings allow you to control it. Three options are provided under this setting including on click, specific sites, and on all sites. You need to choose one among these.
Another very important setting of any Chrome extension is “Allow In Incognito.” This setting should be disabled always. If you enable this setting then the extension will be able to record your browsing history even in incognito mode.
Add A Chrome Extension
You can get all the extensions for the Chrome browser on Chrome Web Store. The extension can be found in different categories. For a specific extension, you can do a search. Select the Chrome extension you want to install and just click on the Add To Chrome button on the extension page.
The button will be chnage to “Checking” and a popup will appear to get permissions. You can proceed further by granting permisson by clking “Add Extension.” The extension will get installed in your browser.
Remove a Chrome Extension
Sometimes some of the extensions installed in Chrome do work in the way we expected from it, so it’s better to remove them from the browser. Also, if Chrome uses too much memory then it is better to remove some unnecessary extensions. Below are the steps you should take to uninstall any Chrome extension.
- Go to chrome://extensions/
- Click the remove button on the extension which you want to delete
- A popup will appear. Select Remove again and the extension will get removed.
Alternatively, if the extension icon is showing on the toolbar then right-click on it and select Remove from Chrome.
Setup Keyboard Shortcuts for Chrome Extensions
There can be some extensions that you use frequently. Most of these are productivity extensions. To use the extension, you don’t need to click every time as you can configure keyboard shortcuts for it. To configure the keyboard shortcuts, follow the below steps:
- Select the Menu (three dots) > More Tools >Extensions
- Click on the hamburger button on the top-left screen
- Click on “Keyboard Shortcuts”
By default, the keyboard shortcuts are empty. You will see the field for “Activate the Extension” empty. All you need is to select the keyboard shortcut which will be comfortable for you. Always make sure that unique keyboard shortcuts are used for every extension.
Hide the Extension Buttons on the Chrome Toolbar
Although it is easy to access the extensions from the Chrome extension icons places on the toolbar. But it can easily clutter the user interface of the browser.
If you want to hide the extension icon, right-click on the icon and select Unpin. It will remove the extension icon from Chrome’s toolbar. You can also rearrange the extension icons by dragging the icon anywhere on the extension toolbar.
Conclusion
So it is essential to manage Google Chrome extensions. Don’t just install any random browser extension. You should make sure all extensions installed in the browser are useful to you. If not, delete that. Too many extensions can cause high memory and CPU usage that leads to slow browsing.
