1000 Most Popular Chrome extensions Impact on Browser performance

9724anon7537

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Jun 12, 2018
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I tested how the 1000 most popular Chrome extensions affect browser performance.

The main metrics I'll consider are CPU consumption, memory consumption, and whether the extension makes pages render more slowly.

 

SeriousHoax

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I was about to share it last night but fall asleep with the phone on my chest 😄
Anyway, this is a great test. I was particularly interested in Adblockers test done here. Great to see uBlock Origin is still basically the best performer in all department along with DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials (y)
Another interesting one for me was TrafficLight and Malwarebytes Browser Guard. On my PC MBG always has the least latency and the fastest at blocking pages compared to TrafficLight but most users here on the forum experienced the opposite so I doubted my testing. This test showed that MBG is a bit faster. TrafficLight is more CPU friendly though and the latency is barely noticeable.
 

Tiamati

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I just found a very interesting article testing a lot of extensions. You can check by yourself, but I'll highlight some results:

A) Lastpass and Avira password managers had the biggest impact among password managers. 1password and Bitwarden did very well

1592448933583.png

B) Grammarly negatively impacted page rendering.
1592447966777.png

C) Avira extensions seem to cause some performance hit too:
1592448069577.png


1592448085066.png


1592448118087.png

D) Ublock and DDG privacy essentials had outstanding results. Adguard and Ghostery were avarage.
1592448223056.png


1592448258504.png

1592448311073.png

E) Privacy badger vs DDGPE vs ghostery vs adguard vs ublock ... (and https everywhere comparison)
1592449458908.png

F) MBGE vs BTL
1592451051158.png
update: added some comparisons tables
 
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SeriousHoax

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F) MBGE vs BTL
update: added some comparisons tables
So, did I get it wrong with my previous comment above? 🤔 Is TrafficLight faster? Looks like it. Which is understandable since only I was having it the other way around.
From this chart it seems, TrafficLight uses CPU for longer period of time but loads pages faster. First contentful paint is only +4ms which is more than excellent and the more important factor here because that's the amount of delay.
I think something like Emsisoft Browser Security is even faster the reason being, MBG and TrafficLight stops the page before it can even load but Emsisoft Browser Extension blocks after the page has already loaded/started to load quite similar to SmartScreen.
 

Tiamati

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From this chart it seems, TrafficLight uses CPU for longer period of time but loads pages faster. First contentful paint is only +4ms which is more than excellent and the more important factor here because that's the amount of delay.

Yes you are correct. That's why so many people fells that BTL is faster too. That 50 ms shouldn't be noticeable, but it represents only a test with a simple site to demonstrate if there is any difference at all. I believe the difference could be much larger depending of how many items would need to be scanned.
 

SeriousHoax

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Mar 16, 2019
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Yes you are correct. That's why so many people fells that BTL is faster too. That 50 ms shouldn't be noticeable, but it represents only a test with a simple site to demonstrate if there is any difference at all. I believe the difference could be much larger depending of how many items would need to be scanned.
Hmm right. He only tested example.com so the result may vary more or less depending on the site it loads.
 

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