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Google Chrome

Half of All Google Chrome Extensions Have Fewer Than 16 Installs (zdnet.com) 56

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
There are 188,620 extensions available on the Chrome Web Store, and while you might think this provides a wide variety of choices for Chrome users, in reality, most of these extensions are dead or dwindling, with very few having active installations. From a report: All in all, about 50% of all Chrome extensions have fewer than 16 installs, meaning that half of the Chrome extension ecosystem is actually more of a ghost town, according to a recent scan of the entire Chrome Web Store conducted by Extension Monitor. Further, 19,379 extensions (just over 10%) have zero installs, and 25,540 extensions (13% of the total) have just one user. The scan found that there are very few Chrome extensions that managed to establish a dedicated userbase. According to Extension Monitor, around 87% of all extensions have fewer than 1,000 installs.
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Half of All Google Chrome Extensions Have Fewer Than 16 Installs More

Half of All Google Chrome Extensions Have Fewer Than 16 Installs

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  • Soooo .. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by OzPeter ( 195038 ) on Monday August 05, 2019 @09:18AM (#59042724)

    With

    19,379 extensions (just over 10%) have zero installs,

    Not even the authors of the extensions care enough to install their own extension?!?!? Not even to validate that the installation process works?!?!

    • They must be malware, then.

    • Not even the authors of the extensions care enough to install their own extension?!?!? Not even to validate that the installation process works?!?!

      Maybe they did try and failed.

    • Not even the authors of the extensions care enough to install their own extension?!?!?

      Wouldn't the authors install it in some sort of development interface and thus not count from the webstore?

      • Odd things can break installs.

        While I might do most of my installs using a developmental interface, if I'm going to the point of offering an extension on the app store I'm going to install it at least ONCE using the app store to make sure that the store install process isn't breaking the app.

    • I made an extension used it for about 4 years, and then stopped.

      The extension allowed you to press a hotkey from the searchBar (shift+enter) so that it would search the university library system for the subject of your search.

      I later graduated, had my library privileges revoked, and stopped using the extension.

      I don't think this use-case is atypical - a user made a script for themselves and later stopped using it.

  • Chrome is a spyware and these extension are worse in many cases sending all kind of information back home some have even been found to be deliberately evasive waiting as long as three weeks call home (and send all your packaged up history in batch) in case a user is watching with a proxy like Burpsuite.

    Honestly anyone who cares about information security should perma-ban Chrome and its entire ecosystem at this point. Its like installing a JVM these days only if you must!

    Chromium derivatives might be okay i

  • Most people who want extensions (Score:3)

    by xack ( 5304745 ) on Monday August 05, 2019 @09:32AM (#59042824)
    Use a browser with XUL extensions such as Basilisk, Pale Moon and Waterfox. People don’t want watered down webextensions that Quantumfox and Chrome provide.
    • Yes, that's why no one uses Chrome anymore.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Might not want Pale Moon for unrelated reasons.

      https://github.com/jasperla/openbsd-wip/issues/86

      • Damn that was cringe-fest. Something I've noticed in the open source community is how people getoff on licenses. Actually, it isn't even limited to licenses.

        It's like, the same people who post on slashdot (and elsewhere) about how they don't follow American Football (and are so proud to avoid this root for your team event), simply do the same thing only electronically.
      • Clear case of gruff communications (trying to be efficient without time for empathy) stepping on a emotionally invested, reactionary project owner. The cringe factor is indeed strong with that comment chain.
  • This is nothing special. Move on.

  • 19,379 extensions (just over 10%) have zero installs, and 25,540 extensions (13% of the total) have just one user

    Alt text: 25,540 (13%) have only been installed by their author and 19,379 (10%) couldn't even be bothered to do that much.

    • I posted above about a search-my-university-library extension I made, but you might consider it as:
      25,540 (13%) have only been installed by their author and are still in use, while 43% of the original sole-author extensions have had their use discontinued.

  • So apart from Ublock Origin and Privacy Badger (which are installed as a matter of course) and possibly NoScript, what are the most useful ones?

    • Cookie Autodelete - assuming that or something similar is on Chrome - I no longer care, its on Firefox so I'm good. Chrome is only there for testing these days.

  • the software world is littered with non-useful junk, open and closed source realms alike. this is normal.

  • It happens everywhere... it is so ubiquitous, in fact, that one might almost think that the observation is the result of some physical law or mathematical theorem, but I wouldn't be able to guess what it is.

  • How do you expect good & popular extensions to be created unless many developers have tried their hand over time?

  • Well that is a side effect of security constraints. Developpers exposes less and less customizations APIs because the world became hostile.

  • I guess they likely could be called resumeware...

  • Trying to find good extensions is difficult among the cruft in the Chrome Web Store. In order to make it easier for users to find good extensions, I think Google should have a program to thin them out.

    For the owners of the 13.5% of extensions that have one install, the owners of the 50% of extensions that have less than 16 installs, and the owners of the 35% of paid extensions that have zero users, Google should reach out to them give them a chance to possibly keep their extensions in the store and if the

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tepples ( 727027 )

      Is "I, the author, am still using the extension in production" a good reason to keep an extension used by one Google account up? If not, why not?

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

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