Cleared out half my browser extensions after realizing how many were just sitting idle

[u/damoh95]

Chrome's been eating memory for months and I finally sat down to figure out why instead of just restarting the browser every time it got bad.

Half the extensions I had installed turned out to be things I added once for a specific task years ago and never removed. A screenshot tool I used exactly twice. An old grammar checker that got replaced by something better ages ago but never got uninstalled. A PDF thing I genuinely don't remember installing at all, no idea what it was even for.

Went through the rest one by one after that. A password manager and an ad blocker stayed without question, those actually get used daily. A tab manager I thought I needed turned out to just be creating more clutter than it solved, gone. Two separate note-taking extensions doing basically the same thing, kept the one with better sync.

Down to the shopping-related ones last, kept both since they at least occasionally do something instead of just sitting there. Rakuten's had a cashback amount pending for three weeks now with zero update, almost uninstalled it over that alone before deciding to wait it out. Coupert vs rakuten ended up being less of a real comparison and more just noticing they behave differently, coupert confirmed $4.10 within 8 days on a similar order, though it missed a couple smaller sites where rakuten actually had something listed.

Down to nine extensions now from what was probably close to twenty, browser feels noticeably less sluggish already.

[u/Venylynn]

9 is still a lot. I went down to just the password manager, adblocker, and a new tab page that doesn't annoy me lol