Google Releases Interesting Statistics about Chrome Extensions Usage

Article by George Norman (Cybersecurity Editor)

on 10 Dec 2010

Extensions for Google’s Chrome web browser are like add-ons for Mozilla’s Firefox web browser; they are small programs that allow the user to enhance the functionality the browser provides. Mountain View-based search engine giant Google introduced extensions to Chrome users when it rolled out Chrome 4.0 to the public – that was back in January .

Since then the stable version of Chrome went up to v. 8.0, and the number of extensions hosted on the extensions gallery at chrome.google.com/extensions has increased quite a bit. If memory serves me right, back in January there were some 1,500 extensions in the gallery. According to some interesting statistics released by Google, there are now more than 8,500 extensions and 1,500 themes in the gallery.

The statistics released by Google also revealed that more that a third of Chrome users have at least one extension installed, and that more than 70 million extensions and themes have been installed so far by Chrome users.

While users have been keeping busy downloading extensions and themes, and while developers have been busy creating themes and themes, Google’s been keeping busy making Chrome better. Software Engineer Aaron Boodman explained that the Chrome team has been busy adding the following features:
  • New APIs for things like context menus, history, and cookies.
  • Integration between extensions and HTML5 features like notifications and geolocation.
  • Extension sync, so your favorite extensions are always with you.
  • Native support for Greasemonkey user scripts

In related news, you may want to check out the Chrome team’s favorite extensions for Mac and favorite extensions for Windows.

In further related news, you may want to know that the number of people who use Google’s Chrome browser has increased considerably this year. By “considerably” I mean there are now three times as many users as there were at the start of the year. The number of Chrome users has gone up from 40 million to 120 million.


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