A recent scan of the Chrome Web Store conducted by Extension Monitor revealed that half of all Google Chrome extensions have fewer than 16 installs, and around 87% of all extensions have fewer than 1,000 installs. Only 13 extensions have managed to break over the 10 million user mark. The Chrome extension ecosystem is dominated by a few large players, while the rest of the extensions have very few active installations. Paid extensions account for 8.9% of all extensions, but 35% of them have no users.

Furthermore, paid extensions account for 2.6% of all installs, and the top paid extension, IE Tab, has 4.1 million installs, which accounts for 31.5% of all paid extension installs. The top 5 paid extensions make up 48.5% of all paid extension installs.

It’s important to note that the scan included all Chromium-based browsers, not just Google Chrome, and that the results only represent a snapshot in time. However, the data suggests that the Chrome extension ecosystem is heavily skewed towards a few popular extensions, leaving the majority of extensions struggling for attention and users.

Here is a list of the top 10 most installed Chrome extensions based on the scan:

  1. Google Translate - 109,233,857 installs
  2. Adobe Acrobat - 45,015,081 installs
  3. Tampermonkey - 32,726,382 installs
  4. Avast Online Security - 30,006,433 installs
  5. Adblock Plus - 29,435,489 installs
  6. Adblock - 20,494,347 installs
  7. uBlock Origin - 20,033,135 installs
  8. Pinterest Save Button - 19,711,718 installs
  9. Cisco Webex - 19,206,360 installs
  10. Grammarly for Chrome - 18,963,783 installs

Despite the dominance of a few popular extensions, there are still many useful and innovative extensions that are struggling to gain traction. Extension developers face a difficult challenge of standing out in a crowded and competitive market, and the data suggests that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to do so.