Instantly enable and disable Chrome extensions with Extensity

Chrome extensions can be incredibly useful, but they also grab resources and clutter your toolbar, annoying if you only use them occasionally.

Extensity is a free Chrome extension which allows all, individual or groups of extensions to be turned on and off with a couple of clicks.

The easiest way to get started is to tap the Extensity icon, then hit the switch at the left side of the toolbar. This disabled every extension on our test system, removing all the toolbar icons, and cutting our Chrome RAM use by around 10 percent.

Killing everything is a little drastic, but below Extensity’s toolbar is a menu of your installed extensions. Clicking any of these toggles it on and off, as required.

Still too much work? Extensity has a profiles system which allows enabling the groups of extensions you need to be available in different situations.

As a first step, tap the Profiles button and create a new profile called "Essentials". Select all your must-have extensions -- ad blocker, password manager and so on -- and save the results.

Clicking the Extensity button now displays your Essentials profile at the top of the list. Selecting this turns off everything but your core extensions. You can still use the main switch to restore everything on demand, or you can add more profiles to cover any other requirements.

Extensity is a free extension for Google Chrome.