Extensions on Google Chrome add to the browser’s functionality, bringing small capabilities and features that save you effort or give you more information. However, some of these extensions, mostly ad blockers, can break websites or cause unwanted behavior. You can open an incognito tab and continue browsing without interference from your extensions, but earlier this year, we spotted Google developing a toggle switch to turn off all the extensions without going incognito. This option is now available for all Chrome Canary users.
Opening an incognito tab to continue browsing sure beats disabling each problematic extension manually, but Chrome researcher Leopeva64 on Twitter recently found that Google has added a one-click toggle to disable all extensions in Chrome Canary 113 for desktop. The Chromium Gerrit commit was submitted on March 18, and Chrome Canary users will now see a small toggle atop the Extensions menu.
Turning off the toggle disables all active extensions for that website. In its current implementation, you have to remember to manually refresh the page to load the site without extensions. However, Leopeva64 notes that in a future version, Chrome will prompt you to reload the page after flipping this switch.
We saw signs of this handy little feature in development in January, also thanks to Leopeva64, and it is now a part of Chrome Canary. This one-click solution makes it easy to troubleshoot issues with websites, but we still suggest getting rid of aggressive Chrome extensions like tracker blockers, especially if you disable more often than you use them.
Hopefully, the road to the stable build of Chrome for desktop is a short one, and we will not have to wait too long for it. Until then, Chrome 111 released on March 1 packs a bunch of cool features, which you can take for a spin right away.
