Google Chrome could soon banish one of our biggest browser frustrations

Published: March 22, 2023

Google Chrome could soon banish one of our biggest browser frustrations.

Google’s Chrome browser might soon offer a really smart feature for those who make use of web extensions, namely the ability to turn off all of those add-ons for any given site with just a click.

As a keen-eyed Twitter user tells us (via MS Power User), Chrome just got this highly convenient extra in the Canary build (earliest testing channel).

The feature currently consists of a slider to choose whether extensions are allowed or blocked on any specific site. So, with just one click, you can choose to block all extensions, which may allow you to access a troublesome site that won’t otherwise load due to one of those add-ons.

Granted, you have to reload the website after choosing to block (or allow) extensions, and Google is apparently going to add a prompt to this effect (there’s nothing along these lines yet, so this looks like pretty early testing still).

That means this functionality could take some time to come through to the release version of Google’s browser, but the good news is that at least the ability isn’t hidden behind a flag in Canary (which is the case when the groundwork is still being laid for a test feature).

Hopefully, given the usefulness of this change, it’ll come to the full incarnation of Chrome without too much of a wait.

So, what’s the big deal here? Well, this is a really convenient touch when you run across problems loading websites due to the extensions you have installed. It means that in order to access a certain site, rather than having to go in and disable your pop-up blocker – to take a common example of an extension that can cause issues – and then reenable it when you finish browsing that site, all you have to do now is click that one button.

Moreover, you can leave that set for the given website so it’ll work in the future, too, while keeping all your extensions operational elsewhere on the web. Basically, any site you have trouble loading can be given a pass going forward to disable extensions and avoid any headaches.

This feature is also pretty handy in the event that you encounter a gremlin with a website, and have no idea what’s causing it. Is it one of your many extensions, perhaps? With this slider, you can just turn them all off in a split-second, reload, and find out if this is the case. Pretty nifty.

Right, Google – get on with bringing this one forward to the stable release of Chrome, please. But for now, if you want to use it, you’ll have to be running the Canary release of the browser (that’ll likely have plenty of issues elsewhere, sadly, so only the brave need apply to test it).