How do I remove unremovable extensions from Chrome?

Some extensions I install in Chrome get themselves "uninstallable" - even if they work perfectly fine.

A good example is the W3Counter extension, which allows you to add W3Counter counters to pages in your browsing history. After installing the extension, it shows up in Chrome's extensions list:

When I go to uninstall it, however, it says that this is an "uninstallable" extension. I've tried reinstalling it incognito mode to make sure there was no problem with that, and it works just fine. I even tried resetting my preferences for Chrome to default, but it still won't allow me to uninstall it. It just refuses to show up in my list. And I've had the issue on different extensions over the past two weeks.

Is there a way to actually "uninstall" these items so I can remove them? Is there some kind of registry cleaner I can use? Or something? I'm at my wit's end, and Google is completely useless with its answers, so any advice or recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Open chrome://extensions/ in your browser (if you have chrome://extensions/, just click the "." button) Right click on the extension you wish to uninstall and select Disable. The tab to the right will show you the Disable link for that extension. Selecting it will allow you to disable it.

If that doesn't work, try clicking on the blue link (Remove from Google Chrome) and then on Open Options. If you still can't get rid of it, your last resort is probably going to be to re-install chrome.

How do I manually unpack Chrome extensions?

A brief guide to Chrome Extensions

Manually unpacking and installing extensions from the Google Chrome Web Store is something I don't know how I lived before, back when Chrome was still on Beta.

After playing around with it for a while, I've managed to figure out a couple of things: it's not very hard to do, and it might be easier than you think. So here we go. There's two ways to install Chrome extensions - either through the Chrome browser itself, or by downloading their package directly and double-clicking it. Let's say that we want to download this thing directly, but before doing that, let's know what extensions actually are: that would be a Chrome extension (aka Chrome App), installed via a file on your hard drive. Extensions work for both Google Docs and Gmail, but also Twitter clients, instant messengers and so on. The difference between apps and extensions is that they usually can't be used outside a web browser: you're missing a lot of cool functionality if you use them inside a regular PC software. That's why I'm telling you all about installing extensions in this post - to keep all Chrome Apps inside my Chrome, as to not forget any of them. I'll be sharing some useful tricks as well. But first, it pays to learn a bit more about extensions: You've probably seen them when looking for something in the Google Chrome Web Store, the place where extensions are sold. These little pieces of code have their own tab in Chrome, so they must be somewhere. Most of the extensions on the store have a short description at the top of their page, plus some tags (also on the top), which makes us think that these are the things Google intends us to use. Wrong: as I explained at the beginning of the post, extensions are "Apps". Let's see now what a simple extension might look like. From an extension page like this, we can see that at the top-right corner, an icon appears. Clicking it will take us to the page where that extension's available to be used in our browsers. At the top, a text is written about this extension, and also below. In the first case, the extension will be placed under Tools or Extensions, as you can see on the screen. In the second case, the extension is put inside the Incognito Window: these are special pages where extensions can't be executed.

How do I remove fake Chrome extensions?

We get a lot of questions about how to remove fake Chrome extensions.

Some of them look very convincing. Some of them are probably fake. And some of them might be malware. If you installed a fake extension on your computer, there are steps you can take to make sure it won't do any damage. If it has already done damage, you can contact us at abuse@chromium.org to report it.

We only remove the fake extensions that are malicious. We will always let you know if we remove the extension because it was detected as malicious, and we won't remove an extension unless the user specifically requests that.

To remove a malicious extension, you'll need to remove a fake, malicious extension first. Then, you can re-enable Chrome extensions on your computer.

If you had fake Google Chrome extensions before, you can find your current list of installed extensions under About Chrome. If you still see old extensions there, you'll need to completely remove Chrome.

If you have multiple Chrome sessions, you can visit the Chrome menu, then Settings, and then Advanced Settings. There, you can disable the Reset this computer option in the Reset settings. This will prevent Chrome from restoring your current settings when you open a new Chrome window.

How do I know a fake Chrome extension is malicious? You'll want to keep an eye out for warning messages when you install extensions. They may include: Your computer is at risk. Do not install. This extension may harm your computer. If you see any of these warning messages, you can either ignore the extension or uninstall it. If you get a warning message that doesn't say anything, don't worry about it. Chrome extensions often include no warnings at all. If you ever see an extension you didn't add, such as a pop-up advertisement, it's likely a malicious extension.

You can read more about warning messages for Chrome extensions here. Chrome extensions are different from extensions on other browsers. Extensions aren't a program that runs when you start Chrome. Instead, they're added as separate components.