Brave ships with ads and trackers blocked before you’ve touched a single setting, which raises a fair question: do you even need extensions? You do — just not the ones you’d reach for in a browser without that built in. The best Brave extensions in 2026 fill the gaps Shields leaves open: passwords, writing, shopping, and keeping track of the tabs you can’t afford to lose.
This guide covers what actually works in Brave, how to install and manage it, which permissions deserve a second look, and where extensions stop being enough to protect your open tabs. Along the way you’ll see where a session manager like BelayTab picks up the slack that no ad blocker or password manager was ever built to handle.
What Are the Best Brave Extensions in 2026?
The best Brave extensions are the ones that solve a problem Shields doesn’t already solve. Since Brave blocks ads and trackers out of the box, a typical “best extensions” list built around ad blockers doesn’t really apply here. You’re better served looking at password managers, writing assistants, shopping tools, and tab or session management instead.
That’s genuinely what Brave browser extensions are for once you’ve cleared away the redundant stuff. Think in categories rather than individual apps: something to manage logins, something to catch typos before you hit send, and something to make sure forty research tabs survive a crash or a browser update. The right mix depends on what you do in your browser all day, not on whatever list is trending.
| If you want to… | Do this in Brave |
|---|---|
| Block ads and trackers | Nothing — Shields does it by default |
| Install a specific extension | Open the Chrome Web Store and click Add to Chrome |
| See everything you’ve installed | Open brave://extensions |
| Use a Chrome extension you already rely on | Install it the same way — no conversion needed |
| Keep your tabs safe if an extension misbehaves | Run a session manager like BelayTab alongside your extensions |
- Privacy and security. Password managers and encrypted notes fill in where Shields stops, since Shields blocks trackers but doesn’t manage your logins.
- Productivity and tabs. Writing assistants, task managers, and session tools like BelayTab that protect the work you’ve already opened.
- Everyday browsing. Shopping comparison, reading aids, and small quality-of-life tools that don’t overlap with anything Brave already does.
Before you install anything new, it’s worth a quick audit of what’s already there. Open brave://extensions once and you’ll often find two or three things you added months ago and forgot about — each one still a permission you granted and a line of code running on every page you visit.
Do Chrome Extensions Work in Brave?
Yes — any extension found in the Chrome Web Store will also work in Brave, according to Brave’s own documentation, because Brave is built on the same Chromium engine Chrome uses. That’s the whole reason “extension Brave” and “Chrome extension Brave” turn up as search queries so often: people want reassurance that switching browsers doesn’t mean starting an extension collection from scratch.
In practice this means you don’t lose anything by moving from Chrome to Brave. Once you’ve picked the extension, Brave installs it exactly the way Chrome would — same store, same install button, same permissions dialog. There’s no conversion step and no separate Brave-only version to hunt down.
This shared foundation is also why comparisons between the two browsers tend to come down to the built-in features rather than extension support — see our full Brave vs Chrome comparison for how the rest of the browser stacks up. If you’re coming from Chrome specifically and want a sense of what’s worth reinstalling first, our best Chrome extensions roundup is a reasonable starting list, since nearly all of it carries over.
How Do I Install Extensions in Brave?
You install an extension in Brave the same way you would in Chrome: through the Chrome Web Store. Brave doesn’t run its own separate extension marketplace, so that store is where you’ll do all your browsing and installing.
- Open the Chrome Web Store. Brave doesn’t have a separate marketplace, so this is where you’ll find everything.
- Search for the extension. Use the name if you know it, or browse a category if you’re just looking around.
- Click Add to Chrome. It’s the store’s own install button, and it works the same regardless of which Chromium-based browser you’re using.
- Approve the permissions dialog. A dialog appears listing what the extension wants to access — read it, then approve to finish.
That permissions dialog matters more than it looks. It’s the one moment before an extension starts running where you get to see, in plain language, what it’s asking for. Skimming past it out of habit is how people end up with an extension that reads every page they visit when all they wanted was a coupon finder.
One thing worth remembering: once installed, an extension keeps running in the background on every tab that matches its permissions, not just the one you had open when you added it. If you only need something occasionally, disabling it between uses from brave://extensions is a reasonable middle ground between having it and not having it at all.
How Do I Manage Brave Settings for Extensions?
You manage Brave settings for extensions from brave://extensions, Brave’s dedicated page for everything you’ve installed. Type that into a new tab and you’ll see a card for each extension, with the basic controls you’d expect.
From that page you can turn an extension off without removing it, which is useful if you’re troubleshooting whether it’s causing a slowdown or a page to break. You can also remove it entirely when you’re done with it for good, and check what permissions it currently holds. Brave keeps this page close to what you’d find in Chrome’s own extension manager, since both browsers share the same underlying platform, though a few small wording differences are normal between Chromium browsers.
If you manage extensions across more than one Chromium browser (say Brave at home and Chrome at work) the controls are similar enough that our guide on how to manage Chrome extensions doubles as a decent reference for Brave too. The concepts transfer even where a specific button label doesn’t match exactly.
Are Brave Extensions Safe to Install?
Most Brave extensions are safe, but “safe” depends heavily on what permissions you approve, not just where the extension came from. Every extension, whether it’s from a well-known developer or a small independent one, requests access when you install or update it, and that request is the real thing to evaluate.
Google’s Chrome Web Store guidance breaks permission requests into three rough tiers, and since Brave installs from that same store, the same thinking applies directly.
| Risk level | What it typically means |
|---|---|
| High alert | Access to all your data on your computer and every website you visit |
| Medium alert | Access to specific websites, or to all websites |
| Low alert | Access to smaller things like bookmarks, history, tabs, or your location |
Read before you approve. A permission dialog doesn’t mean an extension is dangerous. It means it can do what it’s asking for. An extension requesting access to every website you visit deserves a second look, especially if its stated purpose doesn’t obviously need that much reach.
A few habits keep this manageable without turning it into a research project every time. Favor extensions with a clear, narrow purpose over do-everything ones. Check what an extension is asking for again after an update, since permissions can change. And if something starts behaving oddly, disabling it from brave://extensions costs you nothing and rules out one variable fast.
Do You Still Need an Ad Blocker Extension in Brave?
No, you generally don’t need a separate ad blocker extension in Brave. Shields is on by default and blocks ads and trackers without any setup on your part, and Brave’s own guidance states plainly that you won’t need an extension-based ad blocker in Brave because Shields already covers that job.
This is one of the clearest ways Brave differs from Chrome, Edge, or Firefox, where ad blocking is entirely left to extensions. It also means a chunk of the typical “best extensions” list (the ad blockers, the tracker blockers) simply doesn’t apply to Brave the way it does elsewhere.
That said, Shields is about ads and trackers specifically. It isn’t a password manager, a writing tool, or a tab organizer, so there’s still plenty of room for extensions that do something Shields was never meant to do. If you want the deeper picture of how Shields fits into Brave’s overall privacy approach, our Brave Private Browser review covers that in more depth.
What Are the Best Brave Extensions for Privacy and Security?
The most useful privacy and security extensions for Brave are the ones covering what Shields doesn’t touch — mainly password management and account security, not ad or tracker blocking. Since Brave handles the browsing-level privacy work automatically, the extensions worth adding are the ones protecting your accounts and data instead.
A password manager is the obvious first pick for most people: something that generates strong, unique logins and fills them in without you having to remember or retype them. That single habit closes more real security gaps than most other extensions combined, simply because reused passwords are still one of the most common ways accounts get compromised. Beyond that, extensions that mask your email address for sign-ups, or that add two-factor codes without switching to your phone, round out a reasonable privacy-focused set.
It’s worth resisting the urge to stack several overlapping privacy tools on top of each other. Two ad or tracker blockers running alongside Shields don’t add meaningfully more protection. They mostly add more permissions granted, more background processes running, and more places something can go wrong. One well-chosen extension per job tends to outperform three loosely related ones.
Fewer, better-scoped extensions win. A single password manager with narrow permissions is a better trade than three privacy tools that each ask for broad access “just in case.” Scope matters more than count.
What Are the Best Brave Extensions for Productivity and Tabs?
The best productivity extensions for Brave are the ones that manage what piles up during a normal work day: open tabs, half-finished research, and the writing you’re doing across a dozen browser windows. Ad blocking is handled, so this is where extensions earn their keep.
Writing assistants that catch grammar and tone issues as you type are an easy addition if you spend much of your day in web-based email or documents. Task and note-taking extensions that live in the toolbar save you from switching to a separate app for a two-line reminder. But the category that quietly causes the most frustration when it’s missing is tab and session management — what happens to the twenty tabs from a project when Brave needs to restart, or when you close a window by mistake.
That’s the specific gap BelayTab fills. It’s a free extension that saves your open tabs as a named session with one click, or with Ctrl + Shift + S (Cmd + Shift + S on Mac), and it keeps tab groups, pinned tabs, and their order intact rather than dumping everything into one flat list. It also saves a snapshot of every open window on its own every five minutes, and again the moment you close a window, so you’re covered even if you forget to save manually.
If tab overload is more your problem than losing tabs outright, our guide on too many tabs covers habits that pair well with a proper tab manager rather than just closing things and hoping you didn’t need them.
How Many Extensions Should You Run in Brave?
There’s no fixed number, but a reasonable target is the smallest set that covers real, recurring needs — for most people, that’s somewhere under ten, not the twenty-plus that accumulates by accident over a year of casual installing. Every extension you add is one more thing running on the pages you visit, whether you notice it or not.
The honest test isn’t how many you have, it’s whether you could name what each one does without looking. If you open brave://extensions and find something you can’t immediately explain, that’s usually a sign it’s safe to remove. Extensions you installed for a single task months ago and never used again are the most common clutter, and they’re also the easiest ones to clear out without any downside.
Performance is the more practical reason to keep the list lean. Extensions that inject scripts into every page you load, like some ad blockers, price trackers, or grammar checkers, add up in a way that’s easy to feel but hard to pin on any one culprit. If Brave starts feeling sluggish, disabling extensions one at a time from brave://extensions (rather than removing them outright) is a fast way to isolate the cause without losing your settings for good.
What Happens to Your Extensions and Tabs When You Reset Brave?
Resetting or reinstalling Brave typically removes your installed extensions and whatever tabs were open at the time, unless you’d already backed them up somewhere else first. Extensions themselves don’t protect against this — an ad blocker or password manager has no role in preserving your open tabs through a reset, a crash, or a fresh install.
This is the blind spot most extension lists never mention, because most extensions were never built to solve it. A password manager keeps your logins safe. A writing tool checks your grammar. Neither one has any idea what windows you had open yesterday, and neither one is going to help you get them back.
- Open BelayTab’s Recovery screen. It brings together your automatic snapshots, anything you’ve deleted, and the browser’s own recently closed windows in one place.
- Find the session from before the reset. BelayTab snapshots every open window automatically every five minutes, and again the moment you close a window, so there’s usually a recent one waiting.
- Restore it into a new window. Large sessions reopen in batches of twenty so Brave isn’t overwhelmed all at once.
BelayTab is free with no account required, keeps unlimited sessions and tabs, and works the same way in Brave as it does in Chrome, Edge, Opera, Vivaldi, Arc, Firefox, and Safari on Mac. It won’t fix a crash or a freeze, and it can’t recover tabs from before it was installed — but for everything after that, it’s exactly the kind of backup a reset or reinstall is supposed to have.
Compare that to what a typical extension does when things go wrong: nothing, because that was never its job. If tab loss has been a recurring headache rather than a one-off, it’s worth downloading BelayTab once rather than hoping the next crash happens to be a gentle one.