In our testing today at the GearVerify lab, we encountered a massive discrepancy in user scores. Two users with identical i9-14900K CPUs reported a 30% difference in our "Input Lab" latency test. The difference? User A was running a clean profile. User B had 14 extensions installed, including "Honey," "Grammarly," and three different ad blockers. These extensions inject JavaScript into every single frame, acting as a parasite on your CPU cycles.

To benchmark a system, you must test the hardware, not the software bloat. Extensions run on the main thread—the same thread responsible for handling your mouse inputs and DOM updates.

1. DOM Injection Latency

Every time GearVerify updates the DOM (e.g., updating the FPS counter), your extensions wake up to check if they need to "do something" with that change. A password manager checks if it's a login field. A grammar checker checks for text. This adds microseconds of delay that accumulate into milliseconds of stutter.

2. The "Observer" Effect

Privacy extensions often wrap native APIs to prevent fingerprinting. While noble, this ruins benchmarks. If an extension wraps `performance.now()` to fuzz the timestamp, our latency calculations become mathematically impossible to verify.

3. Laboratory Final Thoughts

We cannot validate your silicon if your browser is fighting a war against twenty shopping assistants. For 100% accuracy, always press Ctrl+Shift+N before running any GearVerify sequence.