Some legitimate developer tools (like CRX Extractor or get-crx ) exist. They’re open-source scripts that fetch the .crx from Google’s servers directly using the extension’s ID. These are relatively safe if you run them yourself from GitHub. The danger arises when a random website offers to “do it for you.”
This is the most popular and controversial class. Extensions like or extensions that integrate with tools like youtube-dl fall into this category. chrome extension download helper