# Lazy Scholar

> Academic research assistant - find full-text PDFs, citations, and analyze papers

Canonical page: [https://chrome-stats.com/d/lazy-scholar](https://chrome-stats.com/d/lazy-scholar)

## Overview

- **ID:** `lazy-scholar`
- **Platform:** Firefox
- **Type:** Firefox add-on
- **Status:** Available
- **Publisher:** Lazy Scholar
- **Category:** search-tools
- **Daily users:** 325
- **Weekly downloads:** 12
- **Rating:** 3.92 / 5 (12 ratings)
- **Version:** 3.0.0
- **Last updated:** 2026-01-10
- **First published:** 2015-05-19
- **Size:** 19 MB
- **Data as of:** 2026-09-07
- **Store listing:** [Firefox Add-ons Store](https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/lazy-scholar/)
- **Website:** [http://lazyscholar.org](http://lazyscholar.org/)
- **Privacy policy:** [https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/lazy-scholar/privacy/](https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/lazy-scholar/privacy/)

## Description

Lazy Scholar is a browser extension that automatically detects scholarly articles as you browse and provides instant access to full-text PDFs from multiple sources, including PubMed Central, Europe PMC, and other Open Access repositories. It also surfaces citation metrics from Google Scholar, OpenAlex, and Semantic Scholar, along with related-paper recommendations to help you quickly assess relevance and influence.

It goes beyond access by offering journal checks (SJR quartiles, predatory journal warnings, and paper-mill alerts), research integrity features (retractions, expressions of concern, corrections, preregistration detection, PubPeer comments), and advanced rigor analysis (tortured phrase detection, fingerprint scanning, and reference verification). It supports one-click citations in several styles, export to reference managers, and handy features like right-click search and omnibox queries. Works on any scholarly article and is ideal for graduate students, faculty, librarians, scientists, and anyone reading academic literature.

## Rankings

- #6,425 — Overall
- #52 — hold
- #196 — reference
- #229 — phrase

## Permissions and access

### Permissions

- `activeTab`
- `tabs`
- `storage`
- `unlimitedStorage`
- `clipboardWrite`
- `downloads`
- `contextMenus`
- `notifications`
- `alarms`
- `webNavigation`
- `webRequest`
- `scripting`

### Host permissions

- `http://*/*`
- `https://*/*`

### Content script matches

- `<all_urls>`

## Safety

- **Risk impact:** Very high risk impact
- **Risk likelihood:** Moderate risk likelihood

### Analysis details

- Grants access to browser tabs, which can be used to track user browsing habits and history, presenting a privacy concern.
- This extension has low user count. Unpopular extensions may not be stable or safe.

> Some risk analysis details are omitted from this free response. [Upgrade to view the full analysis](https://chrome-stats.com/pricing).

## Review summary

### Pros

- Very handy for searching full articles
- Helpful for researchers in saving time
- The add on is back!

### Cons

- Does not work
- Not giving notifications
- Currently unmaintained

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Source: [Chrome-Stats](https://chrome-stats.com/d/lazy-scholar)