Squishpets
Browser pets for Chrome: Shimeji and the alternatives
A browser pet is a small character that lives on top of the web pages you visit. The biggest one on the Chrome Web Store is the Shimeji Browser Extension, with 1,000,000 users. Others include Meow, The Cat Pet (100,000 users), Cat-In-Tab and PetPat. Squishpets is our own take: soft-body pets that react to what’s on the page.
Figures read from each extension’s Chrome Web Store page on 8 October 2026.
The browser pets on the Chrome Web Store
| Extension | Users | Rating | Last updated | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shimeji Browser Extension | 1,000,000 | 4.0 (2.8K) | January 2024 | Characters that walk, climb and throw page elements. Big fan-made character library. Google sign-in. |
| Meow, The Cat Pet | 100,000 | 4.4 (1.6K) | March 2026 | A cat that walks on screen, with hunger and happiness bars, coins, a shop and mini-games. |
| Cat-In-Tab | 30,000 | 4.0 (112) | July 2023 | A pixel-art cat that wanders the page and sleeps when you click the icon. |
| PetPat | 10,000 | 4.4 (23) | August 2026 | A screen pet with feeding, a pomodoro-style timer and a follow-the-cursor mode. |
| Shimeji World | 5,000 | 4.8 (11) | April 2026 | A large library of anime and gaming shimejis with weekly additions. |
| Squishpets | New | No ratings yet | October 2026 | 27 painted characters that eat ads and cookie banners, steal headlines, nap on articles and play-fight. Two free. |
Shimeji: the classic
Shimeji started as a Japanese desktop toy: little characters that walk along your windows, climb the edges and multiply if you let them. The Chrome version brings them into the browser, where they walk on page elements and can throw them around. Its strength is the community: thousands of characters, many from anime and games, made by fans.
The extension hasn’t had an update since January 2024, and its characters are sprite animations: a set of drawings played in a loop. If you want a specific anime character on your screen, it’s still the place to start.
Virtual pets that need looking after
Meow, The Cat Pet and PetPat lean toward the Tamagotchi side. Your pet gets hungry, wants attention and rewards you for coming back. Meow adds coins, a shop and a playground with mini-games. These suit people who like a small daily routine with their pet.
What makes Squishpets different
We built Squishpets around two ideas. First, the pet should feel alive: it walks with a real stride, leaps between headings, tumbles when you throw it and lands with a squash. Second, it should react to the page you're on, not just wander across it.
There are 27 characters in six groups: dogs, cats, wild animals, cuddly critters, ocean friends and spooky little monsters. Each has its own signature move, like a corgi's zoomies, a Bengal kitten's cursor pounce or a ghost that floats through everything. Mochi the bunny and Waffles the corgi are free; the others cost $1 to $3 once.
Are browser pets safe?
Check two things before installing any of them. Look at the permissions Chrome shows when you click Add to Chrome: a pet that runs on every page needs access to every site, which is a lot to hand over. And read the privacy section of the listing to see what the developer collects.
Squishpets asks for no site access at install. It appears only on the tab where you click its icon, and asks for all-site access only if you turn on “Follow me to every page”. Nothing about the pages you visit leaves your browser. Our privacy policy has the details.
Which one should you pick?
- For a specific anime or game character: Shimeji or Shimeji World.
- For a pet to feed and care for every day: Meow, The Cat Pet.
- For a pet that plays with the page itself, and that you can actually throw: Squishpets.