Google Removes Plugin Controls From Chrome, Reports Claim (ghacks.net)

An anonymous reader shares a Ghacks report: Google made a change in Chrome 57 that removes options from the browser to manage plugins such as Google Widevine, Adobe Flash, or the Chrome PDF Viewer. If you load chrome://plugins in Chrome 56 or earlier, a list of installed plugins is displayed to you. You can use it, among other things, to disable plugins that you don't require. While you can do the same for some plugins, Flash and PDF Viewer, using Chrome's Settings, the same is not possible for the DRM plugin Widevine, and any other plugin Google may add to Chrome in the future. Starting with Chrome 57, that option is no longer available. This means essentially that Chrome users won't be able to disable -- some -- plugins anymore, or even list the plugins that are installed in the web browser. Please note that this affects Google Chrome and Chromium.Further report on BetaNews.

Comments

If it is an embedded non-removable part of the app

[VMaN]

...Well, then it's hardly a plugin anymore, is it?

Dear Firefox

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Firefox,

Please do NOT copy this feature.

Signed,
All four of us who still use Firefox.

The new IE 6

[Billly Gates]

Webkit is getting too popular. Many websites are using -webkit or blink specific CSS 3 tags and ignoring HTML 5 standards. THis is not healthy.

We need another new browser and not just one on an outdated insecure version of webkit/blink, but a new rendering engine with proper plugin and multiplatform support

Rule #1: Never get pissy with the opinion-leaders.

[Qbertino]

After Apple started with lock-in and iOS golden cages with no access to file systems, they started losing Karma with the nerd crowd. Karma they had gained so much in moving to basically a FOSS unix as their new OS of the second coming of Steve Jobs.

As Apples Karma burned, Google was the closest thing to the new darling child of the nerd/geek crew. With moves like this and them also slowly turning their phones into nothing but hardware outlets for their brave new google services they are going the way of Apple in annoying the opinion-leaders (us). This is never a good move in the long-term and usually marks a decline of some sort. You know, like planlessly releasing 2 additional messaging apps and other strange things. Chrome is an awesome browser and V8 does a lot to strengthen the web - the worlds #1 free plattform these days. But screw this up, and people will start finding ways to move away from Chrome and Google. I hope there are enough smart techies in charge at Google to backpedal on this decision.

All that aside I have a question:
Is there a Fork of Chromium in the wild that won't follow this lead? I use chromium regularly, but I've used alternatives too (Opera, Vivaldi, Brave, etc.) and wouldn't mind using a fully FOSS Chrome clone alternative for a change. Any project doing this?

Re:This is how it starts

[denis-The-menace]

RE: And worst of all, there is no UI for finding and disabling stealth plug-ins that get installed by other apps.

Great!
Hidden Chrome plugins: the New Browser Helper Objects