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

Posted by msmash on from the what's-happening dept.

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.

5 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. Dear Firefox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Dear Firefox,

    Please do NOT copy this feature.

    Signed,
    All four of us who still use Firefox.

    1. Re:Dear Firefox by thegarbz · · Score: 5, Funny

      Dear 4 remaining users,

      We value your feedback.
      In the mean time we hope you enjoy the upcoming changes to our plugin system. We're replicating the features of a market leader with this one.

      Signed,
      Mozilla Dev Team

  2. This is how it starts by Dust038 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I get on one hand it saves some headaches to the average end user who doesn't care what plugins are installed. But on the other hand...The only reason to hide plugins is because you're doing something you don't want us to see. A plugin whose code you don't want us to delve into and figure out what it actually is doing. Specifically Sending Private Data about History and censoring. We'll see how far this gets. Thanks Google.

    1. Re:This is how it starts by denis-The-menace · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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

      --
      Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
  3. Plugins are not Extensions... by mythosaz · · Score: 5, Informative

    Important distinction:

    chrome://plugins/ is where the internal PDF viewer is enabled or disabled.
    chrome://extensions/ is where you put uBlock, or your corporate overlords install WebSense.

    Plugins are moving to chrome://settings/content

    That's it. INTERNAL PLUGINS ARE GETTING MOVED to a new menu location.