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Google Disables Inline Installation For Chrome Extensions (venturebeat.com)

Posted by msmash on from the tightening-bolts dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Google today announced that Chrome will no longer support inline installation of extensions. New extensions lose inline installation starting today, existing extensions will lose the ability in three months, and in early December the inline install API will be removed from the browser with the release of Chrome 71. Critics have pointed out such moves make the Chrome Web Store a walled garden, while Google insists pushing users to the store ultimately protects them.

12 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. This is fine by omnichad · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you've ever seen a regular Chrome user's computer, you know there's at least one rogue extension that they can't explain how it was installed. More likely, several - and one of them changing the new tab page or redirecting searches away from Google.

    1. Re:This is fine by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Informative

      And you can still install extensions from outside the Chrome store, you just download them, enable dev mode and load them up that way.

      It's sufficiently difficult enough to deter users being tricked into doing it by dodgy web sites, but easy enough that it doesn't really affect developers and nerds.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  2. You are Safer in the Store.... by Zurkeyon3733 · · Score: 2

    Right up to the moment you realize that as much as 30% of the apps there are not properly vetted, and that infections are RAMPANT! But, of course, going to a developer who doesn't want to pay google or conform to their BS, that you may have been downloading apps and content from for DECADES, is worse somehow because google can't extort them or force creative control over their code/IP.... Isn't it?

    1. Re:You are Safer in the Store.... by rudy_wayne · · Score: 2

      More like 0% of apps are properly vetted.

      If you happen to get an app or extension that isn't malware, it's more likely just luck and coincidence, not an actual benefit of getting something from an official App Store.

      After all, Google and Apple have so few employees and so little money, they can't possibly conduct proper vetting of apps.

  3. Re:Another reason by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Just gave me a reason to suggest ONLY using Chrome to most users. There is no end to the amount of sideloaded shitware extensions that fuck up your browser.

    "But the website said I needed this to do X!" "I don't know. It just appeared there and I cant search anymore" "Why do I see so many ads?"

    To their Credit, google has taken down a good 20 or 30 extensions I've reported as obvious garbage that violates their terms. Still. Anything to cut down on this crap is great.

  4. Re:Another reason by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    In order to sideload an extension, you have to not only have OS permission (you do have your group policies setup correctly, right?) and the knowledge to enable developer mode in Chrome, but you also have to know how to download and execute the extension file itself. It's also not like the Chrome Web store is any safer. There are tons of malware and spyware extensions there.

    This is just another idiotic way that a corporation can scream out "look at me, look at me, we're protecting users", when in fact the exact opposite is true. They aren't protecting users, they are harming users by taking control and choice away from users.

  5. So how do I develop? by ugen · · Score: 2

    I wrote a small Chrome extension previously. I did submit it to the Chrome store (where I can download it) - but during the development process I needed to modify and reload that extensions many times over (as is natural to any dev. process)

    Without inline extension installation ability - how would a developer be expected to do that? Is there going to be a special "developer" Chrome version? Or would developer have to submit every line change of the extension to the store in order to test it?

    1. Re:So how do I develop? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Inline installation just refers to installs from a website. What you are talking about can be done locally using the extensions tab in dev mode.

    2. Re:So how do I develop? by GoRK · · Score: 2

      Sort of; you can no longer download and install a packaged extension. You have to unpack the extension and put chrome into developer mode where it will display a warning about the extension every time you open Chrome.

      Tried to install moonlight on my macbook yesterday (chrome is the only way to run it on os x) and it was really fucking annoying.

  6. So that's why Firefox... by urusan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So that's why Firefox has been becoming more and more Chrome-like, so it can be an alternative to Chrome after this change!

  7. You brought this on yourselves by Tough+Love · · Score: 2

    You brought this on yourselves. Who would have thought that a Google-owned browser monoculture would increasingly tend towards evil? Solution: use Chromium. Better solution: use Firefox.

    --
    When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  8. Re:Another reason by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    To their Credit, google has taken down a good 20 or 30 extensions I've reported as obvious garbage that violates their terms.

    And how did that "obvious garbage" get into the Chrome Store in the first place?

    Google, Apple, whatever. NONE of them can be arsed to scrutinize things that are submitted to their store.

    Google does not manually review every extension in the store. However, when an extension in the store is found to violate the rules, the removal from the store removes it for all users. That *dramatically* reduces the pay-off of tricking users into installing malware.