One of my favorite features in Chrome is its extension support. You can make the web what you want with extensions. Quickly accessing services and sharing are only a couple of the functions you can use extensions for. It is really awesome to have these tools, but someone always has to come and mess it up. This is why we really can’t have nice things, guys!
Why is Chrome for Windows no longer supporting outside extensions?
Google has announced that Chrome for Windows will no longer be supporting extensions outside the Chrome Web Store. Many extensions are offered through the internet and can be manually installed. Sometimes these come bundled with services and prove to be great tools, but other times people try to take advantage and make malicious extensions.
Normally Chrome asks you if you want to install bundled extensions or not, but some evil coders have found a way to bypass the prompt and install malicious extensions in your browser. This can result in an alteration of your settings and hurt the experience (or your security).
When will Chrome for Windows stop supporting outside extensions?
The changes will take effect this January, when all non-Chrome Web Store extensions will stop being supported. This will affect both the Chrome stable and beta releases, but Google states there will continue to be support for development. If you have extensions that didn’t come from the Web Store, be sure to take all of this into account. Developers can migrate the extensions so Google can keep a closer eye on them.
This is especially upsetting for me, because I use some work-related extensions that were created by the company’s developers. These are no good for the rest of the world and we will not be able to put them in the Web Store. I wonder if the same Chrome for Mac will suffer the same faith. Do you guys use any extensions with origins other than the Chrome Web Store?
[Google]
