It was approved ... but did Google ever communicate exactly what the issue was with the permissions they used?
Our Chrome Extension Is Safe
21–30 of 206 posts
Re: Our Chrome Extension Is Safe
#22Can someone from Google use a throwaway to explain why the hell their support is garbage. From the Chrome store, to G-Suite, to Pixel Support. It's just awful.
Always has been for 10+ years now. As a former Call Center Director, it's pretty amazing to me how much bad-will these massive companies are willing to foment by not running their support correctly. It's not that hard / expensive guys... you can hire great support employees for $20 / hour all across America.
Support is also one of the most remote friendly forms of work available, and often benefits from spreading workers over multiple time zones.
Re: Our Chrome Extension Is Safe
#23Can someone from Google use a throwaway to explain why the hell their support is garbage. From the Chrome store, to G-Suite, to Pixel Support. It's just awful.
Is it really hard to understand? The answer is always money.
Are there any examples of free services that don't directly make a company money that include great support? I am struggling to think of any.
Re: Our Chrome Extension Is Safe
#24It is good that this was resolved, but not so good that they had to shame Google on HN/Twitter to get it looked at. I understand that the Chrome extension store is free, but if you're going to point a bunch of bots at it and have them de-list extensions based on unknown metrics, the least you could do is communicate the "gotcha" rules the extension supposedly violated.
> I understand that the Chrome extension store is free
Pretty sure it’s not free, I had to pay a nominal $5 fee ages ago, and looks like that hasn’t changed.
https://developer.chrome.com/webstore/publish#pay-the-develo...
Even found a recent news article reporting that now you need to pay the fee immediately on signup as opposed to when you publish the first extension/app.
https://9to5google.com/2020/03/12/chrome-web-store-fee/
(In case anyone wonders why $5 is even worth mentioning — if you’re a teenager in a third world country you probably have neither the fund nor a credit card to publish a Chrome extension.)
Re: Our Chrome Extension Is Safe
#25You know this wouldn't be so much of an issue if Chrome didn't disable the ability to install extensions outside of the web store.
As an extension developer its absolutely infuriating to realize that:
1. There is no way to install extensions outside the web store
2. Google won't approve anything to the web store.
3. The vast majority of people use Chrome vs other browsers.
------
I get it, Chrome is Google's browser and they can do what they please with it. However Chromium is open source and it's still impossible to do so.
Like thanks Google. I spent months developing an extension only to realize that as it stands today for the majority of developers, the chrome web store is closed for new submissions.
And Google didn't even have the courtesy of telling us it's essentially closed, they just string us along with "pending reviews" (for context I've been trying to get my extension approved since February).
Re: Our Chrome Extension Is Safe
#26Can someone from Google use a throwaway to explain why the hell their support is garbage. From the Chrome store, to G-Suite, to Pixel Support. It's just awful.
Is it really hard to understand? The answer is always money.
Money, sure, but it's power ahead of that. The average consumer cannot bargain.
Re: Our Chrome Extension Is Safe
#27Pivotal phrase being:
> things are back to normal now
I bet this happens again.
Re: Our Chrome Extension Is Safe
#28What happened to the iOS app? I have it, but it isn't available in the US App Store anymore, nor is it linked to from the site's page anymore. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pushbullet/id810352052
They unpublished it after refusing to allow a "Sign in with Apple" option on their login page. https://old.reddit.com/r/PushBullet/comments/eirc1m/not_avai... The dev said the iOS side of things are irrelevant for them anyway since most of their users are on Android, which is frankly disheartening since there's no alternative for iPhone users with linux desktops now
Wow. That's pretty lame of them. I don't agree with their logic, but I do agree with following the user base. I will continue to use the version I have. I could probably find a way to share the .app if anyone needs it.
Found pushover.net which seems like a decent (paid) alternative.
We need an open-source version of this kind of functionality, maybe using ActivityPub? Self-hosted option with Google integration for a start, and since everyone needs to have Sign in with Apple for iOS, I guess that too. Might as well add Facebook login support.
Re: Our Chrome Extension Is Safe
#29You know this wouldn't be so much of an issue if Chrome didn't disable the ability to install extensions outside of the web store. As an extension developer its absolutely infuriating to realize that: 1. There is no way to install extensions outside the web store 2. Google won't approve anything to the web store. 3. The vast majority of people use Chrome vs other browsers. ------ I get it, Chrome is Google's browser…
Is it closed to all types of new extensions? Or just certain kinds requiring certain permissions or in certain groups? I hadn't heard about this.
Re: Our Chrome Extension Is Safe
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Always has been for 10+ years now. As a former Call Center Director, it's pretty amazing to me how much bad-will these massive companies are willing to foment by not running their support correctly. It's not that hard / expensive guys... you can hire great support employees for $20 / hour all across America.
Support is also one of the most remote friendly forms of work available, and often benefits from spreading workers over multiple time zones.
Much of customer support is like the close doors button on an elevator. It doesn't actually do anything, but makes you feel like it does.