Google enforcing Web store only extensions for Chrome
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Google enforcing Web store only extensions for Chrome
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Re: Google enforcing Web store only extensions for Chrome
#2If you want to keep any extensions that you didn't install from Web Store, use the dev channel[1] of Chrome and they will work just fine. I use an extension and they warned me one month back to either install their Web Store version will fewer functionality or move to dev channel.
Re: Google enforcing Web store only extensions for Chrome
#3There are extensions that are legitimate but can't be installed from Google's Play store because it breaks policy. For example YouTube options (https://spoi.com/software/yto/), or the LastPass binary extension (might be wrong on that one).
Thanks to the toolbar-installing software on windows it gives a legitimate reason to Google to close the system down a bit more.
Re: Google enforcing Web store only extensions for Chrome
#4Going to be interesting to see how DICE is going to react with their BattleLog
Re: Google enforcing Web store only extensions for Chrome
#5If you want to keep any extensions that you didn't install from Web Store, use the dev channel[1] of Chrome and they will work just fine. I use an extension and they warned me one month back to either install their Web Store version will fewer functionality or move to dev channel. [1] http://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/dev-channel
Why don't they simply give me a config flag to change the behaviour? I understand what they are trying to do but it annoys me to have to use non-stable releases just so that I can use a couple of useful extensions not available from the store.
Re: Google enforcing Web store only extensions for Chrome
#6I worry we are heading towards a day when all electronic devices are jailed, and you have to jump through hoops to own and use "development" devices.
It's like we're taking away pens and pencils, since they can be used to mess up books, instead of teaching more people how to write.
Re: Google enforcing Web store only extensions for Chrome
#7> Why couldn’t this problem be solved by having a setting/option to load extensions that are not hosted in the Chrome Web Store? Unlike modern mobile operating systems, Windows does not sandbox applications. Hence we wouldn’t be able to differentiate between a user opting in to this setting versus a malicious native app overriding the user’s setting.
Sounds a bit BS to me. In what reasonable threat model the attacker can run arbitrary code on the user's system, but will need a Chrome extension to do nasty things? The attacker could just replace the Chrome binary altogether, for instance.
I understand that there can be conceivable security benefits as a result of this change, but I think the real motivation is control, not security.
Re: Google enforcing Web store only extensions for Chrome
#8> Why couldn’t this problem be solved by having a setting/option to load extensions that are not hosted in the Chrome Web Store? Unlike modern mobile operating systems, Windows does not sandbox applications. Hence we wouldn’t be able to differentiate between a user opting in to this setting versus a malicious native app overriding the user’s setting. Sounds a bit BS to me. In what reasonable threat model the attacker…
> solved by having a setting/option to load extensions that are not hosted in the Chrome Web Store
It is the current solution. Unzip, go to extensions, enable developer mode, load extension. Which IMHO is much more dangerous than downloading crx
Re: Google enforcing Web store only extensions for Chrome
#9Following the same rationale, downloading of executables via Chrome should be restricted to those from Google approved publishers only.
Re: Google enforcing Web store only extensions for Chrome
#10I worry we are heading towards a day when all electronic devices are jailed, and you have to jump through hoops to own and use "development" devices. It's like we're taking away pens and pencils, since they can be used to mess up books, instead of teaching more people how to write.
The real analogy is that we're taking away pencils because writing in the wrong book can cause you to lose all your money and cause months of problems. And these books are disguised as your own diary, cookbooks, maps and the TV guide.