Upcoming UI Change

[Devlin Cronin]

Hey All,

Soon, we will begin to roll out a UI change that will enforce that each extension the user has installed has a persistent UI surface.  By default, this will be in the toolbar to the right of the omnibox (where browser actions are now) [1], and the user can choose to hide ("overflow") these actions in the Chrome menu [2].

The reason for this is to protect our users.  We've heard too frequently that many users are unaware of the extensions they have installed, whether this is due to sideloading, installation by phishing, or simply the user forgetting how many and which are installed.  Unfortunately, extensions consume computing resources, and may have significant security, privacy, and performance impacts.  Because of this, we've decided we need to increase user visibility.

What this means for your extension:

• If the extension has a browser action: Nothing! (Apart from the slightly different hide/overflow functionality.)

• If the extension has a page action: The extension will be given a persistent icon in the toolbar.  On pages where the extension's page action wouldn't normally be visible, the action will be greyed out, indicating that it doesn't want to act.  On pages it does want to act, it will be fully-colored. [3]

• If the extension has no action: Similar to page actions, the extension will be given a persistent icon in the toolbar.  It will be shown with the greyed-out look all the time.

Displaying the action persistently, even in the cases of a previously hidden page action or an extension with no action, is necessary because the presence of an action doesn’t always correlate with the extension acting.  We also can’t show the action conditionally on, e.g., a per-tab basis, because there are many actions that are not correlated with any tab.  In order to ensure users are aware of the extensions they have installed that could be affecting their browser, we need to ensure each extension is visible.

We've done our best to limit the functionality this breaks, and hope you understand the trade-off between developer inconvenience and user benefit.  Thank you for understanding as we keep our users safe!

Cheers,

Devlin



[1] Initial placement of actions

[2] Extensions overflowed into the Chrome menu

[3] Inactive vs Active Page Action

[Dylan Myers]

Hi Devlin,

I like the change in most respects.

Will users still be able to hide icons through its context menu?

Secondly, this still seems to be flawed: an app can still have a transparent icon like LANSchool Helper, and the space is invisible to the user.

Finally, would it not be a good idea to create this as a default choice rather than something forced, akin to the google play "add icon to home screen (for new apps)" choice? This means that those of us with 10s of extensions don't gave a micro sized omnibox.

Thanks and keep working hard!

Dylan

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[Devlin Cronin]

Will users still be able to hide icons through its context menu?

They will, but "hiding" becomes overflowing the icon to the wrench menu.  There won't be a way to fully hide an icon.

Secondly, this still seems to be flawed: an app can still have a transparent icon like LANSchool Helper, and the space is invisible to the user.

Even with a transparent icon, there will still be a focusable/hoverable button, and things like right click will identify the extension.  While a transparent icon will make it a little more hidden, the extension would be far from truly invisible.

Finally, would it not be a good idea to create this as a default choice rather than something forced, akin to the google play "add icon to home screen (for new apps)" choice? This means that those of us with 10s of extensions don't gave a micro sized omnibox.

Unfortunately, this isn't really an option we're looking at right now, for security purposes.  On the upside, overflowing the icons to the wrench menu works pretty well - it can fit dozens of icons easily (with support for showing hundreds, in the extreme case).  So for those of us with 10+ extensions, I would expect the majority to be overflowed in the wrench menu, keeping the toolbar relatively clean.

Thanks for the feedback!

Cheers

- Devlin

[Wolf War]

so basically, every installed extension will have toolbar icon

1) and only way to hide them is to move it to hamburger menu??

2) what kind of functionality those icons will have?... or they gonna just sit there as info

3) are you canceling page actions with this ?... as far as I understand (from SS), page action will be moved to toolbar, what about functionality (page action click)

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[Devlin Cronin]

Whoops, dropped the list from the reply.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Devlin Cronin <rdevlin...@chromium.org>
Date: Mon, Oct 5, 2015 at 1:45 PM
Subject: Re: [crx] Upcoming UI Change
To: Wolf War <wolf...@gmail.com>

1) and only way to hide them is to move it to hamburger menu??

Yes. 

2) what kind of functionality those icons will have?... or they gonna just sit there as info

From an extension standpoint, there will be limited functionality if the action wouldn't previously be visible.  However, there will still be functionality for the user (in the form of the context menu).

 

3) are you canceling page actions with this ?... as far as I understand (from SS), page action will be moved to toolbar, what about functionality (page action click)

Page actions will be moved to the toolbar.  On pages that the action wouldn't normally be visible, it will be greyed out, and clicks will not be forwarded to the extension.  On pages where it would normally be visible, it will be fully colored, and clicks will be forwarded normally.  So clicking on a page action (that is set to visible) will work the same as it did before. 

[Wolf War]

....but looks much better in address bar :))))

...ok, thanx again for answer, I was thinking something similar (on both, coloring and browser action)

cheers

[Bogdan]

Hi Devlin ,

This change will require another asset for the disabled state of the browser action or this is something what google will handle  ? 

[Mike Kaply]

How will the icon be specified for extensions without browser or page actions?

Shrinking down the regular icon won't look good, you'll want a 19x19 icon.

Or will these icons not be 19x19?

[Devlin Cronin]

Bogdan: 

This change will require another asset for the disabled state of the browser action or this is something what google will handle  ?

The disabled state will be a greyed out version of the icon, which Chrome will do automatically.  You could also choose to have your own disabled/enabled state, so that you can choose how the icon looks, and still receive left clicks even when "disabled" (I think AdBlock is an example of this). 

How will the icon be specified for extensions without browser or page actions?

Currently, we will use the icon of closest size, and scale it.  If the extension doesn't have any icon (e.g., an unpacked extension), then we will generate a grey box with the first letter of the extension name in white font (if you're familiar, I think we also do this for favicons in a few contexts - one of the extensions in the images from the first post is an example [the S]).  In the long-term, I would probably recommend adding an extension action, because if you have the UI surface, might as well do something with it. :)

I also forgot to mention that you can choose to enable this feature locally by going to chrome://flags/#enable-extension-action-redesign.

[PhistucK]

On Tue, Oct 6, 2015 at 7:14 PM, Devlin Cronin <rdevlin...@chromium.org> wrote:

In the long-term, I would probably recommend adding an extension action, because if you have the UI surface, might as well do something with it. :)

I believe there used to ​a restriction for one user interface surface per extension, as well as one purpose per extension. This seems to contradict that (I understand that the reality dictates otherwise), so you better update the guidelines somewhere, if such exist that mention this.

☆PhistucK

[Devlin Cronin]

This seems to contradict that

I don't think it does.  Each extension still only has a single UI surface (which is now persistent).  And I'm not suggesting that, in adding an action, you add a second purpose - but many extensions could still show something useful to the user (status?  Frequently used options?  Obviously very extension-dependent).  The documentation should be updated to mention the persistent icon, but the guidelines regarding UI presence and single purpose stand.

[Wolf War]

in Canary since today (I think),

there is no more "hide from toolbar" option on extension icon right click (browserAction)

is that just a temporarily... going back to old way...or something compliantly new?

can't test pageAction behavior right now to see if it will be shown in address bar or on toolbar...

[Wolf War]

...and additionally, not all extensions are presented on toolbar (active or grayed)

I see only hide option and new button on chrome://extensions to show toolbar icon

[Wolf War]

sry, I reinstalled canary and totally forgot about flags :)

On Tuesday, October 6, 2015 at 6:26:56 PM UTC+2, Devlin Cronin wrote:

[Devlin Cronin]

sry, I reinstalled canary and totally forgot about flags :)

Was about to mention that that sounded a lot like behavior without the flag. :)  Glad it's worked out! 

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[Gruntfuggly]

This change will require another asset for the disabled state of the browser action or this is something what google will handle  ?

The disabled state will be a greyed out version of the icon, which Chrome will do automatically.  You could also choose to have your own disabled/enabled state, so that you can choose how the icon looks, and still receive left clicks even when "disabled" (I think AdBlock is an example of this). 

It's a shame if your icon is black and white 8-(

A 19x19 black and white icon doesn't look much different when it's greyed out... 

How do you specify an icon for the disabled state?

[Devlin Cronin]

How do you specify an icon for the disabled state?

One common approach would be to keep track of the enabled state and set your icon based on that.  You also don't necessarily have to use chrome.browserAction.disable - you could have your own custom disabled look and behavior.

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[Xan]

I don't like this change, primarily because of inevitable user confusion.

"What's this on my toolbar? The extension (I know about) now shows an icon that inconveniences me by being there? How dare they!"

  1. Let's bug-report it to the developer / let's demand that the developer changes it.

  2. Let's rate this extension 1-star, because obviously 1-star reviews solve every problem and I might actually not forget to reverse it later.

  3. Let's hide this icon, because there is no way this page-action extension will not function now - I except it to appear in the usual spot.

  4. Let's uninstall it, because this is an affront to my sensitivities to show an icon.

Conclusion: This change requires a very carefully worded explanation to the user on first launch that is not easy to dismiss that explains that Chrome is to blame, not the extension (think unpacked extensions dialog). Is something like that in place?

Problem #3 is especially bad (and thus the harm to page actions is the worst), so you'll need to communicate that a hidden page action icon won't work, or you'll need to make it work (for example, by highlighting the hamburger menu when a hidden action is "shown").

Finally, what's the projected time to update the documentation?

[Xan]

And two more questions:

1. Is the collapsed-into-hamburger status going to be synced with Extension Sync enabled, or will users have to do it all over again on every device?

2. Considering that with the new paradigm pageAction.show() and pageAction.hide() do not, in fact, show or hide the icon - do you plan to add new methods (to keep consistency with browserAction, .enable() and .disable()) and deprecate the old ones?

[Sean]

The extension API documentation should be updated to include this feature regression (https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/pageAction)

[Mike Olsen]

This is going to cause so much confusion with our users. :-(

On Wed, Mar 2, 2016 at 7:31 PM, Sean <ifon...@gmail.com> wrote:

The extension API documentation should be updated to include this feature regression (https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/pageAction)

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[Jianqiang Wang]

Hi Guys, Is there any way to stop this feature ? Some extensions in toolbar looks stupid ... 

[Alex W.]

I can't believe this made it to stable. Others have pointed out how many issues there are with this change, so I won't bother. This is worse than the bookmarks manager fiasco, except that there's no way to revert to the old behavior. Expect a great deal of user frustration over the next few days. 

[Xan]

Now that this is in stable, I can answer a couple of my own questions.

* Is something shown to the user the first time?

Yes, a short popup from the toolbar saying "All your extensions are here!" and a suggestion that they can be hidden.

* Is it explained?

There is no motivation given for this, and no link to learn more.

* Is it hard to dismiss?

No, any click outside will cause it to close, no just the "Got it" button.

* Are page actions screwed if they are hidden?

Yes, mostly.

There is zero explanation regarding the change in how Page Actions operate. As such, a user is compelled to hide the new-and-confusing icon in the hamburger menu.

If they do, there is no visual indication a page action has triggered unless the hamburger menu is opened.

Then, and only then, Chrome draws a small dot over the icon if it is "shown" for the current tab.

But the user has no way to discover that this is the case - the hamburger menu is not in any way marked as requiring attention.

Very disappointing, Chrome team. This is a big change breaking user experience more so than developers' experience, and I do not think you communicate it well enough to users.

[anton leiter]

You are right man, the new extensions iconsplacement sucks me on like shit. For instance the Country Flags Extensions Flag Icon is on right side , not in the Domain area like before. Think Dev's was on cocain or under sugar as this came into her mind. Is there a commandline Flag to restore old behaviour?????? If not Die and go to Hell Dev's. My Favorits Ordner is now missordered to. After the 49 update is is not sorted by addingtime anymore, but after Domain. This is inacceptable Shit and its often that i have to spent my lifetime to undo these stupid unanounced Changes, after a chromeupdate. 

[PhistucK]

Keep it civil.

☆PhistucK

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[Xan]

Assuming Devlin (and other devs) read this, I'd lick to bring this bug to attention: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=161618

Distorted icons are not helping when this transition is already traumatic for page actions.

[Pep Condal]

Hi Devlin,

I think that with the new approach, usability of clickable page action icons is greatly hampered when the user, accidentally or not, hides the icon extension to the Chome menu.

I think that Chrome should determine if the page action icon is already visible and, if it is not visible, Chrome should make it appear within the address bar as in the past.  Obviously, I agree that showing two icons for a page action is a clumsy UX but since Chrome has all information on what is visible in the UI, it should ensure that, for a page action extension, at least one icon appears wither withing the address bar or outside.

This removes support calls to us if, for example, the user accidentally drags the right edge of the address bar, effectively hiding the icons to the Chrome menu, when furiously moving and clicking his mouse right and left as batteries are draining.

Finally, please note that this proposal of ensuring that an active page icon is visible further reinforces your goal of security by user awareness and, overall, greatly improves usability for clickable page action icons.

I hope you consider the solution of ensuring that page actions are visible, for both security and usability's sake.

Pep.

[Teddy Garland]

If the goal is to have users be aware of the extensions, wouldn't it be as effective (if not more effective) to open the extensions page with a message to remove unwanted extensions on any major update? 

This would accomplish the goal of getting users to consider what they have installed without killing pageAction.

This change provides no additional awareness of what pages an extension is actually running on since extensions can still interact with the a page and not show as active in the browserAction. Everyone is just going to hide the extensions in the chrome menu and then they're just as buried as they ever were.

[Xan]

Now that I have tested it, I can report that Extension Sync does not help, and users have to do it all over again on every device. I suppose for every new extension install, as well.

At this point this is just hostile.

[Xan]

I agree with Teddy Garland that true user awareness can be achieved just as well with opening the chrome://extensions page.

The way page actions work needs to be redone as well. Pep's solution is what I was thinking about as well: when a page action extension is hidden, it should appear as before.

Finally, it has been released into Stable into an incredibly buggy state. Case in point:

The menu does not show anything at all, and my toolbar has been filled with a random assortment of hidden and non-hidden extensions (apparently all developer mode ones).

I suspect that having two notices at once (developer mode, showing all extensions) was too much for Chrome.

[Evol E.]

Bring previous page actions back!

They were much more convenient there in address bar than on the browser action panel.

I don't want to see every extension with page action all the time, I want to see them only when extension chooses to show the button (when RSS feeds are available etc), and I want to see them where they should be: in the page, not in the whole browser.

[Peter Prikryl]

Looks like this change was not thought out as it should be. You practically killed the page action behavior which was very useful for actions applicable only to the current pagee, but that aren't applicable to all pages. It would be more sensible to retain showing the page action icon in the address bar. You can still show it in the Chrome menu if you somehow think this benefits the user. But please keep it also in the address bar, so the page actions can be instantly available and helpful again.

[PhistucK]

I saw that bug as well, but it fixed itself after a minute somehow.

☆PhistucK

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[Alexander Kashev]

It fixes itself after a browser restart (as there are no longer 2 dialogs to show).

I'm not sure if it's worth a bug report even, considering it's been pushed to stable and reproduces once per install at most.

[Wolf War]

pageAction was also tide up to tabId

once set, no need to test id on onActivated (for changing state or so...)

pls don't kill the whole API... it looks like it's going to be deprecated

[kurtextrem]

​

Quick question, why do some extension icons get out from the burger menu even though I've manually hid them through the context menu? This is annoying.

[Wolf War]

this happens in my case if I disable (or enable) some of the extensions 

and, I guess, internal order (which one is hidden, and which one not) is messed

[kurtextrem]

Seems like an issue that needs to be fixed.

[Alexander Kashev]

Seems like an issue that needs to be reported, and the issue ID linked here (for hopefully faster triage and tracking by interested parties)

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[Mindaugas J.]

Apparently it was: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=578051

This is a major UX degradation and I can't believe the developers did not see it coming? Why do I need to see 20 useless icons at once just to know that those extensions exist?

What's wrong with adding icons on install only and letting the user choose the old behavior for extensions she acknowledges? Where is chrome://flags/#disable-extension-action-redesign ?

Was any UX A/B testing done on this? If so, fire anyone responsible.

What's next, are you going to remove the address bar to 'protect users' from themselves?

On Friday, March 4, 2016 at 2:56:34 PM UTC+2, Xan wrote:

Seems like an issue that needs to be reported, and the issue ID linked here (for hopefully faster triage and tracking by interested parties)

On 04/03/16 13:53, kurtextrem wrote:

Seems like an issue that needs to be fixed.

Am Freitag, 4. März 2016 13:50:19 UTC+1 schrieb Wolf War:

this happens in my case if I disable (or enable) some of the extensions 

and, I guess, internal order (which one is hidden, and which one not) is messed

On Friday, March 4, 2016 at 1:18:19 PM UTC+1, kurtextrem wrote:

​

Quick question, why do some extension icons get out from the burger menu even though I've manually hid them through the context menu? This is annoying.

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[PhistucK]

On Fri, Mar 4, 2016 at 6:24 PM, Mindaugas J. <4mr....@gmail.com> wrote:

What's wrong with adding icons on install only and letting the user choose the old behavior for extensions she acknowledges? Where is chrome://flags/#disable-extension-action-redesign ?

Think about it - if the user can, so can the malware, which beats the point of this feature.​

It may not sit well with you, but this is probably the reason.

☆PhistucK

[Mindaugas J.]

This is false dichotomy. This mechanism is not exposed to javascript, is it? And if malware can hijack chrome's internals the battle is lost already.

[PhistucK]

That is the whole point of the changes over the last two years - to battle installed malware, not JavaScript.

☆PhistucK

[Sean]

Do you mean malware on the computer, or a malicious chrome extension?

[Alexander Kashev]

Let's say malware on the computer able to manipulate Chrome profile, registry, Chrome launch shortcut, but not significantly compromise the Chrome binary itself.

That's why Chrome only allows 3rd-party installs from CWS so that it can be centrally blacklisted, has cryptographically signed preference file and signed hashes of all extension files, and constantly warns about unpacked (read: unsigned) extensions.

I believe those are, among other things, what PhistucK referred to.

(apologies for people receiving my replies twice - I repeatedly reply to people directly instead of the list)

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[Hunter Horsman]

I have to agree, this change is terrible, all in the name of a few idiots who can't remember that they installed? 

This change RUINS page actions (and with ZERO explanation to the user that it did) unless you're willing to have a ton of ugly wasted space on them on the toolbar, which I certainly don't want. This is a major regression and should be rolled back.

[Simon Weber]

Oof, this update has been really bad for my users. I've got new users who can no longer figure out how to use my extension, and longtime users wondering why it suddenly got "uninstalled".

I understand both the motivation and the tradeoffs involved in the solution, but I'm not sure why page actions were also removed from their typical location. Changing that is a tremendous backwards-incompatible ux change that was poorly explained to users, and seems to go against the motivation of making extensions more visible to users -- it makes them less visible once they inevitably get hidden.

[Marco Götze]

Why not make it so that the user can select via an extension icon's context menu to allow for page-action extensions to behave as previously (moving the icon to the address bar)? This would address the "make user aware of unwittingly installed extensions" aspect by requiring an explicit user action but still enable the UX advantages of the way things used to be for more tech-savvy people.

[Alexander Kashev]

I'm afraid that the reasoning from Google would be the same as for unpacked extensions warning - if you can dismiss it once setting some preference/flag/switch, malware can do it for you.

This "you the malware writers" may be the most memorable quote from Chrome bugtracker: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=337734#c4

This is not a good reason though. Especially considering the preference files are by now cryptographically signed.

On 05.03.2016 8:40, Marco Götze wrote:

Why not make it so that the user can select via an extension icon's context menu to allow for page-action extensions to behave as previously (moving the icon to the address bar)? This would address the "make user aware of unwittingly installed extensions" aspect by requiring an explicit user action but still enable the UX advantages of the way things used to be for more tech-savvy people.

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[Xan]

The more I think about it, the more Pep Condal's solution appeals to me.

Even if the hamburger menu was to somehow indicate that there are activated page actions, it still doesn't provide that information at a glance.

One of the bigger complaints from the user perspective is that permanently having an icon on the toolbar eats into the toolbar space that they prefer to keep neat. That's why from the user perspective, hiding that button is preferable. And again, Chrome doesn't warn that it will stop page actions from functioning like they did.

So let's make the most logical and yet minimal change: let page actions appear like they did - if and only if their main button is hidden.

1. This massively cuts down on user confusion when they hide the icon.

2. This lets the Chrome team maintain their visibility goal if the icon is still shown (in the hamburger menu) at all times.

3. This enables some of the more exotic workflows like the one mentioned by Theo Ropstah work normally.

4. This empowers the users to clean up their permanent toolbar without cutting functionality.

5. It's not like you're removing the supporting code for icons in the omnibar (star is still there).

Regards,

Alexander.

[Xan]

P.S.

1. I did not fully explain why marking the hamburger menu as requiring attention would be a poor solution.

 a. Often, the mere presence of the page action icon indicates something, sometimes without significant additional functionality. It's a visual indicator, and highlighting that there IS one doesn't show the same information at a glace.

 b. In case a user has more than one page action installed, this probably doesn't tell which is activated. Hypothetically, if one activates often and another activates rarely, the user will be prone to dismiss the marking as the often-activated one.

2. In case this change isn't universally reverted, it would be great if the API provided visibility status of the icon (to instruct the user accordingly). Unclear whether it should go to browserAction/pageAction API (so to benefit, one MUST declare one) or into runtime/extension API since icons are now present for all extensions.

[Steven Roussey]

Yeah, I thought I had malware, and that was the reason for all these icons. 

The docs, of course, are lying:

https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/pageAction

They should say "deprecated", btw. Page Actions no longer exist.

-s

[Alexander Kashev]

They do, technically, as their behavior now still differs from Browse Actions. Crippled? Yes. No longer existing? No.

But the documentation needs to be updated.

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[Derek]

This change basically changed all page action based extensions to browser action based . Even though page action still exists, the mix of UI removes all differences between these two distinctive components. It does not improve security whatsoever, but only create confusions for users and introduces more troubles for developers.

This change definitely needs more discussion with the developers, since it is such a huge UI change and will break more than half of the extensions on the webstore.

I look forward for this change to be reverted.

[Steven Roussey]

Yes, that is why I said page actions are deprecated. They became browser actions, but with worse UI. All the "detection" type page actions are now color based browser actions, that I no longer notice. 

What I do notice, is that the Bookmarks is still in the URL area like a page action. Surely, it should move out to the toolbar with all the others???

-s

[Steven Roussey]

I wonder if every site that has a serviceworker installed will get the same treatment...

[Amir Tal]

how can i disable this feature ?

[PhistucK]

You cannot.

☆PhistucK

On Sun, Mar 6, 2016 at 5:04 PM, Amir Tal <amirt...@gmail.com> wrote:

how can i disable this feature ?

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[Amir Tal]

if i hide all icons, and then drag the edge of the address box, all the icons are returned.

there is no option for permanent hiding ?

as a user, i am able to understand that not all features and buttons are displayed on the screen at all times.

this is just silly, see attached screenshot.

[Amir Tal]

(no edit function here ?)

this "feature" also removes the functionality of icons inside the URLbar.

is this intended? should we expect to get at least this functionality back?

[PhistucK]

All of the above is intended, unfortunately.

You can re-order the icons, that may help a bit.

☆PhistucK

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[Alexander Kashev]

Since it gets sent as email, there is no edit functionality.

I encourage you to take time to read the whole thread. The points you raise have been discussed already. Not to say that repeating tyhe concerns is useless, but you should see the answers so far.

We (users & developers) are powerless to stop this if Google won't listen.  As such, we should not "expect" this.

But on the off-chance they do listen, restoring page action functionality is the bare minimum of damage control they can do without compromising their goals/reasoning.

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[Anton Stolov]

But if I need my extension in adress bar, how I can back this extensions on point?

понедельник, 5 октября 2015 г., 22:37:27 UTC+3 пользователь Devlin Cronin написал:

Hey All,

Soon, we will begin to roll out a UI change that will enforce that each extension the user has installed has a persistent UI surface.  By default, this will be in the toolbar to the right of the omnibox (where browser actions are now) [1], and the user can choose to hide ("overflow") these actions in the Chrome menu [2].

The reason for this is to protect our users.  We've heard too frequently that many users are unaware of the extensions they have installed, whether this is due to sideloading, installation by phishing, or simply the user forgetting how many and which are installed.  Unfortunately, extensions consume computing resources, and may have significant security, privacy, and performance impacts.  Because of this, we've decided we need to increase user visibility.

What this means for your extension:

• If the extension has a browser action: Nothing! (Apart from the slightly different hide/overflow functionality.)

• If the extension has a page action: The extension will be given a persistent icon in the toolbar.  On pages where the extension's page action wouldn't normally be visible, the action will be greyed out, indicating that it doesn't want to act.  On pages it does want to act, it will be fully-colored. [3]

• If the extension has no action: Similar to page actions, the extension will be given a persistent icon in the toolbar.  It will be shown with the greyed-out look all the time.

Displaying the action persistently, even in the cases of a previously hidden page action or an extension with no action, is necessary because the presence of an action doesn’t always correlate with the extension acting.  We also can’t show the action conditionally on, e.g., a per-tab basis, because there are many actions that are not correlated with any tab.  In order to ensure users are aware of the extensions they have installed that could be affecting their browser, we need to ensure each extension is visible.

We've done our best to limit the functionality this breaks, and hope you understand the trade-off between developer inconvenience and user benefit.  Thank you for understanding as we keep our users safe!

Cheers,

Devlin



[1] Initial placement of actions

[2] Extensions overflowed into the Chrome menu

[3] Inactive vs Active Page Action

[Amir Tal]

yes i see the same point are being raised by multiple people, some of them are extension publishers.

but reply from google staff is incomplete, non-existent or un acceptable.
this browser has many millions of users, we deserve better solutions.

also, there seems to be an update here every few minutes.
i guess whenever someone new finds out about this stupid decision we get the same set of updates here.

how is it that every service that becomes popular and knocks off any competition automatically becomes worst?
(like microsoft, firefox, facebook)

already waiting for version 50....

[PhistucK]

An acceptable solution could be a duplication - every page action would have an additional browser action button. The main purpose of the browser action button is to show that the extension is installed (since page action do not always show up), but the page action user interface will continue to be shown as well, providing the obvious value to the user.

While this seems (to me) like a good compromise (the user can set the browser action aside by moving it into the menu), my guess is that page actions became an attack vector - perhaps page actions used a lock icon and pretended that everything is secure (even though the page action is displayed at the right end of the omnibox, users are also used to user interface changes, especially those that they do not understand or care about too much).

☆PhistucK

On Sun, Mar 6, 2016 at 6:25 PM, Adam Schwartz <adam.flyn...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hey Devlin,

Thanks for explaining the changes. I completely understand the desire to ensure users understand what extensions they have installed. However, not allowing page action icons to appear within the omnibox when active is a huge functional loss.

As many others have pointed out, page actions are commonly (if not primarily) used for status indication. Imagine if the green SSL lock icon in the omnibox could only be seen after opening the Chrome menu. As Chrome extensions provided options for page actions separate from browser actions, clearly you understood this. Removing this functionality means that Chrome extensions will now need to render their status within the DOM of the page overlapping, or appearing within the content of the page. Clearly this is a major regression in functionality.

Given these changes I believe you have a duty, again as others have pointed out, to either acknowledge that page actions have essentially been deprecated (and potentially come up with a new alternative), or reinstate the functionality that active page actions can be displayed in the omnibox, even when the user has decided to hide them within the Chrome menu normally.

Thanks,

Adam

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[Steven Roussey]

I like this suggestion. 

Though it may be too late. I already started deleting extensions that provide page actions. 

Steven Roussey

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[Anton Stolov]

Yes, for example, extension for add to favorits, it need to be display in adress bar, extension like Recent History - small down arrow for simple open closed tabs, and etc, feedly extension for subscribe for update... and more, I don't need this extension buttons out of adress bar, I need it in adress bar 'coz it's useful.

воскресенье, 6 марта 2016 г., 18:10:54 UTC+2 пользователь Amir Tal написал:

[Alexander Kashev]

I honestly don't think that this (omnibar icons are "more trustworthy") was the reasoning. I believe the Chrome team thought that one UI surface at most is enough, see https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msg/chromium-extensions/7As9MKhav5E/nZtTQ7PGCQAJ . Which is reasonable, but not when we look at how page actions are actually used.

I think the duplication should only happen when the toolbar button is hidden. It may be less obvious to the user (that they need to hide the main icon to show the page action) but at least it's a solution that keeps the functionality where we want it.

The security lockdown has to stop somewhere. All extension APIs have abuse potential, and with effective limitation to Chrome Web Store in place Google has reasonable control already.

What we have here is a very significant change that wasn't communicated well enough, and as such not discussed enough before release into Stable. Next time something like this happens, I'm afraid this mailing list (which has tons of noise in it - I don't follow it for this reason, for instance) is not sufficient. Google could email all extension developers registered on CWS to enable representative discussion. But that didn't happen, probably because Google underestimated (and still didn't acknowledge) the impact.

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[Matthew Sweger]

You know, I never thought the Chrome team could do anything to make me switch back to Firefox, but this might be it. I don't need toolbar buttons for all the various ANTP addons I use, and I definitely don't need all the crap that's now cluttering up the top of my Chrome menu instead of just appearing in the omnibox when in use.  Instead of mollycoddling your most ignorant users with this dreadful UX change, why not encourage them to be less stupid with a periodic reminder (once a month, perhaps?) to check their extensions, with a button to go straight to chrome://extensions? Sure, I'd still be a little annoyed by the reminder popping up, but it'd be infinitely preferable to this mess.

Hell, while we're at it, why not put the Extensions button back in the main Chrome menu, instead of hidden under More Tools where the average idiot isn't going to look?

[Pep Condal]

There does not need to be duplication for page actions.  Chrome could determine if the page icon is already visible next to the address bar and, if not, show it within the address bar.

This approach reinfoces the "security by user awareness" goal and does not cause severe usability issues for clickable page actions.

Pep.

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[Jdog The Gamer]

Hi Devlin, I understand how this can help but, most people (such as my self) will have page actions and other things we just rather not have shown or hidden and just be left alone, so instead of forcing everything include a setting to enable (default) and Disable and allow it to be as it was, I have a lot of page action's and other items I just need on that site(Ex a bookmark manager that allows me to bookmark a page) please this such thing would help, since chrome removed the notifcation center on windows, os x, and linux it's been a pain, I think users should how the freedom to enable and disable such things.  

[Angelo Douvere]

This feature is so stupid, most users will just think it's a bug and expect it to go back to normal.

In fact, that's what I thought, when I frustratingly tried to recover the bookmark button in the address bar this "feature" removed, for hours.

I updated Chrome, googled for help, tried different flags and finally removed the bookmarks manager extension from Google itself (who could have thought), which restored the bookmark button.

Sadly I cannot use the far superior bookmark manager anymore without my browser interface becoming unbearably ugly.

On Tuesday, October 6, 2015 at 6:26:56 PM UTC+2, Devlin Cronin wrote:

The reason for this is to protect our users. [...] Because of this, we've decided we need to increase user visibility.

You want to increase user visibility, but you don't care about what your users want.

Most of them prefer the way it was before.

On Tuesday, October 6, 2015 at 6:26:56 PM UTC+2, Devlin Cronin wrote:

We've done our best to limit the functionality this breaks

You didn't even try!

So long and thanks for the fish nobody asked for

Everyone

[Vincent Rupp Jr.]

This has got to be one of the worst UI design decisions I've seen Google make in a very long time. It's utterly insane. The user benefit is barely justifiable, and to most users, even those it benefits, it will simply seem a gross inconvenience. The user experience is disgustingly bad. Who thought this was a good idea? Loading every chrome extension into the toolbar is a shocking experience -- most users will think something is wrong. Hiding the chrome extensions is a poor alternative too: browser extensions with page actions only now have yet another click barrier in the way of interacting with them, reducing the chance that users will interact with them at all (since they are hidden in a hamburger.) Worst of all, extensions with no actions clutter the space and, frankly, makes this space look like garbage. Roll it back guys; this is an utter fail.

[Anton Stolov]

Yep, it's true, Google decided not absolutely correct decision and developers made ​​a mistake, would do even warning that came into effect innovation, I like an idiot fought almost half a year thinking it was a bug, 'coz my 5 computers were different browser behavior. Hell.

[Johan Deknudt]

Would it not be better if the greyed out icons were consolidated to the 3-menu automatically? they have no purpose anyway. then they would re-apear when you're on the certain page ofcourse.

No I have to adjust the adressbar so it hides the icons I don't need.

On Monday, 5 October 2015 23:15:43 UTC+2, Devlin Cronin wrote:

Whoops, dropped the list from the reply.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Devlin Cronin <rdevlin...@chromium.org>
Date: Mon, Oct 5, 2015 at 1:45 PM
Subject: Re: [crx] Upcoming UI Change
To: Wolf War <wolf...@gmail.com>

1) and only way to hide them is to move it to hamburger menu??

Yes. 

2) what kind of functionality those icons will have?... or they gonna just sit there as info

From an extension standpoint, there will be limited functionality if the action wouldn't previously be visible.  However, there will still be functionality for the user (in the form of the context menu).

 

3) are you canceling page actions with this ?... as far as I understand (from SS), page action will be moved to toolbar, what about functionality (page action click)

Page actions will be moved to the toolbar.  On pages that the action wouldn't normally be visible, it will be greyed out, and clicks will not be forwarded to the extension.  On pages where it would normally be visible, it will be fully colored, and clicks will be forwarded normally.  So clicking on a page action (that is set to visible) will work the same as it did before. 

On Mon, Oct 5, 2015 at 1:30 PM, Wolf War <wolf...@gmail.com> wrote:

so basically, every installed extension will have toolbar icon

1) and only way to hide them is to move it to hamburger menu??

2) what kind of functionality those icons will have?... or they gonna just sit there as info

3) are you canceling page actions with this ?... as far as I understand (from SS), page action will be moved to toolbar, what about functionality (page action click)

2015-10-05 22:11 GMT+02:00 Devlin Cronin <rdevlin...@chromium.org>:

Will users still be able to hide icons through its context menu?

They will, but "hiding" becomes overflowing the icon to the wrench menu.  There won't be a way to fully hide an icon.

Secondly, this still seems to be flawed: an app can still have a transparent icon like LANSchool Helper, and the space is invisible to the user.

Even with a transparent icon, there will still be a focusable/hoverable button, and things like right click will identify the extension.  While a transparent icon will make it a little more hidden, the extension would be far from truly invisible.

Finally, would it not be a good idea to create this as a default choice rather than something forced, akin to the google play "add icon to home screen (for new apps)" choice? This means that those of us with 10s of extensions don't gave a micro sized omnibox.

Unfortunately, this isn't really an option we're looking at right now, for security purposes.  On the upside, overflowing the icons to the wrench menu works pretty well - it can fit dozens of icons easily (with support for showing hundreds, in the extreme case).  So for those of us with 10+ extensions, I would expect the majority to be overflowed in the wrench menu, keeping the toolbar relatively clean.

Thanks for the feedback!

Cheers

- Devlin

On Mon, Oct 5, 2015 at 12:58 PM, Dylan Myers <dylanmy...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Devlin,

I like the change in most respects.

Will users still be able to hide icons through its context menu?

Secondly, this still seems to be flawed: an app can still have a transparent icon like LANSchool Helper, and the space is invisible to the user.

Finally, would it not be a good idea to create this as a default choice rather than something forced, akin to the google play "add icon to home screen (for new apps)" choice? This means that those of us with 10s of extensions don't gave a micro sized omnibox.

Thanks and keep working hard!

Dylan

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Monday, 05 October 2015, 08:37pm +01:00 from Devlin Cronin <rdevlin...@chromium.org>:

Hey All,

Soon, we will begin to roll out a UI change that will enforce that each extension the user has installed has a persistent UI surface.  By default, this will be in the toolbar to the right of the omnibox (where browser actions are now) [1], and the user can choose to hide ("overflow") these actions in the Chrome menu [2].

The reason for this is to protect our users.  We've heard too frequently that many users are unaware of the extensions they have installed, whether this is due to sideloading, installation by phishing, or simply the user forgetting how many and which are installed.  Unfortunately, extensions consume computing resources, and may have significant security, privacy, and performance impacts.  Because of this, we've decided we need to increase user visibility.

What this means for your extension:

• If the extension has a browser action: Nothing! (Apart from the slightly different hide/overflow functionality.)

• If the extension has a page action: The extension will be given a persistent icon in the toolbar.  On pages where the extension's page action wouldn't normally be visible, the action will be greyed out, indicating that it doesn't want to act.  On pages it does want to act, it will be fully-colored. [3]

• If the extension has no action: Similar to page actions, the extension will be given a persistent icon in the toolbar.  It will be shown with the greyed-out look all the time.

Displaying the action persistently, even in the cases of a previously hidden page action or an extension with no action, is necessary because the presence of an action doesn’t always correlate with the extension acting.  We also can’t show the action conditionally on, e.g., a per-tab basis, because there are many actions that are not correlated with any tab.  In order to ensure users are aware of the extensions they have installed that could be affecting their browser, we need to ensure each extension is visible.

We've done our best to limit the functionality this breaks, and hope you understand the trade-off between developer inconvenience and user benefit.  Thank you for understanding as we keep our users safe!

Cheers,

Devlin

[1] Initial placement of actions

[2] Extensions overflowed into the Chrome menu

[3] Inactive vs Active Page Action

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[PhistucK]

I am not sure this is a good idea - it will not only happen between navigations, but also when going to another tab.

It would cause an adverse user interface appearance change (a "jump") every time it is toggled (the omnibox will be narrower or wider). This is not ideal and confusing.

☆PhistucK

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[Jo Deknudt]

That would be more terrible indeed.

I understand why the change is made. I think it would have done better. I miss the page action icons though. :p

Op do 10 mrt. 2016 om 10:52 schreef PhistucK <phis...@gmail.com>:

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+Johan Deknudt

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[Harry Zhang]

While it seems that everybody is against this update, I didn't find it too confusing -  until I saw my Bookmark Manager extension right to the address bar.

I mean, even if you guys consider safety more important than user experience, should there still be a set of "Safety Guaranteed" extensions that can be allowed to display their icons in the address bar? As the Bookmark Manager extension is created by Google itself, I can't see any safety concerns to let it out of the address bar. It was an alternative extension of a removed update in bookmark managing, and for those who appreciate the new material-designed bookmark managing, like me, this extension is to replace the original bookmark manager. And now you tell me that I can only place it beside the address bar, which I cannot understand.

[Alexander Kashev]

To create a whitelist-only exception to this once-public functionality would be extremely developer-hostile.

On 10/03/16 14:18, Harry Zhang wrote:

While it seems that everybody is against this update, I didn't find it too confusing -  until I saw my Bookmark Manager extension right to the address bar.

I mean, even if you guys consider safety more important than user experience, should there still be a set of "Safety Guaranteed" extensions that can be allowed to display their icons in the address bar? As the Bookmark Manager extension is created by Google itself, I can't see any safety concerns to let it out of the address bar. It was an alternative extension of a removed update in bookmark managing, and for those who appreciate the new material-designed bookmark managing, like me, this extension is to replace the original bookmark manager. And now you tell me that I can only place it beside the address bar, which I cannot understand.

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[Mindaugas J.]

Just so. Every concern I've seen so far would be resolved by letting the user manage this whitelist herself, i.e. approve extensions that she finds trustworthy/reasonable/expected-to-be installed. This 'approval' would be accomplished with another entry in the extension context menu and would essentially reverse the horrible change introduced here for the chosen extension only. Conversely she would uninstall unwanted extensions.

Basically, what I propose is to limit this disaster to newly installed extensions only, a sort of 'staging area' if you will.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/chromium-extensions/56E174B7.9010806%40gmail.com.

[PhistucK]

And the cycle continues - if the user has a choice, it has to be stored somewhere. If it is stored somewhere, the attacker can modify it without the consent of the user, making its malicious extension hidden again.

This feature protects the user from old as well as new extensions. The user may not know they already have a malicious extension installed.

☆PhistucK

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[Harry Zhang]

Why is this? As in some ways a developer, I can't catch your point. Should creating a whitelist of extension signatures and checking them while installing be difficult? With so great computing resources Google has, I don't think this is necessarily developer-hostile. Maybe it do need some effort to implement, but this is the only way I could think of that suits both needs best.

On Thursday, March 10, 2016 at 9:21:40 PM UTC+8, Xan wrote:

To create a whitelist-only exception to this once-public functionality would be extremely developer-hostile.

On 10/03/16 14:18, Harry Zhang wrote:

While it seems that everybody is against this update, I didn't find it too confusing -  until I saw my Bookmark Manager extension right to the address bar.

I mean, even if you guys consider safety more important than user experience, should there still be a set of "Safety Guaranteed" extensions that can be allowed to display their icons in the address bar? As the Bookmark Manager extension is created by Google itself, I can't see any safety concerns to let it out of the address bar. It was an alternative extension of a removed update in bookmark managing, and for those who appreciate the new material-designed bookmark managing, like me, this extension is to replace the original bookmark manager. And now you tell me that I can only place it beside the address bar, which I cannot understand.

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[Mindaugas J.]

Sigh... Again with the 'every developer is malicious', 'every user is stupid' approach. 

1) Is chrome in the AV business? If your Windows is infected with binary malware capable of doing that you have bigger problems than a malicious extension that runs JAVASCRIPT, of all things.

2) What is this I hear about encrypted settings in Chrome?

3) Nobody said every installed extension before this change should be automatically whitelisted. I argue conversely. Give them all in my face but LET ME CHOOSE.

[Alexander Kashev]

I do not mean that it's hostile to Chrome developers. It's hostile to extension developers, that, in most cases, won't get a chance of being whitelisted - all while previously this feature was available.

First off, whitelists in Chrome are normally maintained in the source code of Chrome itself. So adding a new extension to the whitelist requires a new Chrome version. This makes it reserved to a literal handful of exceptions. That's how private APIs operate, for instance. But suppose for a moment that it's implemented differently, maybe like CRLs.

Second, what kind of guidelines would be required for the extension to be whitelisted? Will Google dedicate enough resources to screen candidates? Each extension update potentially invalidates the certification, as well, unless Google has exceptionally high trust in the developer. Again, this means a tiny handful of exceptions.

We are already in a tense situation where a feature was essentially deprecated (well, radically changed to the point of loss of functionality) with very little forewarning. Giving it back as a rare privilege is going to alienate developers further.

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[Harry Zhang]

Well, if this is what you think... I have to disagree that a change in whitelist dose not require a version change, we can have a authentication server. Besides, I may imagine the whole validating business working as Google Play, while signature only being the private key of RSA or something like that. Chrome can also have permissions like Android, and by now the permissions of the camera and microphone works perfectly, don't they? Even if Chrome aims to be the safest navigator in the world, users should still have permissions that can be controlled by themselves - not forced by the program, while whitelist can give the permissions by default, which can provide a higher convenience.

[PhistucK]

Look, as far as I know, this is what these features and protections are trying to prevent.

If you disagree with the fundamental idea (of a popular browser trying to prevent the consequences of malware on it as much as it can), perhaps start a new thread (perhaps somewhere else, like security-dev? I do not know) and discuss your disagreement with that fundamental idea.

The assumption here is that this fundamental protection makes sense and that is needed, or else Google would not develop it.

Now, assume this protection is needed and continue discussing this thread (suggest other ways to do it, bearing in mind the aforementioned assumption, for example). Otherwise, this is simply off topic.

☆PhistucK

[Max Ma]

Real nice work to SCREW us over. I have a few dozen extensions, many are page-action activated, now that they are all laying there, the URL bar is near to invisible.

How was it possible that this was made out public so irresponsibly? And no option to disable this? Real great work of some unbelievable minds!

[Adam]

Pretty disgusted by the recent the recent changes (e.g. startup popup about "developer extensions"), they're trying their best to scare away all "proficient" users and developers by artificially locking them down.

Personally, I also think that this particular change simply goes too far, security to this level is something that should not be handled by the browser, but by some other layer of security. Giving up the customization opportunities is absolutely unjustified just to *try* to marginally decrease security risks for users who already have a way more severe security threat that requires immediate action or users who apparently don't care about the overall security by not using malware and virus protection.

[Alex W.]

I commented before warning about backlash but it was removed. I don’t see there being a better place to discuss this — the issue reports are being ignored, and I imagine another thread would be ignored — so I will put my comments here. 

On Monday, October 5, 2015 at 12:37:27 PM UTC-7, Devlin Cronin wrote:

What this means for your extension:

• If the extension has a browser action: Nothing! (Apart from the slightly different hide/overflow functionality.)

• If the extension has a page action: The extension will be given a persistent icon in the toolbar.  On pages where the extension's page action wouldn't normally be visible, the action will be greyed out, indicating that it doesn't want to act.  On pages it does want to act, it will be fully-colored. [3]

• If the extension has no action: Similar to page actions, the extension will be given a persistent icon in the toolbar.  It will be shown with the greyed-out look all the time.

And what if the user is color blind? Or the icon is already grayscale/BW or otherwise hard to distinguish from "greyed out"? As is the case for quite a lot of extensions.

On Sunday, March 6, 2016 at 8:53:41 AM UTC-8, PhistucK wrote:

An acceptable solution could be a duplication - every page action would have an additional browser action button. The main purpose of the browser action button is to show that the extension is installed (since page action do not always show up), but the page action user interface will continue to be shown as well, providing the obvious value to the user.

I see no value in a page action notification that requires looking through a million extensions in different places, or having to navigate through several menus trying to find the right one. Page actions need to be restored to the omnibox. 

On Sunday, March 6, 2016 at 8:53:41 AM UTC-8, PhistucK wrote:

While this seems (to me) like a good compromise (the user can set the browser action aside by moving it into the menu), my guess is that page actions became an attack vector - perhaps page actions used a lock icon and pretended that everything is secure (even though the page action is displayed at the right end of the omnibox, users are also used to user interface changes, especially those that they do not understand or care about too much).

Then ban those extensions. Chrome has an approval/review process for a reason. 

On Thursday, March 10, 2016 at 2:21:13 AM UTC-8, Johan Deknudt wrote:

That would be more terrible indeed.

I understand why the change is made. I think it would have done better. I miss the page action icons though. :p

Op do 10 mrt. 2016 om 10:52 schreef PhistucK <phis...@gmail.com>:

I am not sure this is a good idea - it will not only happen between navigations, but also when going to another tab.

It would cause an adverse user interface appearance change (a "jump") every time it is toggled (the omnibox will be narrower or wider). This is not ideal and confusing.

This is literally already happening in the current design. Have you never interacted with an extension hid within the hamburger menu? They 'jump' out while you interact, hidden underneath the menu until you click out, and stay until you click it away and then jump back into the menu. Terrible indeed! 

On Thursday, March 10, 2016 at 5:53:56 AM UTC-8, PhistucK wrote:

Look, as far as I know, this is what these features and protections are trying to prevent.

If you disagree with the fundamental idea (of a popular browser trying to prevent the consequences of malware on it as much as it can), perhaps start a new thread (perhaps somewhere else, like security-dev? I do not know) and discuss your disagreement with that fundamental idea.

The assumption here is that this fundamental protection makes sense and that is needed, or else Google would not develop it.

I addressed this above. Discussion is happening here because it won’t happen anywhere else. 

On Thursday, March 10, 2016 at 5:53:56 AM UTC-8, PhistucK wrote:

Now, assume this protection is needed and continue discussing this thread (suggest other ways to do it, bearing in mind the aforementioned assumption, for example). Otherwise, this is simply off topic.

Okay, I already have elsewhere. See my mockup outlined here, comments 28-31: 

add an extensions/addons menu next to the hamburger menu, that shows all 'inactive' extensions (not out by the omnibar) just like they are shown now, except it's split into three sections (separated by small gap or horizontal rule or similar):

1) top — favorites -- they get pulled out onto the bar when the extensions bar is dragged out, just like now. These can only be non-pageActions extensions, and can be dragged between this and the next section.

2) middle — non-pageActions extensions, except favorites. Can be dragged to favorites or extension bar.

3) bottom — ALL passive i.e. pageActions extensions are shown here, always. ALSO reinstated to their rightful place in the omnibar, but now you know exactly which ones have pageActions functionality, and can always access all extensions with right click or whatever.

when you initiate an action with an extension in the proposed menu, the addons menu icon could be temporarily replaced with the 'active' extension's icon, so that your whole chrome bar doesn't get shuffled around for now reason.  

An alternative would be sections like this: 

1) non-pageActions extensions with menus/actions, i.e. all that would have appeared in the bar before the update. 

2) non-pageActions extensions without associated action, i.e. all addons that would have been hidden completely before. 

3) all pageActions extensions, showed just like now, except they are also shown in the omnibox when in use / actionable. 

[Alex W.]

I've also pointed out elsewhere that extensions cannot currently be rearranged within the hamburger menu on OS X. Yep, terrible. 

[PhistucK]

The translation functionality is not an extension, it is a built in feature.

☆PhistucK

On Sun, Mar 13, 2016 at 2:43 PM, Theo Ropstah <thero...@gmail.com> wrote:

Is there any update from Google on this? Why are extensions like Google Translate allowed to use the address bar but why can't other developers? 

On Monday, October 5, 2015 at 9:37:27 PM UTC+2, Devlin Cronin wrote:

Hey All,

Soon, we will begin to roll out a UI change that will enforce that each extension the user has installed has a persistent UI surface.  By default, this will be in the toolbar to the right of the omnibox (where browser actions are now) [1], and the user can choose to hide ("overflow") these actions in the Chrome menu [2].

The reason for this is to protect our users.  We've heard too frequently that many users are unaware of the extensions they have installed, whether this is due to sideloading, installation by phishing, or simply the user forgetting how many and which are installed.  Unfortunately, extensions consume computing resources, and may have significant security, privacy, and performance impacts.  Because of this, we've decided we need to increase user visibility.

What this means for your extension:

• If the extension has a browser action: Nothing! (Apart from the slightly different hide/overflow functionality.)

• If the extension has a page action: The extension will be given a persistent icon in the toolbar.  On pages where the extension's page action wouldn't normally be visible, the action will be greyed out, indicating that it doesn't want to act.  On pages it does want to act, it will be fully-colored. [3]

• If the extension has no action: Similar to page actions, the extension will be given a persistent icon in the toolbar.  It will be shown with the greyed-out look all the time.

Displaying the action persistently, even in the cases of a previously hidden page action or an extension with no action, is necessary because the presence of an action doesn’t always correlate with the extension acting.  We also can’t show the action conditionally on, e.g., a per-tab basis, because there are many actions that are not correlated with any tab.  In order to ensure users are aware of the extensions they have installed that could be affecting their browser, we need to ensure each extension is visible.

We've done our best to limit the functionality this breaks, and hope you understand the trade-off between developer inconvenience and user benefit.  Thank you for understanding as we keep our users safe!

Cheers,

Devlin



[1] Initial placement of actions

[2] Extensions overflowed into the Chrome menu

[3] Inactive vs Active Page Action

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[Alexander Kashev]

However, this highlights one thing: the support in the Chrome code for icons in the address bar is not going away.

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