A few clarifications on Googles recent announcemnt on chrome extensions

[Shilin Nair]

Hi,

I came across a few announcement of Google on chrome extensions. Can any one clarifies these?

1) NPAPI plug in is being phased out from chrome starting from jan 2014. So we cannot host any new NPAPI extensions in chrome store. ??

2) Any extension which is installed in the client box needs to be present in the chrome store as well. If chrome found it is not present in the chrome store it removes the extension from the browser. ??

3) So far I was distributing my extension as part of my product installer and update the same in registry, so  that chrome picks it up . Some article says this approach is also phasing out from chrome. Any extension which has to be installed from chrome store only. Local distribution is not allowed.??

Any input is welcome.

-Shilin

[Mihai Coman]

I'm in no way affiliated to the Chrome project but I'm also interested in pretty much the same things. Here's what I found so far:

1. you are correct - no more NPAPI. You could use, if it makes sense, NaCl https://developers.google.com/native-client/dev/ 

2 & 3 questions go hand in hand and final details are still not clear even though the changes were supposed to take place in January. 

2. apart from Enterprise Policy/GPO scenarios, extensions will have to be published in Chrome Web Store - otherwise they will be disabled by Chrome

3. adding extension to chrome through registry "should" still work - see https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!starred/chromium-extensions/jAS4agg1gMY and https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=327137. It looks like Chrome we'll be able to add the extension ID to registry and Chrome will fetch the extension CRX from the webstore automatically. Preferences file (http://developer.chrome.com/extensions/external_extensions.html) <extensionid.json> using "external_update_url" pointing to the webstore should also work.

I haven't seen any Chrome builds that support 2 & 3. 

Mihai

[Finnur Thorarinsson]

On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 1:34 PM, Mihai Coman <mi...@quickweb.ro> wrote:

I'm in no way affiliated to the Chrome project but I'm also interested in pretty much the same things. Here's what I found so far:

1. you are correct - no more NPAPI. You could use, if it makes sense, NaCl https://developers.google.com/native-client/dev/ 

There are actually more alternatives, see: http://blog.chromium.org/2013/09/saying-goodbye-to-our-old-friend-npapi.html

 

2 & 3 questions go hand in hand and final details are still not clear even though the changes were supposed to take place in January. 

2. apart from Enterprise Policy/GPO scenarios, extensions will have to be published in Chrome Web Store - otherwise they will be disabled by Chrome

3. adding extension to chrome through registry "should" still work - see https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!starred/chromium-extensions/jAS4agg1gMY and https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=327137. It looks like Chrome we'll be able to add the extension ID to registry and Chrome will fetch the extension CRX from the webstore automatically. Preferences file (http://developer.chrome.com/extensions/external_extensions.html) <extensionid.json> using "external_update_url" pointing to the webstore should also work.

I haven't seen any Chrome builds that support 2 & 3. 

Mihai

On Friday, January 10, 2014 8:58:37 AM UTC+2, Shilin Nair wrote:

Hi,

I came across a few announcement of Google on chrome extensions. Can any one clarifies these?

1) NPAPI plug in is being phased out from chrome starting from jan 2014. So we cannot host any new NPAPI extensions in chrome store. ??

2) Any extension which is installed in the client box needs to be present in the chrome store as well. If chrome found it is not present in the chrome store it removes the extension from the browser. ??

3) So far I was distributing my extension as part of my product installer and update the same in registry, so  that chrome picks it up . Some article says this approach is also phasing out from chrome. Any extension which has to be installed from chrome store only. Local distribution is not allowed.??

No, local distribution is still allowed, but your extension needs to be in the store. Note: it does not need to be user-visible in the store, but it needs to be there.

This was announced here: http://blog.chromium.org/2013/11/protecting-windows-users-from-malicious.html

 

Any input is welcome.

-Shilin

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[Mihai Coman]

It would be great if local distribution still works.

Finnur, do you have any links, announcements (the one you linked hardly qualifies as "detailed")...anything that would explain how local distribution (aka ability to package the extension with an application installer and have Chrome install the crx from a local folder) works? What changes are required (if any) to the Windows registry or "preferences" json extension file or within the extension itself (maybe the update URL) to have it work properly?

On Friday, January 10, 2014 5:07:19 PM UTC+2, Finnur Thorarinsson wrote:

On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 1:34 PM, Mihai Coman <mi...@quickweb.ro> wrote:

I'm in no way affiliated to the Chrome project but I'm also interested in pretty much the same things. Here's what I found so far:

1. you are correct - no more NPAPI. You could use, if it makes sense, NaCl https://developers.google.com/native-client/dev/ 

There are actually more alternatives, see: http://blog.chromium.org/2013/09/saying-goodbye-to-our-old-friend-npapi.html

Indeed, Native Messaging works too in some cases.

 

 

2 & 3 questions go hand in hand and final details are still not clear even though the changes were supposed to take place in January. 

2. apart from Enterprise Policy/GPO scenarios, extensions will have to be published in Chrome Web Store - otherwise they will be disabled by Chrome

3. adding extension to chrome through registry "should" still work - see https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!starred/chromium-extensions/jAS4agg1gMY and https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=327137. It looks like Chrome we'll be able to add the extension ID to registry and Chrome will fetch the extension CRX from the webstore automatically. Preferences file (http://developer.chrome.com/extensions/external_extensions.html) <extensionid.json> using "external_update_url" pointing to the webstore should also work.

I haven't seen any Chrome builds that support 2 & 3. 

Mihai

On Friday, January 10, 2014 8:58:37 AM UTC+2, Shilin Nair wrote:

Hi,

I came across a few announcement of Google on chrome extensions. Can any one clarifies these?

1) NPAPI plug in is being phased out from chrome starting from jan 2014. So we cannot host any new NPAPI extensions in chrome store. ??

2) Any extension which is installed in the client box needs to be present in the chrome store as well. If chrome found it is not present in the chrome store it removes the extension from the browser. ??

3) So far I was distributing my extension as part of my product installer and update the same in registry, so  that chrome picks it up . Some article says this approach is also phasing out from chrome. Any extension which has to be installed from chrome store only. Local distribution is not allowed.??

No, local distribution is still allowed, but your extension needs to be in the store. Note: it does not need to be user-visible in the store, but it needs to be there.

This was announced here: http://blog.chromium.org/2013/11/protecting-windows-users-from-malicious.html

 

Any input is welcome.

-Shilin

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[PhistucK]

You have to upload it to the web store, use GPO, or use Chrome Dev or Chrome canary, or not use Windows.

There is no other way to install 'local' extensions.

Regarding NPAPI, you can use PPAPI (Native Client), or Native Messaging (still, from the webstore).

☆PhistucK

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[Finnur Thorarinsson]

Mihai,

These are the official docs on this topic:

http://developer.chrome.com/extensions/hosting.html

http://developer.chrome.com/extensions/external_extensions.html

However, they have not been updated to reflect the new restrictions on Windows, so you won't find the details you are after (at the moment). But, that work seems to be gaining traction, so hopefully we'll have it up soon. 

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[Mihai Coman]

Thanks for the reply! I was actually hoping for something that is updated with clear (I wish) implementation requirements / details.

On Monday, January 13, 2014 3:19:50 PM UTC+2, Finnur Thorarinsson wrote:

Mihai,

These are the official docs on this topic:

http://developer.chrome.com/extensions/hosting.html

I suppose that hosting on 3rd party servers will be obsolete.

 

http://developer.chrome.com/extensions/external_extensions.html

This one does need to be updated - bug 41902 seems "abandoned" for years....the whole ticket seems obsolete to me.

 

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[Finnur Thorarinsson]

On Mon, Jan 13, 2014 at 3:02 PM, Mihai Coman <mi...@quickweb.ro> wrote:

Thanks for the reply! I was actually hoping for something that is updated with clear (I wish) implementation requirements / details.

Yeah, I know. Hopefully that will be realized soon.

 

On Monday, January 13, 2014 3:19:50 PM UTC+2, Finnur Thorarinsson wrote:

Mihai,

These are the official docs on this topic:

http://developer.chrome.com/extensions/hosting.html

I suppose that hosting on 3rd party servers will be obsolete.

 

That is true but only for Chrome installations on Windows that use the Beta/Stable channel. I don't think the situation with other platforms/channels will change in that regard.

http://developer.chrome.com/extensions/external_extensions.html

This one does need to be updated - bug 41902 seems "abandoned" for years....the whole ticket seems obsolete to me.

 

Yeah, we're discussing what to do here.

 

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[Finnur Thorarinsson]

On Monday, January 13, 2014 3:19:50 PM UTC+2, Finnur Thorarinsson wrote:

Mihai,

These are the official docs on this topic:

http://developer.chrome.com/extensions/hosting.html

I suppose that hosting on 3rd party servers will be obsolete.

 

That is true but only for Chrome installations on Windows that use the Beta/Stable channel. I don't think the situation with other platforms/channels will change in that regard.

Actually, my answer was a bit misleading as I should have said plainly that 3rd party servers will not be completely obsolete.

- They will still be relevant for other platforms than Windows.

- They will still be relevant for Chrome Windows channels other than Beta and Stable.

- I believe enterprise installs are not affected by this policy, so I suppose they could also use 3rd party servers (even with Windows Stable clients).

In addition, there might be other exceptions that I'm forgetting. The bottom line, however, is still that the use case for 3rd party servers will be greatly restricted for Chrome Windows Beta and Windows Stable.