Why Can't Extensions Open Other Extension Pages?

[Paul Amoah]

When my extension tries to open another extension page, chrome blocks it. I assume this has some security implications but I struggle to understand how security could be impacted. Could someone please shed some light on this?

[woxxom]

You probably open it via a web platform feature like `location` or a DOM <a> element. It's a web platform restriction that is intended to avoid some kind of privilege abuse, but in case of extensions this behavior is actually a bug, because extensions can circumvent this restriction via  use chrome.tabs.create({url: '........'}) or chrome.tabs.update, see also https://stackoverflow.com/a/40364044.