Is the Chrome Web Store available to users in China?

[Ottis]

Hi, I was looking through the developer dashboard "weekly users by region" CSV file, and it shows that I have some users in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.

However, I've also seen some web pages from a few years ago saying that the Chrome Web Store is not available in mainland China, so I'm confused as to whether the reported weekly users are really from mainland China or not. 

Please could someone clarify whether users in mainland China can access the Chrome Web Store?

Thanks!

[Patrick Kettner]

The Chrome Web Store does not block mainland China, but users in mainland China need to use a VPN in order to access the Chrome Web Store.

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[Ottis]

Thanks Patrick - I'm a little confused: I assume that if someone in China uses a VPN, their location will no longer appear to the Chrome Web Store to be mainland China? It would perhaps make them appear to be in Hong Kong or Singapore or somewhere else.

Therefore, how can the Chrome Web Store know that there are users in mainland China when it comes to statistics reporting?

I added the Hong Kong/Taiwan/Macau stats together, and they barely sum to half of the China figure reported. It therefore seems that the CWS is somehow aware of mainland China users.

[Jackie Han]

I'm a little confused: I assume that if someone in China uses a VPN, their location will no longer appear to the Chrome Web Store to be mainland China? It would perhaps make them appear to be in Hong Kong or Singapore or somewhere else.

You are right, but not quite right. Assume that location statistics are based on IP addresses. Here are some possible reasons.

1. In order to improve the speed of network access, many proxy tools used in China can do only part of the network traffic through the proxy, the other part access the network directly. If the network of statistics service is directly accessed (and these services are usually available in China), it will be counted as the mainland of China.

2. Many people don't always turn on VPN in a day, they only turn it on when needed and turn it off when not needed. For example, when installing an extension they open it, and then close it.

3. In China, there are some third-party websites that can download extensions. Some users do not install extensions directly from CWS.

Of course there are other reasons not listed here. So this is a normal thing. Some of my extensions show up to 50% of users from China on the CWS developer dashboard.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/chromium-extensions/16d85eec-fd46-4a1b-bc7d-1b6261d71de1n%40chromium.org.

[Ottis]

Hi Jackie, thanks for replying. 

My assumption was that if the CWS is blocked in mainland China, forgetting to turn on the VPN or not using one at all would mean that the CWS would be uncontactable, and therefore the CWS would be unable to notice that any users are in mainland China.

Inspired by your response, here is the guess I would make:

1. When someone downloads Chrome in mainland China (without a VPN), Chrome itself determines that it is in mainland China and remembers its location.

2. When they connect via VPN to the CWS, CWS determines the user's location not by the IP address of the request, but instead because Chrome reports its location as part of the extension update request.

I'd be interested to know if someone from Google could confirm this.

I was also wondering if you happen to know if the Chrome browser itself is freely downloadable from the Google web site in China? I'm not exactly clear about how much of Google is blocked there. 

[Jackie Han]

It seems that you don't fully understand what I mean. The CWS website and statistics are two different services. The statistics service is accessible in China, just like Google Analytics is accessible in China. In short, not all Google services are unavailable in China.

[Ottis]

What is the "statistics service"? My assumption was that the CWS only knows about extension users because Chrome connects to the CWS to check for updates.

I think you're saying that Chrome periodically reports extension statistics to Google outside of that mechanism? I think Chrome has an opt-in to anonymously report general usage statistics to Google, but I don't think that's what you're referring to, is it? CWS would massively under-report extension usage if stats were only opt-in.

[Jackie Han]

What is the "statistics service"?

For example,  CWS website is "A.com", "statistics data" is sent to "B.com". A is unaccessible in China, but B is accessible. Combined with my first reply (that is not my imagination, it is an objective fact), you can understand that even though it's not accessible, there are statistics.

[Ottis]

Thanks for clarifying Jackie, I understand that you're saying that hypothetically, a non-blocked "B.com" statistics domain may exist that Chrome sends extension usage statistics to.

I wonder if anyone at Google can please clarify if such a mechanism actually exists, and how it works.

[Jackie Han]

It's a matter of policy. Googlers don't answer questions like that. Because such issues are not caused by Google.

In fact, if I don't use VPN, Chrome often can automatically upgrade. But I can't access the CWS website without VPN. Google analytics js code is also available in China. The actual network situation and service deployment are complex, and they are not tied together.

You can use the packet capture tool to detect which addresses Chrome sends data to, and then compare those addresses to see if they're CWS website addresses. You can also deploy a machine in China to check which network requests can be sent successfully and which ones will fail.

[Ottis]

I forgot to ask - is Chrome itself freely downloadable in mainland China without a VPN? I've seen statistics that say Chrome is the most popular browser in China - so that would be quite a feat if you can only download it with a VPN!

[Jackie Han]

Yes, you can download it without VPN, and it is the desktop browser with the largest market share.

If you search it on Baidu, it shows many websites that you can download it, including third-party websites and the official Google site which is https://www.google.cn/chrome/.

[Ottis]

Aha, thanks Jackie - I guess that must be the reason that you can both download and automatically update Chrome without a VPN. And it could possibly even be that if Chrome can't access the CWS, it might attempt an extension update via the same URL it uses to download/update the Chrome browser itself