What is the exact date of MV3 enforcement in June 2024?

[Sarthak Singhal]

Hi,

We have a lot of dependencies to be migrated towards MV3 compliance for our existing extension. I have a few questions that'll help us plan the migration better as we get closer to the timelines:

1. What is the exact date of Enforcement of MV3 on Chrome browsers? Currently it is mentioned as early as June 2024, but it doesn't mention any date - https://developer.chrome.com/blog/resuming-the-transition-to-mv3 

If we know the exact date, we can notify our customers and plan upgrading our extension from MV2 to MV3. The reason to postpone our extension release of MV3 is as there is lot of reliance on remotely hosted code and it is taking longer than expected time for us to migrate/prepare with alternative solutions.

Kindly provide an exact date, will it be enforced from 1st June 2024 or say 15th June 2024? Or is it further postponed?

2. What will happen if our extension remains as MV2 in June 2024 also, since enforcement is only on pre-stable versions of Chrome (Dev, Canary, and Beta), will it impact other Chrome users OR will our extension be blocked on Chrome Store itself during the pre-stable phase also? How long will it remain for pre-stable versions before moving to generally available versions of Chrome Browser?

Thanks,
Sarthak

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[Cuyler Stuwe]

This is the most recent formal public communication I'm aware of: https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/develop/migrate/mv2-deprecation-timeline

In essence, my takeaway from this advice is "consider June 1st to be the deadline, and consider any additional time beyond that point to be an arbitrary courtesy buffer".

- Cuyler

[nem...@readcube.com]

If I'm not mistaken, judging by this "June 2024 + 1-X months: Chrome MV2 deprecation stable rollout" what they mean is that at least until July there MV2 will not be disabled (for stable production versions of Chrome). Can someone please correct me if I'm wrong?

[Oliver Dunk]

Hi all,

If you haven't already, I'd definitely suggest watching our I/O talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvxOW21na48. David shared some more information there about the specifics of the rollout and what users will see.

What is the exact date of Enforcement of MV3 on Chrome browsers? Currently it is mentioned as early as June 2024, but it doesn't mention any date - https://developer.chrome.com/blog/resuming-the-transition-to-mv3 

The rollout will be gradual across channels and start with a very small percentage of Chrome users, so there isn't a single date to target I'm afraid. What I can say is that we are still on track to begin deprecation in June, so targeting then is still our advice - on Canary this could be as early as June 1st. As mentioned it will likely take around a month before this moves to stable. There is also the ExtensionManifestV2Availability policy that enterprise users can use to extend the deadline to June 2025.

What will happen if our extension remains as MV2 in June 2024 also, since enforcement is only on pre-stable versions of Chrome (Dev, Canary, and Beta), will it impact other Chrome users OR will our extension be blocked on Chrome Store itself during the pre-stable phase also?

Your extension won't be removed from the Chrome Web Store while it is still available for some users in Chrome. However, they will begin to see warnings and the extension will be disabled, as outlined in the I/O talk. Initially it will be possible to re-enable extensions but we will eventually remove this.

I hope this all helps - please do get in touch with any more questions or concerns.

Oliver Dunk | DevRel, Chrome Extensions | https://developer.chrome.com/ | London, GB

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[Oliver Dunk]

Hi Sarthak,

There are two parts to the policy around Remote Code Execution:

• Technical restrictions, like the CSP enforced on extension pages that prevents the use of eval()
• Policy restrictions, where an extension will still load but be rejected during review

Your extension can't be rejected if you don't submit it to the Chrome Web Store, of course. However, the technical restrictions do still apply.

We don't have any specific plans to change the technical restrictions but we may make the protections against this stronger over time. While I wouldn't expect any immediate issues, I would definitely advise you to build policy compliant extensions even if you don't plan to submit them to the store, as that reduces the risk you may run into technical restrictions in the future.

Oliver Dunk | DevRel, Chrome Extensions | https://developer.chrome.com/ | London, GB

On Mon, May 20, 2024 at 4:33 PM Sarthak Singhal <sarthak...@whatfix.com> wrote:

Thanks Oliver for the update. The I/O talk was helpful to know about the latest updates.

One more clarification, just to be sure nothing changed based on the announcement in the I/O talk.

Would MV3 extensions shared outside of Chrome Store, with Remote Code Execution logic, be allowed on Chrome Browser after June 2024 enforcement of MV3 to get sideloaded in the below 2 cases :

1. Installing extension via Load Unpacked (ZIP) with Developer Mode = ON
2. Installed forcefully with a group organisation's IT team (ExtensionManifestv2Availability is NOT enabled) and Developer Mode = OFF

My understanding is that - warnings and eventual blocking of extensions is applicable only to MV2 extensions and not for MV3 extensions like above. Kindly clarify.

Thanks,
Sarthak

[Dan Miller]

> Your extension won't be removed from the Chrome Web Store while it is still available for some users in Chrome. However, they will begin to see warnings and the extension will be disabled, as outlined in the I/O talk. Initially it will be possible to re-enable extensions but we will eventually remove this.

Will updates to MV2 extensions be possible, in June, before the deprecation is complete (e.g. "while it is still available for some users in Chrome").

To ask another way: you said that "we are still on track to begin deprecation in June, so targeting then is still our advice - on Canary this could be as early as June 1st" and have detailed the impact that will have on users. Given that, will updates to MV2 extensions still be possible before v127 moves to stable?

[Sarthak Singhal]

Thanks Oliver for the update. The I/O talk was helpful to know about the latest updates.

One more clarification, just to be sure nothing changed based on the announcement in the I/O talk.

Would MV3 extensions shared outside of Chrome Store, with Remote Code Execution logic, be allowed on Chrome Browser after June 2024 enforcement of MV3 to get sideloaded in the below 2 cases :

1. Installing extension via Load Unpacked (ZIP) with Developer Mode = ON
2. Installed forcefully with a group organisation's IT team (ExtensionManifestv2Availability is NOT enabled) and Developer Mode = OFF

My understanding is that - warnings and eventual blocking of extensions is applicable only to MV2 extensions and not for MV3 extensions like above. Kindly clarify.

Thanks,
Sarthak

On Mon, May 20, 2024 at 6:26 PM Oliver Dunk <olive...@google.com> wrote:

[Oliver Dunk]

Given that, will updates to MV2 extensions still be possible before v127 moves to stable?

Yes, you'll continue to be able to update MV2 extensions in the Chrome Web Store both before v127 stable and during deprecation :)

Oliver Dunk | DevRel, Chrome Extensions | https://developer.chrome.com/ | London, GB

[Sarthak Singhal]

Hi Oliver,

If MV2 extensions will be allowed updates during the deprecation phase (I'm assuming until June 2025), can we host both MV2 and MV3 versions of our extension to gradually roll out to our customers? As movement of MV2 to MV3 is a major shift for us

Basically, is it possible to host 2 extension versions of the same extension ID or merge two different extension IDs into one eventually?

Open to any solution options to solve the same.

Thanks,
Sarthak

[Oliver Dunk]

Hosting two extensions in general should be ok - the only thing to be mindful of is our repetitive content policy. If you can easily brand the extensions separately, that would be my suggestion (e.g enterprise edition and general edition). If that doesn't make sense and you decide to do this let me know and I can check with the team about the appropriate wording.

There isn't a way to have multiple channels for an extension or merge two listings, unfortunately. One thing you could consider at the very least using the messaging or chrome.management APIs to see if the other extension is installed, and management.uninstallSelf() to uninstall a duplicate extension.

Oliver Dunk | DevRel, Chrome Extensions | https://developer.chrome.com/ | London, GB

[Don Schmitt]

Regarding having an "enterprise edition" and "general edition".  It would be awesome if that was possible, and we literally used that ability for a decade, but when they instituted the repetitive content policy a few years ago they took down our unlisted "enterprise" extension as a policy violation (this caused much pain), and didn't want to hear our concerns.

It appears they have updated the policy since then, but it's not clear that you can simply have an "Enterprise" version that is unlisted without having "Beta" or "Development" in the name.  I'd love to go back to having that, but I find the policy vague enough that I feel we would be setting ourselves up for another random takedown.  Are you saying this is now a common and accepted practice?

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/chromium-extensions/CAOsQqBnp%3DqvWwYQMwG0Ftn-OB0%2BZTaauQDCNEdjadovnV6F_Sg%40mail.gmail.com.

[Oliver Dunk]

Hi Don,

Thanks for sharing that. Speaking personally, I would expect this to be policy compliant, but ultimately there is a separate team that is responsible for enforcement and deciding what is allowed.

I've reached out to the team for thoughts and I'll let you know when I hear back.

In the meantime, do you happen to have the ID of the extension that was taken down in the past? It would be useful to be able to look at what happened to that extension specifically.

Oliver Dunk | DevRel, Chrome Extensions | https://developer.chrome.com/ | London, GB

[Dan Miller]

Thanks a lot for your replies in this thread Oliver Dunk. It is very helpful.

One last question from me related to this comment: "The rollout will be gradual across channels and start with a very small percentage of Chrome users, so there isn't a single date to target I'm afraid. What I can say is that we are still on track to begin deprecation in June, so targeting then is still our advice - on Canary this could be as early as June 1st. As mentioned it will likely take around a month before this moves to stable."

Will deprecation begin on Beta or Stable before they are updated to version 127 of chrome? Could a user who has an MV2 extension on version 126 of chrome get the warning/deprecation messages and have their extension disabled?

[Oliver Dunk]

Hi Dan,

My understanding is that all of the changes we're making are limited to Chrome 127 and above :)

Thanks,

Oliver Dunk | DevRel, Chrome Extensions | https://developer.chrome.com/ | London, GB

[woxxom]

All these changes are mirrored to Chrome 126 as seen in the commit log.

[Dan Miller]

Thanks Oliver and woxxom.

Oliver, can you clarify on the discrepancy between your comment and woxxom's comment? (I also notice there is a comment from Patrick Kettner in a separate conversation that implies that changes are limited to Chrome 127 and above https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/chromium-extensions/c/TeKNv4MHhOs/m/LWNZqmOPAQAJ)

[Oliver Dunk]

Thanks wOxxOm for the callout.

Oliver, can you clarify on the discrepancy between your comment and woxxom's comment? (I also notice there is a comment from Patrick Kettner in a separate conversation that implies that changes are limited to Chrome 127 and above

I just confirmed with the team. Any actual deprecation (e.g disabling extensions) won't start until Chrome 127. However, warning messages that an extension has not been updated could come sooner, hence why we are making sure the necessary changes are in earlier versions of Chrome.

Oliver Dunk | DevRel, Chrome Extensions | https://developer.chrome.com/ | London, GB

[Dan Miller]

Okay, thanks a lot for confirming that.

[Steven Jin]

Great conversation here.  We are running pretty much to the wire in terms of hitting a MV3 release date.  As I understand we don't need to release June 1 but if we don't publish something MV3 until then would we lose our featured badge?  If so do we regain it as soon as we publish MV3 version?

[Oliver Dunk]

Hi Steven,

We haven't announced anything specific for that scenario. A safe assumption would be that you may have to explicitly re-apply using the One Stop Support form.

Oliver Dunk | DevRel, Chrome Extensions | https://developer.chrome.com/ | London, GB

[Steven Jin]

Hi Oliver,  Thanks for the reply.

Can we launch with a 5% rollout would that still count as a go live?

[Sarthak Singhal]

@Steve - Curious how would you do a 5% rollout as there could be only 1 extension - either mv2 and mv3 submitted on Chrome?

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[Steven Jin]

I'm not sure if thats the case.  I assume it just considers mv3 as a newer version on the same extension listing?

[Patrick Kettner]

That is correct, there is only one listing

https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/develop/migrate/publish-mv3#gradual-rollout

If you set it to 5%, then 100% of new users get the new version, but 5% of exiting users will be given an update for it.

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