Phased migration from manifest V2 to V3

[Vaibhav Nigam]

Hello Chromium Team,

We are Requestly extension with 150K+ users.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/redirect-url-modify-heade/mdnleldcmiljblolnjhpnblkcekpdkpa

We are currently using Manifest V2 and soon going to rollout the extension with Manifest V3. But since the number of users is huge, we don't want to risk them by replacing it in one shot.

One approach we wanted to try is to submit the V3 extension as an unlisted extension in Chrome WebStore with separate name. We will let some test users to try that out. Once we gain enough confidence, we can replace the V2 extension with V3 build and pull down the latter extension.

Is there a concern from Chromium team on this approach?  Are there any plagiarism checks which will avoid us to do this.

Thanks,

Vaibhav Nigam

[Stefan Van Damme]

Hi Vaibhav,

That is a good approach.
I do this also for my Turn Off the Lights Chrome extension with the BETA label and unlisted.

See this developer help page:

https://developer.chrome.com/docs/webstore/spam-faq/#repetitive-content:~:text=Can%20I%20have,be%20clearly%20labeled%3A

Thanks,

Stefan vd

On Tuesday, October 11, 2022 at 10:15:13 AM UTC+2 shayan...@gmail.com wrote:

I'm not experience on this matter, and I am certainly not part of the Chormium Team. However, based on this link, https://developer.chrome.com/docs/webstore/spam-faq/#repetitive-content, you might run into a repetitive content violation for having two simmilar extensions. Regarding unlsiting, if you want to avoid the violation you might want to consider this: "Extensions that are published privately within your domain. Extensions published as unlisted or public, even if distributed through a single domain, do not qualify for this Publish to Domain (PTD) exemption." (from the website). Therefore, based on my limited knowledge , if you are publishing to simmilar extensions you should make it unlisted and within your domain, or applying the word "BETA" or "DEVELOPMENT BUILD" to the title or other specifications mentioned in the link above.

[muzuiget]

In order to migrate to Manifest V3, I'm planning to do something similar, which I thought was not allowed in the past, but I searched and now there are some well-known extensions in the store doing this.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/search/Beta?_category=extensions

[Amy Dev]

Here's another doc that talks about Publishing a test version 🙂

[馮韋元]

Hi,

Do you know that there is a bucket feature in the Chrome store, you can choose to push the update only to a percentage of your current users.

I usually set the bucket to 10%. I can include myself in those 10% by installing the extension on a new profile and force-update the extension.

Once verified, I ramp-up the bucket to 100%.

Another tip, you can package yourself the extension and simulate the update by doing the following:

- in chrome://extensions you use "pack extension" to package your current prod extension. It generates a .CRX and .PEM file.

- again, in chrome://extensions use "pack extension" to package your new mv3 extension. Be sure to provide the .PEM file that was created in the previous step

Now you have 2 .CRX files.

Install SRWare Iron browser. It's a Chromium browser but it's set to accept unverified CRX files.

Now in SRWare Iron:

- go to chrome://extensions and drag&drop the MV2 .crx file >> the extension installs

- again, in chrome://extensions drag&drop the MV3 .crx file >> the extension updates itself and moves to MV3 code base

This flow is perfect for testing the update mechanism. To my knowledge, only this SRWare Iron accepts to install unverified CRX files, I hope they keep it that way.

[Robbi]

"...To my knowledge, only this SRWare Iron accepts to install unverified CRX file..."

FlashPeak Slimjet browser also do same thing although I like SRWare Iron more