Chrome App Deprecation

[Vishal Shah]

Hi,

   We have a Chrome App that is used by a huge chunk of our users. We cannot port to Chrome extension or PWA as we are using Chrome App specific APIs. I had a few questions around the Chrome App deprecation

1. Will the users continue to see the current app on the store and would they be able to install?

2. If a user has installed the chrome app and upgrades the chrome version, can the app stop working?

3. Is there a way to track the chrome builds to check if the app would be available and usable with newer versions of chrome.

[wOxxOm]

1. See https://blog.chromium.org/2020/08/changes-to-chrome-app-support-timeline.html
2. After June 2022 apps won't run
3. Test it in Chrome Canary

[Deco]

Just to add on for number 3, Canary and the Dev build will allow the same functionality.

Thanks,

Deco

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[Vishal Shah]

Thank you for your responses. In the blog article it is mentioned that the app support can be extended till June 2022 via a policy setting. 

1. Will this policy setting be available to only Enterprise accounts or all accounts?

2. Where can we find the policy setting? I am unable to view it in my webstore account.

[PhistucK]

Some policy settings require a domain-joined device (so, loosely, only corporate environments) and some do not (which means you can set them yourself). Not sure which one would be in effect here.

Policy settings are unrelated to the web store - those are settings on the device itself, supplied either by the user or the administrators of the domain. On Windows, this is done via the built in Group Policy application.

☆PhistucK

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[avm99963]

Complementing PhistucK's message, these sensitive policies are listed here:

• //components/policy/core/common/policy_loader_common.cc - Chromium Code Search
  

Also, in that file you'll also see that in "non-corporate environments", extensions defined in the ExtensionInstallForcelist policy which are hosted outside of the Chrome Web Store are ignored.

I haven't been able to find the specific policy that needs to be enabled (the closest thing I've found is ExtensionAllowedTypes, but I'm not sure if this will be it). However, what I've been able to find is an update regarding the deprecation:[1]

> Chrome apps will be deprecated in Chrome 94 on Mac, Windows, and Linux 

> Chrome apps will no longer function on Mac, Windows, and Linux in Chrome 94, as part of the previously-communicated plan to replace Chrome apps with the open web. For enterprises that need extra time to adjust to the removal of Chrome apps, a policy will be available to extend support for them until June 2022.

Cheers :-)

[1]: Chrome Enterprise release notes - Google Chrome Enterprise Help