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Blog Post: How I would Improve The Chrome Webstore.

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Robert James Gabriel

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Jan 13, 2025, 12:26:42 PMJan 13
to Chromium Extensions
Just thought I would post here for feedback, but I did a wishlist of improvements for the Chrome WebStore.

Like better badges, reviews with version numbers next to them etc.


https://www.coffeeandfun.com/blog/how-i-would-improve-chrome-web-store/

Patrick Kettner

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Jan 13, 2025, 12:45:24 PMJan 13
to Robert James Gabriel, Chromium Extensions
Thanks so much for sharing, Robert! I know we have discussed a few of these ideas before in the past and hearing it directly from developers is really helpful. Ill make sure the CWS team sees your post 🙂 

patrick

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Robert James Gabriel

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Jan 13, 2025, 6:00:16 PMJan 13
to Chromium Extensions, Patrick Kettner, Chromium Extensions, Robert James Gabriel
Absolute!, Thank you and the Chrome Extension Advocates for all your great work!

Juraj M.

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Jan 14, 2025, 3:13:28 AMJan 14
to Chromium Extensions, Robert James Gabriel, Patrick Kettner, Chromium Extensions
There was another blog about CWS written yesterday, what a coincidence!
But this one I would categorize as "constructive criticism" :)

Robert James Gabriel

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Jan 14, 2025, 7:00:47 AMJan 14
to Juraj M., Chromium Extensions, Patrick Kettner
What a coincidence! 😂, mine is more of a wishlist of suggestions.
I’m going to edit mine to include a link to the one you shared, as that is an incredible post and a must read and I agree with everything in it!


Thank you
Robert James Gabriel

On Jan 14, 2025, at 02:13, Juraj M. <juraj....@gmail.com> wrote:



Points Path

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Jan 14, 2025, 8:03:31 AMJan 14
to Chromium Extensions, Robert James Gabriel, Chromium Extensions, Patrick Kettner, Juraj M.
Robert, thanks for this. I think this is a great post with terrific suggestions, but the best of them might be the higher developers fee. I truly think that would help get rid of much of the spam. Maybe there's a way to keep the $5 for developers who are only testing or experimenting with a small group, with the higher $50/$99 for those with public extensions.

Juraj M.

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Jan 14, 2025, 8:09:25 AMJan 14
to Chromium Extensions, Points Path, Robert James Gabriel, Chromium Extensions, Patrick Kettner, Juraj M.
I would go even one step further and require a proof of residence and some official ID.
I don't think having anonymous extensions developers is a benefit - considering how much power they wield.
Malicious actors can simply reupload slightly modified extensions over and over using new accounts and with no consequences.

Wladimir Palant

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Jan 14, 2025, 10:04:08 AMJan 14
to Chromium Extensions, Juraj M., Points Path, Robert James Gabriel, Chromium Extensions, Patrick Kettner
Note: I am the author of the “Chrome Web Store is a mess” article linked above.

Juraj M. schrieb am Dienstag, 14. Januar 2025 um 14:09:25 UTC+1:
I would go even one step further and require a proof of residence and some official ID.
I don't think having anonymous extensions developers is a benefit - considering how much power they wield.

Actually, I do think that anonymous extension developers are a benefit. It’s like with any expression of opinion online: if you demand identity verification, you will exclude a large segment of the human diversity. All while plenty of bad actors don’t mind acting under their real name.

There are plenty of shady actors in Chrome Web Store which don’t care to hide their identity. My blog post mentions Karma and Colibri Hero, the other post from yesterday is about Urban VPN among others. They are well known, and there are policies which could be applied to deal with them.

Similarly, I don’t think that raising the developer fee will do any good. Companies like BroCode or ZingFront will have no problem paying a higher fee, just like they won’t have trouble finding people to provide identities for their accounts. They earn enough money to be able to afford that. At the same time, this will considerably raise the bar for hobby programmers, which is too high already.

I really don’t think that we want to push Chrome Web Store further towards a collection of corporate spam and malware.
 
Malicious actors can simply reupload slightly modified extensions over and over using new accounts and with no consequences.

You know, this is a solvable problem. It requires these modified extensions to be removed sooner than they earn enough money to pay for the modification effort, not years after upload. But it requires committing resources to moderation.

regards
Wladimir Palant

Alex

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Jan 14, 2025, 11:00:06 AMJan 14
to Chromium Extensions, Wladimir Palant, Juraj M., Points Path, Robert James Gabriel, Chromium Extensions, Patrick Kettner
From 2019:

>Is it too much to ask a company that makes billions in profit every year to prioritize reviewing all popular extensions? ...
>
>Google could have banned remote code execution a long time ago. It could have started responding promptly to extension abuse reports. It could have invested in automated and manual extension review. Instead, after years of missed opportunities, Google has given us Manifest V3 ...

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