This will be of great interest to members using Chrome

This will be of great interest to members using Chrome

Originally shared by Peter Kasting

Today we announced we're extending the restriction on non-web-store extensions to more Chrome channels.

http://blog.chromium.org/2015/05/continuing-to-protect-chrome-users-from.html

I've read a number of grouchy posts on e.g. Reddit claiming this is all about trying to control what extensions users use, in particular because the web store doesn't allow things like Youtube downloaders.

The sad truth is that malicious extensions mucking with Chrome are by far the biggest problem we deal with today.  A HUGE fraction of Chrome users are infected with such things (or worse), and it results in an enormous number of problems, many of which get reported to us as bugs and help center requests, many of which don't.  (It was amusing that on the same Reddit forum people were whining about this were multiple other top-level posts on the same page begging for help with Chrome-targeting malware.)

To some degree, fighting malware is an arms race, and we won't be able to perfectly win.  But our previous restrictions here were able, alone, to reduce the number of support requests we got for such issues by 75%.   That's enormous.  Think about the magnitude of the number that represents, when you consider that Chrome has hundreds of millions of users.

So no -- this has NOTHING to do with trying to prevent Youtube downloaders or whatever.  We've been forced to this by bad actors, and we're doing it because we think it's in the best interest of our users.  I'm sorry that there are some people inconvenienced by this.  But at least I want them to understand that our motives here are what we say they are; there's nothing ulterior going on.