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I disagree with this stance. Pulling extensions that have a large potential for abuse is absolutely in Google's prerogative, in my opinion. Suppose our single

by SamBam 6y ago

I disagree with this stance. Pulling extensions that have a large potential for abuse is absolutely in Google's prerogative, in my opinion. Suppose our single maintainer decided to finally sell the extension, and the person who bought it made it so that all those links hijacked information or exposed you to malware. This would happen in one day without warning. How many people would be saying that was Google's fault for allowing this to happen? You say people should determine for themselves based on risk, but most users of Chrome extensions are naive when it comes to understanding risk.

throwaway2048 6y ago
Surely if this was the reason Google pulled the extension, they would say so. They wouldn't be making it about the description being too detailed. While this may be bad, I think it is merely incidental.
- SamBam 6y ago
  Fair point.
jimmaswell 6y ago
Google's perogative is to make as much money as possible, not make the web a better place.
- zepto 6y ago
  You can level this charge at almost anyone. It might be true in certain ways, but it’s not an informative criticism.
  - stjohnswarts 6y ago
    With google it's especially true since their entire existence is centered around gathering intelligence on people and then selling ads with it (and also hoarding it for future use)
    - zepto 6y ago
      That description fits Facebook just as well, which means it doesn’t tell us much about Google.
fbelzile 6y ago
I agree, maybe removing the extension from the public facing web store is a better solution. But at the very least, allow the extension to be installed if you have the "hard to guess" URL. I do this with my app that requires a desktop app to be installed since it requires native app messaging.
- jonas21 6y ago
  If you really want to use the extension, you can clone the extension's repo, enable Developer Mode on the extensions page in Chrome, and then load the extension. You can probably do this in under 30 seconds, but it's enough of a barrier to keep naive users from doing it.

by SamBam 6y ago

throwaway2048 6y ago

Surely if this was the reason Google pulled the extension, they would say so. They wouldn't be making it about the description being too detailed. While this may be bad, I think it is merely incidental.

SamBam 6y ago
Fair point.

jimmaswell 6y ago

Google's perogative is to make as much money as possible, not make the web a better place.

zepto 6y ago
You can level this charge at almost anyone. It might be true in certain ways, but it’s not an informative criticism.
- stjohnswarts 6y ago
  With google it's especially true since their entire existence is centered around gathering intelligence on people and then selling ads with it (and also hoarding it for future use)
  - zepto 6y ago
    That description fits Facebook just as well, which means it doesn’t tell us much about Google.

fbelzile 6y ago

I agree, maybe removing the extension from the public facing web store is a better solution. But at the very least, allow the extension to be installed if you have the "hard to guess" URL. I do this with my app that requires a desktop app to be installed since it requires native app messaging.

jonas21 6y ago
If you really want to use the extension, you can clone the extension's repo, enable Developer Mode on the extensions page in Chrome, and then load the extension. You can probably do this in under 30 seconds, but it's enough of a barrier to keep naive users from doing it.