I have published a private extension to Chrome webstore. Only people with URL can download this extension.
Some of the users in my organization want to switch to the older version of the extension for sometime. what is the best way to do?
I am aware that chrome webstore doesn't support multiple versions on the same URL.
Sending .crx file is not an option (due to the bug https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=638725)
I was thinking to publish the older version of the plugin (with different ID) to the store and give them the new link to download. Does the webstore allow?
are there other ways to do this?
I was thinking to publish the older version of the plugin (with different ID) to the store and give them the new link to download. Does the webstore allow this?
Yes, there should be no problem, especially for the same developer account. It's not atypical to have a "stable" and "testing" versions of the same extension in the Store.
Consider making a mechanism to migrate user settings before you do this (for example, using External Messaging between the two versions or some sort of copy-paste export/import).
Related
I have an unlisted extension published through the Chrome web store which is already being used. I have a new version which I would like to release just to testers initially, before a full roll out to everyone. Can this be done?
The same thing has been asked here but it was almost 9 years ago, and the answers disagree on whether it's possible or not:
How to publish new version of Chrome Extension only to testers
The short answer is "No, it can't be done for a published extension".
According to Chrome Web Store visibility descriptions, you must unpublish an extension before it can be published to trusted testers. Users who already have it installed will get updated to the new version.
In your case, you have to create a new extension with the new code, and a different name like "MyApp Beta" and publish it privately to the list of trusted testers.
Maybe you already know this, but you can install a chrome extension manually.
Go to chrome://extensions/ and check the box for Developer mode in the top right.
Click "Load unpacked exention"
Select the folder where your unzipped extension resides in.
So, you can send a zip/rar to your testers, let them follow the procedure and test the extension. Might be that you have to give it another name so as to not conflict with your earlier eversion, or you could ask your testers to delete the existing extension to avoid conflicts.
Well, the simplest way is to pack a .crx file of the tester-only extension then link to it via some cloud-hosting service like Google Drive. There is no way to do this through the Web Store. You could release a different extension as a beta channel though.
Not strictly related to publishing a full extension, but ... you could use feature toggling to control the visibility of new functionality? So wrap the new functionality in toggle checks and only turn the feature on based on some criteria you can decide in a custom roll-out strategy. See enter link description here for an open-source implementation of a feature toggle control system.
If you have a developer account and want to publish it on the chrome web store privately to just testers this is what you have to do:
Go to the Pricing and Distribution page of the extension during the publishing process
Click "Private"
Go to your developer account settings, and in the "Management" section, you can add trusted tester accounts.
You can change the status to public whenever your extension is ready.
Background
I've been using the crx-hotreload package to auto-reload my chrome extensions during development because it's annoying to have to click the refresh button on the Extensions page every time you make a change; however, this package doesn't work with MV3 because it uses the chrome.runtime.getPackageDirectoryEntry method, which seems to have been removed from chrome.runtime in MV3. I can't find documentation to confirm that it was removed, but it's not there when I try to use it.
Questions
Does anyone know how to get access to all the files in the extension directory in Chrome Extension Manifest Version 3?
Or generally, is there a better way that I can hot-reload my chrome extensions during development that would work for MV3?
This is one of many things based on DOM capabilities of background pages that are removed from ManifestV3 because service workers don't have DOM. For example, getPackageDirectoryEntry is using the old nonstandard FileSystem API in its returned value.
As to why, apparently the switch to service workers simplifies the internal source code in Chromium, even if it doesn't provide any real improvements for extension authors or users.
At this point all you can do is present a convincing use case and ask Chromium developers via https://crbug.com to implement an alternative API.
I developed an addon for firefox which I want to distribute among my group. I don't want to make it visible to everyone. How can I put that restriction for my published addon.
I did the same for chrome extension where my listed emails can install my chrome extension only.
Such an option is not available for extensions listed on AMO. It's either available for everyone or not at all.
Unlike CWS, with Firefox you can opt to self-distribute the extension (AMO will only do the signing, hosting and updating is on you), and then how you control access is up to you.
However, once someone has the XPI file, they can share it with anyone. This is technically true of Chrome extensions as well: once installed, they can be ripped and shared.
If you truly need to limit functionality for non-members, the only way is to offload some non-trivial part of the program to a server that requires access credentials.
We have a Chrome Extension application that we have developed and would like to distribute it only a limited number of internal users.
This would be a private app, but to install it, users now have to follow the manual steps of going to Settings -> Extensions -> clicking on Developer mode -> drop the .crx in there.
I would like to know if there is a way to just have private App Store to privately distribute this app and not have it on Chrome Web Store for anyone to see/download/use.
Thanks for your help in advance ---
You use the Chrome Web Store. 2 options are available:
Share an unlisted Chrome extension from the Chrome Web Store (anyone with the link will be able to install it)
Chrome customers using G Suite or Education can use the Chrome Web Store to host private apps restricted only to their users on the same domain.
See https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/2663860
Update 2016-05-20: From https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/2663860?hl=en
Chrome customers using Google Apps for Work or Education can use the Chrome Web Store to host private apps restricted only to their users or people who you share a direct link to the app with. Users from the same Chrome domain will see their organization's private apps in a private collection in the Chrome Web Store.
Update 2015-10-27: Google has updated installation policies in attempt to curb malicious extension activity on Windows. On the chrome extension hosting page:
Warning: As of Chrome 33, Windows users can only download extensions
hosted in the Chrome Web store, except for installs via enterprise
policy or developer mode (see Protecting Windows users from malicious
extensions). As of Chrome 44, no external installs are allowed from a
path to a local .crx on Mac (see Continuing to protect Chrome users
from malicious extensions).
With the latest versions of Google Chrome, users are no longer going to be able to just click a download link and have it install with the correct HTTP headers. This leaves you with 4 possible options:
user downloads extension and then drags the file into the extension management page (This no longer works on Windows per update note)
change registry settings on users computers
user downloads extension source folder and loads extension from source in the extension management page
Re-enable extension installs with command-line flag as suggested by Rob W
I have created and distributed several different Google Chrome extensions privately within my company and went with the first option. It is an extra step for the users but it wasn't a big deal. The users did not have to have developer mode enabled in their Chrome browser for this to work.
Yes, you can. You need to create the crx file through the google chrome "Extensions" page (visit: chrome://extensions/ NOTE: You cannot click the link you have to manually copy and paste it, chrome does not allow you to visit the link from href)
On the Extensions page, check the box "developer mode", choose "pack extension".
Now you get the following popup. Click "browse" for the Extension root directory and navigate to the folder containing your extension (the folder containing manifest.json).
The first time you do this, ignore private key file. It will generate one for you automatically and save it to the same folder.
When you release a new version of the extension, use the generated private key file. This way for someone to update the extension, it won't ask for permissions again.
TO INSTALL
To install the extension, just get each user to manually drag the newly created extension crx into the Extensions page (chrome://extensions/).
The first time it will ask for permissions just like when installing from the Chrome Web Store.
For each new version, as long as you used the same private key file for each new version, users just drag the new version into the Extensions page the same way except they won't be asked for permissions again. It will just update the extension.
WARNINGS:
Beware the way you distribute the extension crx file. When user downloads the extension .crx file in Google Chrome, it will think you're trying to install the extension from that page, and come up a warning "couldn't be installed from this site". You need to make sure that users know to ignore the error, and check their downloads folder for the extension to manually install it.
Whenever you download the .crx file, Chrome will give the user a warning saying it might contain a virus. There is no way around this. Even if you zip up the file, Chrome will read the contents and give the same warning. Some users won't install because of this. A workaround is to rename the .crx to something else, like .RENAME_TO_CRX, but this is a hassle and a lot of users either won't want to or won't be able to figure it out.
You can't update the extension automatically. It's just not possible because Chrome manually blocked this capability.
NOTE: Another way would be to release it on the Chrome Store, but only for certain users (not public). Only people with the link could install, OR you could make it only certain people can install and even if you had the link but weren't part of the group, they couldn't view the extension. Only problem here is if you don't want Google to see the extension.
If you use Google Apps, it appears there's now a way to publish apps and extensions to the Chrome Web Store, but only make it visible to users of that domain.
https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/2663860?hl=en
Since its internal, could you change registry settings on their computers?
Because if so, you can use them to allow easy install of extensions from outside the web store or force install extensions on their machine.
Look here....
http://www.chromium.org/administrators/policy-templates
http://www.chromium.org/administrators/policy-list-3#ExtensionInstallSources
http://www.chromium.org/administrators/policy-list-3#ExtensionInstallForcelist
I'm making an extension for Google Chrome and I use code for autoupdating. This is because the extension isn't yet in Google Chrome webstore. But in a few days I will upload it to the Webstore and Google says you can use the Webstores autoupdating. But if I don't want to use that, will my app still update by my own server, like the way it does now?
Thanks in advance!!
I agree that docs are not very clear about this:
If you publish your extension using the Chrome Developer Dashboard,
you can ignore this page. You can use the dashboard to release updated
versions of your extension to users, as well as to the Chrome Web
Store.
But, I've tested it myself and your update_url setting in manifest.json will be overridden when you publish your extension via Chrome Web Store (CWS). In other words, publishing to CWS means that you can't use self hosted autoupdating anymore.
The reasons for that, that I could think of, may be as follows:
CWS wants to keep track of each extension stats (i.e. number of users using each extension)
privacy concerns (people don't want you to track them when they update extension)
security concerns (each extension update must go through CWS verification process)
If you want to track people (please don't) use Google Analytics on i.e. background page of your extension.