Chrome Web Store

Chrome Web Store is Google's online store for its Chrome web browser. As of 2022, Chrome Web Store hosts about 123,000 extensions and 29,000 themes.[1]

Chrome Web Store
The The Chrome Web Store as seen on Chrome
The Chrome Web Store as seen on Chrome
Launch dateDecember 2010 (2010-12)
Websitechrome.google.com/webstore

History

Chrome Web Store was publicly unveiled in December 2010,[2] and was opened on February 11, 2011, with the release of Google Chrome 9.0.[3] A year later it was redesigned to "catalyze a big increase in traffic, across downloads, users, and total number of apps".[4] As of June 2012, there were 750 million total installs of content hosted on Chrome Web Store.[5]

Some extension developers have sold their extensions to third-parties who then incorporated adware.[6][7] In 2014, Google removed two such extensions from Chrome Web Store after many users complained about unwanted pop-up ads.[8] The following year, Google acknowledged that about five percent of visits to its own websites had been altered by extensions with adware.[9][10][11]

Malware

Malware remains a problem on Chrome Web Store.[12][13][14][15] In January 2018, Researchers from security firm ICEBRG found four malicious extensions with more than 500,000 combined downloads.[12][16] In February 2021, Google blocked "The Great Suspender", a popular extension with 2,000,000 users after it was reported that malicious code was added to it.[17][18][19]

Chrome used to allow extensions hosted on Chrome Web Store to also be installed at the developer's website for the sake of convenience.[20] But this became a malware vector, so it was removed in 2018.[21]

References
  1. "Breaking Down The Chrome Web Store". ChromeStats. Retrieved 28 December 2022.
  2. Kincaid, Jason. "Sales Are At A Trickle On Google's The Chrome Web Store". TechCrunch. Retrieved 4 January 2011.
  3. Kay, Erik; Boodman, Aaron (February 3, 2011). "A dash of speed, 3D and apps". Chrome Blog. Google. Retrieved March 9, 2017.
  4. Empson, Rip (5 December 2011). "New The Chrome Web Store Proves To Be A Boon For Developers Above (And Below) The Fold". TechCrunch. Retrieved 5 December 2011.
  5. Vikas SN (2012-06-29). "The Lowdown: Google I/O 2012 Day 2 – 310M Chrome Users, 425M Gmail & More". MediaNama. Retrieved 2013-06-14.
  6. "Adware vendors buy Chrome Extensions to send ad- and malware-filled updates". Ars Technica. 17 January 2014. Retrieved 20 January 2014.
  7. Bruce Schneier (21 Jan 2014). "Adware Vendors Buy and Abuse Chrome Extensions".
  8. Winkler, Rolfe (19 January 2014). "Google Removes Two Chrome Extensions Amid Ad Uproar". blogs.wsj.com. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 17 March 2014.
  9. "Ad Injection at Scale: Assessing Deceptive Advertisement Modifications" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-06-05.
  10. "Superfish injects ads into 5 percent of all Google page views". PC World. IDG.
  11. "Superfish injects ads in one in 25 Google page views". CIO. IDG. Archived from the original on 2019-12-11. Retrieved 2015-06-03.
  12. "Security firm ICEBRG uncovers 4 malicious Chrome extensions - gHacks Tech News". www.ghacks.net. 16 January 2018. Retrieved 2018-12-15.
  13. "Google's bad track record of malicious Chrome extensions continues - gHacks Tech News". www.ghacks.net. 11 May 2018. Retrieved 2018-12-15.
  14. "Chrome Extension Devs Use Sneaky Landing Pages after Google Bans Inline Installs". BleepingComputer. Retrieved 2018-12-15.
  15. "Chrome's inline extension install ban already bypassed - gHacks Tech News". www.ghacks.net. 11 October 2018. Retrieved 2018-12-15.
  16. "Google Chrome extensions with 500,000 downloads found to be malicious". Ars Technica. 17 January 2018. Retrieved 2018-12-30.
  17. "Google kills The Great Suspender". www.zdnet.com. Retrieved 2021-05-29.
  18. "The Great Suspender Chrome extension's fall from grace". BleepingComputer. Retrieved 2021-05-30.
  19. "What happens when a Chrome extension with 2m+ users changes hands, raises red flags, doesn't document updates? Let's find out". www.theregister.com. Retrieved 2021-05-29.
  20. "Using Inline Installation - Google Chrome". developer.chrome.com. Retrieved 2018-12-14.
  21. "Improving extension transparency for users". Chromium Blog. Retrieved 2018-12-15.
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