Chrome Web Store

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Chrome Web Store
Chrome Web Store logo
Chrome-google-com-webstore.png
URL https://chrome.google.com/webstore, https://chromewebstore.google.com/
Status Endangered
Archiving status Saved! (2020/2021)

Not saved yet (Manifest v2 extensions to be removed on August 31, 2026)

Archiving type DPoS
Project source chrome-web-store-grab, chrome-web-store-items
Project tracker chrome-web-store
IRC channel #chromeweblore (on hackint)
Data[how to use] archiveteam_chromewebstore🔒

Chrome Web Store is a Google site that allows developers to publish add-ons to the Chrome browser. These include extensions, apps, and themes. The Chrome Web Store also has a games section, which contains apps that are games. Additionally, some apps on the Chrome Web Store are simply links to websites that function like apps.

Google has announced a timeline of policy changes that will lead to content being removed between December 1, 2020 and 2028.

Chrome Apps

A Chrome app is a web application that runs on the Chrome browser. These were originally supported on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chrome OS, but support on all but Chrome OS is now gone. Google removed the apps section of the store for Windows, Mac, and Linux in December 2017, though until it was still possible to install apps on these platforms with a direct link to the Chrome app until the redesign of the Chrome Web Store in September 2023. In February 2023, with Chrome 110, support for launching Chrome Apps on non-Chrome OS platforms was removed, but Chrome apps could still be used and launched on older versions.[1]

The timeline for shutting down Chrome Apps on Windows, Linux, and macOS is as follows:[2] [3]

March 2020: Chrome Web Store stopped accepting new public Chrome apps. Developers will be able to update existing Chrome apps through June 2022. Enterprise administrators may continue to submit new private and unlisted Chrome apps to the Chrome Web Store.

June 2021: General support for Chrome Apps on Windows, Mac, and Linux will end June 2021. Organizations will be able to use a policy setting to extend support on Windows, Mac, and Linux through June 2022. General support for Chrome Apps on Chrome OS will remain enabled, without requiring any policy setting, through June 2022.

June 2022: Chrome Web Store will stop accepting new and updated private and unlisted Chrome apps. End support for Chrome Apps, NaCl, PNaCl, and PPAPI for all platforms.

In October 2021, Google announced that support for Chrome apps on Chrome OS for Enterprise and Education customers will remain available until at least January 2025.[4]

Google subsequently revised and extended this schedule, pushing the final deprecation of Chrome apps on ChromeOS out to 2028 to grant organizations additional time to migrate to Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) and Chrome Extensions. The finalized sunset timeline for Chrome apps on ChromeOS is as follows:[5]

  • July 2025 (ChromeOS 138): Support for user-installed Chrome Apps ends, preventing general consumers from downloading or installing them. In Enterprise and Education environments, admin-installed Chrome Apps in Kiosk Mode are disabled by default, though administrators can temporarily use an explicit policy override to keep them active.
  • July 2026 (ChromeOS 150): Final standard ChromeOS release to support Chrome Apps in Kiosk Mode. Standard channel devices lose Kiosk functionality after this version.
  • April 2027: Final deadline for Kiosk Mode Chrome App support on devices locked to the Long-Term Support (LTS) channel.
  • February 2027 (ChromeOS 160): Admin-installed Chrome Apps running in standard user sessions are disabled by default, requiring an explicit corporate policy to temporarily remain active.
  • February 2028 (ChromeOS 168): Official End of Life (EOL) for all Chrome Apps across standard ChromeOS channels. No policy overrides or exceptions are permitted.
  • October 2028: Absolute final cutoff date as Chrome App support is completely removed from remaining Long-Term Support (LTS) channel devices.

Chrome Extensions

Chrome extensions add functionality to the browser. Google has announced that it is shutting down its payment system for paid extensions. Free trials for paid extensions will end on December 1, 2020, and all payment support will end on February 1, 2021. Many such extensions have a free base version with in-app purchases.[6] [7]

Additionally, manifest version 2 Chrome Extensions may be removed from the Chrome Web Store once manifest version 3 is finalized. (There was a period of about 1 year, 3 months following the replacement of manifest version 1 with manifest version 2 before manifest version 1 extensions began to be removed.[8]).

According to a timeline published on 2021-09-23, developers will no longer be able to update manifest version 2 Chrome Extensions after January 2023, so it is likely that those extensions will be removed from the store at some point after that time.[9]

The current timeline, published on 2023-11-16, indicates that manifest version 2 extensions will be removed and will no longer function with the release of Chrome 138 in July 2025 (this may also happen in August depending on when flags/enterprise policies are removed). The current timeline from Google is as follows:[10]

  • January–June 2022: The Chrome Web Store ceased accepting new Manifest V2 extensions, first blocking public and unlisted submissions in January, followed by private extensions in June.
  • June 2024: Phase-out mechanisms began on pre-stable Chrome channels (Beta, Dev, and Canary). Users with active MV2 extensions began seeing warning banners on the extension management page, and affected add-ons lost their "Featured" badges.
  • October 2024: Google expanded the deprecation to the Stable channel, gradually disabling MV2 extensions and directing users to MV3 alternatives in the Chrome Web Store. Users retained a temporary ability to manually re-enable disabled extensions. Corporate environments utilizing the ExtensionManifestV2Availability policy remained exempt.
  • March 2025: MV2 extensions were disabled by default for all standard users across all Chrome channels. While standard users could still manually toggle them back on, Google began rolling out a permanent block to select Canary channel users. Enterprise environments using the management policy were guaranteed support through June 2025.
  • July 2025 (Chrome 138): Standard support concluded as MV2 extensions were disabled for all general users across all channels, removing the option to manually re-enable them.
  • Enterprise End of Life (Chrome 139): The ExtensionManifestV2Availability administrative policy was permanently removed from the browser codebase, completely terminating Manifest V2 functionality for all remaining managed users.
  • August 31, 2026: All remaining manifest v2 extensions will be removed from the Chrome Web Store. (While these extensions are no longer usable in Chrome, other browsers can still run them.) A third-party site indicates about 16% or 45000 manifest v2 extensions remain as of 2026-07-07.

Statistics

On June 30, 2020, DebugBear found 137,345 extensions and 39,263 themes. They didn't attempt to find apps. Of these, 4.7% had some form of payment support. Within paid extensions, 86.4% required a one-off payment, 6.3% had in-app purchases, and the remainder had a subscription model. [11] DebugBear uploaded the list to GitHub.[12]

On August 2, 2019, Extension Monitor reported 188,620 extensions. While the write-up doesn't make a distinction, DebugBear believed this included apps. [13]

As of 2023-12-06, chrome-stats.com reports 122,168 extensions and 32,696 themes exist on the Chrome Web Store.

Archiving

Apps and extensions can be downloaded as .crx files from Google's CDN.[14]

Crx4Chrome has a large collection of .crx files for both apps and extensions. This includes older versions of apps/extensions, which in many cases are still downloadable from Google's CDN.[15]

CRXcavator, operated by Cisco's Duo Security division, scans the entire Chrome Web Store every three hours for new or updated Chrome extensions. This site then performs a security assessment on each extension. This site also stores the source code for each discovered extension version and makes this data accessible to the public. This site launched around early 2019, so extensions that were removed before that time are not included in the site's collection. [16]

References

  1. ↑ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/12/google-shuts-down-the-apps-section-of-the-chrome-web-store/[IA•Wcite•.today]
  2. ↑ https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/10/21362688/google-chrome-apps-delay-shutdown-timeline-support-2021-2022[IA•Wcite•.today]
  3. ↑ https://blog.chromium.org/2020/08/changes-to-chrome-app-support-timeline.html
  4. ↑ https://blog.chromium.org/2021/10/extending-chrome-app-support-on-chrome.html[IA•Wcite•.today]
  5. ↑ https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/15950395[IA•Wcite•.today]
  6. ↑ https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/22/21451111/google-paid-chrome-extension-monetize-shut-down-end[IA•Wcite•.today]
  7. ↑ https://developer.chrome.com/webstore/cws-payments-deprecation
  8. ↑ https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/manifestVersion#manifest-v1-support-schedule[IA•Wcite•.today]
  9. ↑ https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/mv3/mv2-sunset/[IA•Wcite•.today]
  10. ↑ https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/develop/migrate/mv2-deprecation-timeline[IA•Wcite•.today]
  11. ↑ https://www.debugbear.com/blog/counting-chrome-extensions[IA•Wcite•.today]
  12. ↑ https://github.com/DebugBear/chrome-extension-list[IA•Wcite•.today]
  13. ↑ https://extensionmonitor.com/blog/breaking-down-the-chrome-web-store-part-1[IA•Wcite•.today]
  14. ↑ https://github.com/dashokkumar93/crx-download[IA•Wcite•.today]
  15. ↑ https://www.crx4chrome.com/[IA•Wcite•.today]
  16. ↑ https://crxcavator.io/[IA•Wcite•.today]
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