Chrome 117 will notify users when an extension has disappeared from the browser’s web store
In the upcoming release of Chrome 117, Google is introducing a new feature that will actively notify users when an extension is not available in the Chrome Web Store, writes повідомляє The Verge. Oliver Dunk, Chrome Extension Developer Relations Engineer, told about this update. This feature is designed to help users keep track of extensions that may be coming:
- Removed by developer;
- Removed from the list for violating the Chrome Online Store policy;
- Identified as malware.
Extensions that meet these criteria will appear in the Security Check section of Chrome’s Privacy and Security settings. If users decide to click the “Check” button, they will be redirected to their extensions. Here, they can either uninstall them or ignore the warning. Dunk also explained that extensions identified as malware will be automatically disabled, as they were in previous versions of Chrome.
However, this is not the only security improvement Google has introduced for Chrome. Another important update is the automatic conversion of all http:// URLs to the more secure https:// version. This encrypted version of HTTP ensures that user traffic remains private.
Even if a user clicks a link that explicitly uses http://, Chrome will attempt to update to https://. If the update fails, Chrome will revert back to the original URL http://. Google plans to make this feature available to all users in the near future.
Finally, Google announced that Chrome will soon display warnings when users try to download high-risk files over an unsecured connection. This update is expected to be released in mid-September.
Google has provided a sample image to illustrate what these warnings will look like.