Time-sensitive: Chrome deprecating manifest version v2 (by June 2024)

[joshuatz]

January 2023 - Staring in Chrome 112, Chrome may run experiments to turn off support for Manifest V2 extensions in Canary, Dev, and Beta channels.

https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/mv3/mv2-sunset/ https://developer.chrome.com/blog/mv2-transition/

UPDATE: They delayed it. ~Possibly June 2023?~

2nd UPDATE: We finally have a deadline - June 2024. I received an email about this and they have published an announcement here:

We will begin disabling Manifest V2 extensions in pre-stable versions of Chrome (Dev, Canary, and Beta) as early as June 2024, in Chrome 127 and later. Users impacted by the rollout will see Manifest V2 extensions automatically disabled in their browser and will no longer be able to install Manifest V2 extensions from the Chrome Web Store. Also in June 2024, Manifest V2 extensions will lose their Featured badge in the Chrome Web Store if they currently have one.

[darthwalsh]

Update: the extension is still working on the store! But only for another few months:

https://chromeos.dev/en/posts/manifest-v-3-migration-timeline-update

• In June 2023, the Chrome Web Store will no longer allow Manifest V2 extensions to be published with visibility⁠ set to Public. All existing Manifest V2 extensions with visibility set to Public at that time will have their visibility changed to Unlisted.
• In January 2024, following the expiry of the Manifest V2 enterprise policy, the Chrome Web Store will remove all remaining Manifest V2 items from the store.

This tool is super useful though, thanks for building it! Even if it was removed from the store, it would have been worth cloning the repo and trying to build it myself if really needed to.

[joshuatz]

@darthwalsh Thanks for the kind words! I'm glad you found the tool useful.

For the deprecation timeline, I think that might actually be on pause / TBD (based on this post), but it is also hard to tell because Google has changed their minds at least a few times based on outcry from developers and users. Regardless, this is something I need to address at some point - I've just found it hard to carve out a big enough chunk of time to work on it.

[Utopiah]

Just visited the store page and got "This extension is no longer available because it doesn't follow best practices for Chrome extensions."

I'd suggest reviving the bookmarklet for the occasion, possibly linking to other extensions allowing to change CSP client side (e.g. Modify Header Value (HTTP Headers)) to bypass some of those constraints.

[joshuatz]

@Utopiah Sorry about the delay in responding. Busy week(s) / month / year :sweat_smile:

I'm not surprised you got that message - we are already past the manifest v2 deprecation date and I never got around to upgrading the extension to v3.

Reviving the bookmarklet is not a bad idea... although it has been forever since I touched that code, and it might need a fair amount of work to get working again.

I'll try to revisit this when I have time.