Google Makes It Harder to Trick Users Into Installing Chrome Extensions

Google has had enough of the devious extensions that use deceptive ads promising exciting features to trick users into installing their shady plugins on its Chrome Web browser. The company says that starting from September 3, it will make changes to restrict the installation of such extensions.

The company notes that it will disable 'inline installation' for some of those extensions. Introduced in 2011, inline installation gave developers and Web publishers a quick and convenient option to let readers install their extension without leaving the website.

While the extensions were still hosted in the Chrome Web Store, publishers had the ability to embed a shortcut to it on their respective blogs and websites. A reader would be able to click on the install button and instead of getting redirected to the Chrome Web Store, will see an installation dialogue right on the website.

But over the years, this feature has been abused by many. There are developers who maintain deceptive ads in which they claim to offer free software updates or similar enticing things and trick users to install their extensions.

Which is why, Google is taking back control. Starting next month, if the company detects a shady ad indulging in a similar wrong practice, it will send them to the product page of that extension in the Chrome Web Store and let the user decide if they want to install that particular extension.

To recap, inline installation is here to stay, but not for bad people. The company notes that about 0.2 percent of all extension will be affected by its upcoming move. "It's an important step to maintain a healthy extension ecosystem for users and the vast majority of extension developers who don't use deceptive tactics."