Chrome Web Store

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 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] However, this became a malware vector, so it was removed in 2018.^[21]

• Official website