Google has announced to end its paid Chrome extensions. The search engine giant was offering Chrome extensions on the Chrome Web Store. The decision will directly affect developers. Developers used the paid services to monetize their extensions. Google in a statement said developers can no longer enjoy paid Chrome extensions. They will require monetizing their extensions with other payment-handling systems. Earlier in January, Google had suspended publishing paid extensions. The company has now announced that the change will be permanent. The decision was taken after fraudulent transactions. Users lodged complaints of exploitation, leading to the suspension. The change is a part of Google’s bid to overhaul the Chrome Web Store.
The Chrome Web Store is an online store for Google’s Chrome web browser. Google said that it will phase out other functionality in the coming months. It also shared a timeline. Back in January, it temporarily disabled new paid items. In July, it announced deprecation, and the new items were banned permanently. The company said that free trials will also be disabled. The free trials will be disabled in December, meaning that the Try Now button will disappear from the Chrome Web Store. It said all payments will be disabled from February next year. But the license data will be available after February 2021. Google said that it will later disable the Chrome Web Store licensing API.
The company had earlier introduced several new rules to reduce spammy extensions. The company had banned multiple extensions. It disallowed extensions that only launched other apps or websites. It said that extensions can’t feature misleading descriptions or promotional content/images. Besides, the company asked developers not to manipulate reviews for placement of their extension. Google has advised developers to migrate to new systems and then publish their extensions. Earlier in February, Google had claimed to remove more than 500 malicious extensions over fraud. According to the tech giant’s claim, the Chrome Web Store hosts approximately 190,000 extensions and web apps.
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