Google is taking some extreme steps to protect its Windows users form malicious attacks by blocking extensions that are not downloaded from its Chrome Web Store.
Google is building a new wall of protection for its Windows users to prevent malicious attacks. The web giant announced Thursday that it will no longer host third-party extensions on its Windows Chrome browser starting January. The move comes in the light of several Windows users complaining about the malfunctioning of the browser.
Third-party add-ons are the easiest way for hackers to secretly install malicious content on the computer and override browser settings. Add-ons extensions play a very important role in browser's functioning, such as sharing posts on social networks or getting updates about sport events and teams. By limiting support for add-ons from its own Chrome Web Store, Google will have complete control over reducing the impact of malicious attacks on users.
"Since these malicious extensions are not hosted on the Chrome Web Store, it's difficult to limit the damage they can cause to our users," Erik Kay, Google Chrome's Engineering Director, said in a blog post Thursday. "As part of our continuing security efforts, we're announcing a stronger measure to protect Windows users: starting in January on the Windows stable and beta channels, we'll require all extensions to be hosted in the Chrome Web Store."
While the web giant ends support for third-party extensions, it will not, however, put an end to enterprise users being able to install add-ons through their own enterprise tools. "We'll continue to support local extension installs during development as well as installs via Enterprise policy, and Chrome Apps will also continue to be supported normally."
While the limitation is only applied to the Windows version of the Chrome browser, the company does not plan on expanding its new rule to Mac OS X, yet.
Google has recently focused a lot on the development of its popular Chrome browser. Just last month Google extended support of its Chrome browser to Windows XP users until April 2015, a year longer than Microsoft's plans to support OS. A Series of updates including new touch gestures on Android and search by image were added to Desktop in October. This shows Google's special interest in the browser and bigger plans for its future.
