I am trying to install extensions on Chrome but it seems to "decide" for me what I should and should not install, which is very frustrating. I have navigated to the "chrome://policy/" and the ExtensionInstallBlacklist is set to "*", how can I change this or add my extensions ID's to the ExtensionInstallWhitelist array? I cannot find this file anywhere on my machine (MAC) and I have looked everywhere including as I found in other threads as a /Library/Managed Preferences/username/. How can I modify the policy settings?
Then I would suggest contacting your administrator. This setting is put into your machine by a workgroup policy.
Even if you were able to change the value locally, it's in place for a reason, and you may get in trouble for that.
Note that you would need a local administrator to access the file. According to the docs, it should indeed be in /Library/Managed Preferences/<username>. And modifying it will not help in the long term.
Here's how I resolve mine:
Find the extension that you want to install and try to install it
0.5 Copy the extension from the pop-up
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome\ExtensionInstallWhiteList
Add a new REG_SZ with the next sequence number and paste the data
Restart Chrome and try to install the extension again
Only for MacOS
Google Chrome restricts installing 3rd-party extensions for better security. The official method to bypass such limitation is to add custom policy. In current version (60) of Chrome, there is a policy entry for whitelisting extension called ExtensionInstallWhitelist. On macOS, one can easily add such policy by running the following command in Terminal:
defaults write com.google.Chrome ExtensionInstallWhitelist -array id
Replace id with your actual extension ID correspondingly. The ID can be found in chrome://extensions by clicking the “Developer mode” box. If you want to add multiple IDs, put id1 id2 id3, etc. after -array. Restart Chrome to take effect. To check if the policy works, visit chrome://policy. To remove the policy, simply run:
defaults delete com.google.Chrome ExtensionInstallWhitelist
This could help install open-source Chrome extensions such as BaiduExporter without warning.
Original source
If you want to remove it:
Win+R
regedit
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome
Select the folder containing ExtensionInstallWhiteList
Right click delete
Related
My company distributes a Chrome extension along with our Windows apps. I have read the Google guidelines on doing so, here, and see that the recommended method of doing so is to publish the extension in the Chrome Web Store, which we have done. Then, during installation, we should place a key in the Windows registry, which will direct Chrome to download the extension from the store the next time it starts up. This all makes sense, and we are planning to use this method.
However, I am told by some of our developers that they are worried about certain scenarios (specifically in countries where access to Google servers may be blocked) where it may not be possible to install the extension this way. Therefore, they have proposed both using this method, and including the .crx file in our installation package. My question is: Will this cause any issues? For users with a normal connection to Google's servers, will they be able to receive the extension as normal?
Will this cause any issues?
As long as "it's useless, because it can't be installed" isn't an issue, then no, no issues including it. /sarcasm
You cannot install CRX files from third-party sources, even manually (and not at all automatically), with the possible exception of enterprise deployment via domain policies.
The only way to install a non-Store extension is as unpacked. This requires manually switching on the Developer mode, selecting the folder, and enduring the scary warning on every Chrome launch.
I'm afraid you'll need to consider excluding such scenarios from your potential market.
How to local install ALL Chrome CRX without any problem:
Chrome saves ALL information in %LocalAppData%\Google.
Install Chrome
Install Chrome .CRX you are needing
Back up %LocalAppData%\Google
Create WinRar to unpack saved profile to: %LocalAppData%
This bypasses the mandatory Chrome store installation.
What are the downsides of this method?
Using this method could overwrite existing user profile data/bookmarks.
Overwriting user saved bookmarks/passwords may cause data loss for user.
What is a possible workaround?
Firefox can use alternate profile, if set to do so via txt in user profile.
If Chrome profile can load alternate profile, locate the string/text responsible for this & edit it to use the new user profile path, then create a WinRar SFX to install to this new location.
This will then enable Chrome SFX installer (Via WinRar SFX) to install a chrome profile with the .CRX extensions desired already installed & not have to mess with pre-existing user data.
What are the downsides to this method?
Users may wonder how to get their old bookmarks/settings to work.
While users will get the new .CRX, it will be starting with essentially a blank profile.
How you can help:
We know we can install any unpacked CRX via SFX install.
We know we can potentially cause Chrome to use alternate profile to avoid corrupting or messing with user data.
We need someone with an idea how to install unpacked CRX without causing a problem in the old user profile.
Things tried so far:
Tried to locate the file(s) responsible for saving installed .CRX settings.
(Make unpacked CRX load & work properly)
Discovered a key file that contained bookmarks/user data also was the same one responsible for ID the CRX & making it load.
This presented a problem, because how is it possible to import this key file in a WinRar SFX installer, without also overwriting the user bookmarks/saved data?
If anyone can figure this part out, we can then use WinRar SFX to unpack CRX into Chrome profile directory, without overwriting/destroying user data.
Alternate method may be to re-route Chrome to use new profile with desired .CRX files already loaded, then cmd-line import the old profile settings/bookmarks/saved passwords.
If this is possible...
Congrats to all who are seeking solutions!
Working together, we can succeed!
I've written an extension for Google Chrome that will be released with the next version of our product. I want to understand what properties, paths for extraction, registry entries, etc. should I provide the installer of my product so that the end user doesn't have to install the extension on their own manually, and the installer does the complete job of installing the extension, and also notifies the user that the extension has been installed. As of now, the code that I have written is placed in a folder, and I use the "Load Unpackaged Extension" to load the extension. What should I do to achieve the aforementioned task?
Google's current policy on installing extensions via the registry (for Windows machines) is this:
Only extensions from the Google Extension Gallery (or Chrome Web Store - CWS) can be installed via the registry.
See this link - https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/external_extensions - for information on how this can be done. Keep in mind the following:
-This technique will still pop-up a msgbox to the user. its not completely silent.
-When using this technique, if the user subsequently removes the extension from her Chrome, the extension gets "blacklisted" on that chrome and will not re-auto-install until the user re-install it
manually. refer to Auto-installing a google chrome extension won't work ! for details.
Chrome has a couple ways of installing extensions programmatically:
http://www.chromium.org/administrators/pre-installed-extensions
Edit: yes, this policy has changed by now, as FuzzyAmi points out.
If you're using GNU/Linux, this is how you pre-install an extension from the chrome web store for all users:
/etc/chromium/policies/managed/yourextension_policy.json
‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾
{
"ExtensionInstallForcelist": [
"yourextensionuniqueidentifiersup;https://clients2.google.com/service/update2/crx",
"yourextensionuniqueidentifiersup"
]
}
Reference
metamask-chrome - AUR
Currently, the only way to install a Chrome extension (while working in development) is to drag it from the desktop onto the browser and click "Add" on the popup window. I would prefer to make the whole process automatic. I currently build, package and sign my CRX programatically, but am stuck with the final manual step. Is this possible?
I tried creating my own URL from which to install the CRX (see here: After adding ExtensionInstallSources preference with my URL to Chrome Preferences, still won't allow installing ".crx" packaged app ) but this did not work.
I want this install to be permanent, not a temporary install that only lasts during the current run..
That's an old question, but you recently updated it, so..
There are no fully automated ways to do it besides Enterprise Policy, which only rarely applies. If that is not an option, you're out of luck. This was a security decision in 2014 by Chrome team, because malware that did that was rampant. Here's a latest post on this topic.
On a Windows machine, the Enterprise Policy force_install is the only no-confirmation one, but it requires a machine in a Windows Domain and admin rights in said domain to enable. I'm not 100% sure how it works on Linux/Mac, but here's a relevant FAQ.
There is a programmatic method of installing extensions, but it now only applies to extensions that are published in CWS (so that Google can pull the plug in case of abuse). It is described here, but will still require a manual approval from the user when the browser starts for the first time after this is added. That's how, for instance, various legitimate bundled extensions like Skype's Click-to-call are installed.
For unpacked extensions, you can run with the command line flag:
<path to chrome> --load-extension=<path to extension directory>
For installing a packaged extension in a .crx file, you can use the "external extensions" mechanism to automatically install from either an autoupdate url or a local path:
https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/external_extensions
Two things of note:
-Because this mechanism is intended mostly for distribution to end-users and not for testing, there is a confirmation dialog that allows the user to opt in to the install.
-We may eventually be deprecating the local path based installs in places where we're enforcing the "must be from the webstore" restriction, and only support the autoupdate url (which must be the webstore update url) approach.
I found the new change that you can't install Chrome extensions/userscripts without saving them and dragging them into Chrome quite annoying. As such I have set forth to revert this to the old way it was.
I read the documentation here: http://www.chromium.org/administrators/policy-list-3#ExtensionInstallSources that says to add a registry key and so I have done, as shown below. However when attempting to install an extension I still get an error that they can only be installed from the Chrome webstore. Did I add the registry entries wrong or something?
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome\ExtensionInstallSources]
"1"="http://*"
"2"="https://*"
This answer is obsolete as of Chrome 36
Instead of editing the registry, you can also make Chrome to behave in the old way via the --enable-easy-off-store-extension-install flag.
Under Windows, create a shortcut to your Chrome executable. Then edit the shortcut, and append --enable-easy-off-store-extension-install to "Target". See the screenshot below:
Some observations:
I've added the --enable-easy-off-store-extension-install flag after chrome.exe.
After starting Chrome, I visited a website that links to a .crx file that is not hosted in the Chrome web store.
Because of the flag, Chrome 20 doesn't show the "Extensions, apps, and user scripts can only be added from the Chrome Web Store" message any more. Instead (see bottom), Chrome asks me whether it's OK to install the extension - exactely as before.
This command line switch also works for Chromium/Chrome, under Linux and OSX.
If you ever find yourself in the situation where the --enable-easy-off-store-extension-install flag doesn't work (e.g. future version?) or you don't want to use it, then there is an alternative method.
You can install extensions with a plain vanilla install of Chrome by dragging .CRX extension files onto the Extensions panel in Settings.
I've written an extension for Google Chrome that will be released with the next version of our product. I want to understand what properties, paths for extraction, registry entries, etc. should I provide the installer of my product so that the end user doesn't have to install the extension on their own manually, and the installer does the complete job of installing the extension, and also notifies the user that the extension has been installed. As of now, the code that I have written is placed in a folder, and I use the "Load Unpackaged Extension" to load the extension. What should I do to achieve the aforementioned task?
Google's current policy on installing extensions via the registry (for Windows machines) is this:
Only extensions from the Google Extension Gallery (or Chrome Web Store - CWS) can be installed via the registry.
See this link - https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/external_extensions - for information on how this can be done. Keep in mind the following:
-This technique will still pop-up a msgbox to the user. its not completely silent.
-When using this technique, if the user subsequently removes the extension from her Chrome, the extension gets "blacklisted" on that chrome and will not re-auto-install until the user re-install it
manually. refer to Auto-installing a google chrome extension won't work ! for details.
Chrome has a couple ways of installing extensions programmatically:
http://www.chromium.org/administrators/pre-installed-extensions
Edit: yes, this policy has changed by now, as FuzzyAmi points out.
If you're using GNU/Linux, this is how you pre-install an extension from the chrome web store for all users:
/etc/chromium/policies/managed/yourextension_policy.json
‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾
{
"ExtensionInstallForcelist": [
"yourextensionuniqueidentifiersup;https://clients2.google.com/service/update2/crx",
"yourextensionuniqueidentifiersup"
]
}
Reference
metamask-chrome - AUR