According to a post from Chrome extensions developer relations engineer Oliver Dunk, Google will start rolling out a new feature in the next version of Chrome that will proactively alert you when an extension is not available in the Chrome Web Store. The new feature, which will be added as part of Chrome 117, will make it easier to track down extensions that have been removed by a developer or for violating Chrome Web Store policies.Chrome is getting more secure
Extensions that have been removed for some reason will be shown in the “Security check” section of Chrome’s privacy and security section. When users click on the “Review” button here, they will be directed to the relevant extension and will be able to remove the extension if they want or hide the warnings if they want to keep the extension installed. As with previous versions of Chrome, extensions marked as malware will be disabled automatically.
This is not the only security-related update that Google has or will bring to Chrome. According to a separate blog post, the company will automatically upgrade all http:// URLs to https://, the more secure version of HTTP that encrypts your traffic, even if you click on a link that explicitly declares http://. If this redirect doesn’t work, Chrome will automatically move to http://. This feature is currently being tested and will be available to everyone in the future. According to Google, between 5 percent and 10 percent of websites currently use HTTP instead of HTTPS.
Google also notes that Chrome will now display a warning when you try to download “high-risk files” while on an insecure connection. These alerts are scheduled to be rolled out in an update coming next month. In the meantime, the warnings will look like the image above.
