Chrome automatically removes extensions from the browser

[akash-ooo]

The extension can no longer be installed from the Chrome Store and has been automatically removed from the browser as an extension for not following standard practices.

[leonfrench]

Currently you can install it if you edit the Chrome Store html:
https://x.com/lacybuilds/status/1929519259421462625

[d-bucur]

Google, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that an extension that is basically a timer, doesn't follow their extension "best" practices, which I assume means upselling you to subscriptions, or scraping your visited content to some LLM.

This means that the extension is now permanently disabled, with no way to enable it back. Thank you Google for protecting me from the free, open source extension that I have been using for years!

[alexamy]

By the way, solution suggested by @leonfrench is not working now - after clicking "Add to Chrome" button you will get "Download error: Unsupported manifest version" message.

There is a full copy of this extension in chrome store with slightly different name, but do not install it. It's origin is unclear, code is closed and most importantly - it needs a permission to read your browsing history.

So just want to say thank you for your amazing extension, which I have used for a long time.

[d-bucur]

Ah yes, Google best practices™ mean removing perfectly working extensions because they can't keep up with their latest API madness, while allowing versions of the SAME extension that are data mining your history on the store. What a joke.

PS: make sure to report the "new" version of this for abuse. A timer app definitely does not need access to your browsing history.

[schmich]

@alexamy Thanks for the kind words. I apologize to everyone for not being able to maintain the extension. It's only ever been a passion project. Manifest v3 was a surprisingly major change across the board, and Google offered no assistance despite Marinara having over 300K users.

It's frustrating and demoralizing to see companies make user-hostile decisions, like neutering uBlock Origin or allowing shady knock-off extensions to run wild. I've always stood by users and declined many dozens of offers to sell the extension (no doubt to harvest data or mine crypto), so there's some irony in how this has all played out.

[rasko-lazic]

@schmich Can you go just a bit more in depth why does v3 require a major refactor? Is it possible for somebody to refactor it localy and just use it as an unpacked extension?

[alexamy]

@rasko-lazic Some notes below.

I am making attempt to adapt the extension to v3 somehow, and for 3-4 hours of work, I am already seeing problem about this migration:

Background script in v2 is running in dom environment, the replacement - service worker in v3 - doesn't have access to DOM (so logic using window and DOM API is broken - for example, playing sound is now requiring to spawn offscreen page and sending messages to it). I don't know for sure, but I think the same change breaks custom event system implemented in this extension (services / proxies / brokers).

So the naming convention is not a major problem (eg, action instead of browser_action, namespace changes for some apis), but the main problem (at least that I can see now) is absence of dom environment in background script (the service worker).

[madaster97]

Would it make any sense to try and flip the problem, and deploy this extension as a PWA that talks to a light Service Worker?

https://dev.to/chromiumdev/shipping-pwas-as-chrome-extensions-3l5c
https://blog.pixelfreestudio.com/how-to-implement-service-workers-in-pwas/

Update: I use this extension all the time and would be more than happy to install it as a PWA 😊

[madaster97]

@alexamy , FYI I'm working off your POC. Thanks for doing the heavy lifting... One thing I noticed is that, if I didn't have dev tools open on the Service Worker, the worker would go inactive after 30 seconds and stop counting... From Google:

After 30 seconds you will see "service worker (inactive)" which means the service worker has terminated.
To make sure that your extension behaves correctly when your service worker is terminated, remember to close DevTools.

PS for anyone doing dev on windows, the following worked well after Alex's edits:

• Use choco to install make and ruby
• Work off Alex's fork, since he got past some npm errors by swapping some dependencies
• To fix ERR_OSSL_EVP_UNSUPPORTED, needed to set an environment variable: $env:NODE_OPTIONS="--openssl-legacy-provider"

And if you want to compare Alex's fork to existing v2 behavior, you can force at least certain Chrome versions to accept v2 for now. I tried a combo of options 1.1 and 2 from this article and got things working (I'm skeptical I just needed option 2)

[madaster97]

I tracked down a (discouraged) workaround to the inactivity issue and a relevant thread another timer/productivity extension developer had with Google where they said it was OK for this general use case.

Overview of the workaround:

The code you linked to under 'Keep a service worker alive continuously' will prevent a service worker from stopping. An extension api call resets a service worker timer back to 30 seconds. In that code, chrome.storage.local.set is run every 20 seconds.

Google's documentation on the workaround says:

We have identified enterprise and education as the biggest use cases, and we specifically allow this there, but we do not support this in general
It is not allowed in other cases and the Chrome extension team reserves the right to take action against those extensions in the future

But in the thread above, Google said this:

The only case where we may take action is an extension that keeps the service worker alive continuously without a clear need. For the use case here, I wouldn't expect you to have any issues.

I think they'd approve keeping the SW alive while there is a timer running. But to confirm, would it be fine to let the SW timeout when no timer is running?

[alexamy]

@madaster97 Thanks for highlighting the inactive state problem and the found solution. It helped me to give the migration another shot. :) I've added the same functionality to the Timer class.

I've created a new issue at my fork repository, for further migration discussion and tracking progress: alexamy#1.

[madaster97]

I've been struggling to understand the state/events taking place in v3, so I cloned Google's drink water sample and added in:

• A heartbeat interval + timeout to keep the extension active
• A notification, and managing its state based on clicking the icon to start a new timer

I think it shows the basics for handling the state of the Service Worker over time

[vintageplayer]

Ever since the notice came, I tried re-creating for the same set of features from scratch using React/tailwind. https://github.com/vintageplayer/gamodoro

It works with default settings, by there's a bug in saving/loading settings which I haven't been able to get to. If anyone really needs it, you can probably just change the defafult duration in the code and load unpacked.

Or if you can help fix the settings saving/retrieval bug, then the wide audience could use it.

What's completely missing:

1. Internationalization/locale support
2. Different sounds