from the why-not-add-an-icon-to-customize-your-icon-bar dept.
Google is testing a user-interface change that will hide Chrome extensions by default, which is not going down well with developers.
Instead of allowing extension icons to appear one after another to the right of the omnibox – the input box for URLs and search queries – the Chrome Extensions Platform team is trying out a design change that hides the graphical buttons in a menu accessed by a puzzle piece icon.
The test is called the Chrome Extension Toolbar menu and can be enabled from the Chrome Experiments interface, which is accessible by entering chrome://flags/#extensions-toolbar-menu into the omnibox.
"Our goal with this new UI is to make it easier for users to see what extensions can access their data," explained extensions developer advocate Simeon Vincent in a post to the Chromium extensions forum last week.
"When the user clicks the puzzle piece icon, the extension menu opens and displays a list of all enabled extensions the user has installed. The extension list is grouped by the level of data access the extension has on the currently selected tab."
[...] The point of the Chrome Extension Toolbar experiment is to make the privacy implications of extensions, and the permissions they request, more visible to users.
[...] Users will be able to "pin" extension icons so they remain visible and available for interaction, but they have to choose to do so upon installation. That's the opposite of the behavior in Chrome 80, the current stable version of Google's browser, where extension icons get pinned by default. Developers of extensions thus can no longer assume that users will be able to engage with their code.
[...] "I completely agree with everyone else's sentiment, hiding icons by default seems like a terrible user experience and will cause many more issues than it fixes," wrote Evan Carothers, founder of recruiting and sales extension ZapInfo. "The excuse of keeping the UI uncluttered makes no sense considering the users are opting to install these extensions."
Carothers argued it would be better to continue pinning extensions by default and to provide users with an option to unpin if they really can't deal with the clutter. To do otherwise, he contended, will limit extension usage and adoption.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 08 2020, @12:18AM (2 children)
If I wanted random UI changes, I would use Firefox.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 08 2020, @02:04AM
The cops posing as Google employees have to keep themselves busy somehow.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 08 2020, @05:41AM
Indeed, if I wanted more of a UI than a textbox, I would use something other than Chrome!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 08 2020, @12:22AM
Do no ... cha ching.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 08 2020, @12:25AM (2 children)
Crazy times we live in. Doublethink is happening.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 08 2020, @01:21PM (1 child)
Not the first time. Mozilla loves doublespeaking, and so much comes from their actions & behavior. Much of it is in the name of 'improving or enhancing the user experience', but rarely if ever do those change improve anything:
-We support diversity (but only diversity we like)
-Enabling by default Pocket/Recommended by Pocket/Recommended extensions/Mozilla snippits/Recommended features improves the UX
-Disabling old add-ons enhances the user experience.
-Moving options from preferences to about:config enhances the user experience.
-Removing options from about:config enhances the user experience.
-Forced upgrades of Firefox enhances the user experience.
-Forcing users to modify the UI via a needless json file is easier for the users.
-Removal of the status bar provides better information to the users
-Removal of the 'blank page' option form settings/about:config/config file and forcing users to use 'Firefox home' improves the UX (I'm sure this is coming, just wait!)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Wednesday April 08 2020, @04:35PM
I didn't know Mozilla is also responsible for Chrome …
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 08 2020, @08:52AM (2 children)
The next step is to remove that button from the UI. After all, few users clicked on it according to the telemetry so it isn't needed.
Assholes.
It's time to fork Chrome.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 08 2020, @01:18PM
You mean use Edge?
Actually, there is Opera, and several other Chromium-based browsers already.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Wednesday April 08 2020, @04:38PM
If you use a fork anyway, then why not one of Firefox?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 4, Informative) by KritonK on Wednesday April 08 2020, @11:08AM
... there used to be a browser called Firefox, that had a thing called "status bar" at the bottom, where extensions would place their icons by default, rather than taking valuable space from the URL bar, awesome bar, omnibox, or whatever it's called these days.
One of the reasons I'm sticking with Waterfox Classic, rather than using Firefox or switching to a Chromium-based browser, is that I can still have a place for those icons without shrinking the URL area to uselessness and without requiring tricks such as the one proposed by Google, or Vivaldi's ability to hide/unhide selected icons.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday April 08 2020, @08:32PM (2 children)
So, in order to make it more obvious to users what extensions may have access to the data on a page, they're going to hide the very existence of the extension behind a layer of indirection. SUUUUUUuuuure.
I propose instead that they add a new extension button to chrome. When you press it, an AI driven robotic arm smacks a randomly chosen Google UI designer with a wet squirrel. Now, THAT would be a popular feature!
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Wednesday April 08 2020, @09:07PM
If only...
Then I can create a script to simulate clicking that button every fifteen seconds.
I'm sure it would become a very popular download even if I charged for it. :P
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 2) by Booga1 on Wednesday April 08 2020, @11:08PM
Next up, a button that you have to click to enable the extensions for the page you are on before it will show you the button you can use to show you the buttons for the extensions. Button must be clicked on each page load.
After that, they'll have the button enabled per field/paragraph/image. Ya know, for security and convenience!