Google has announced that it’ll phase out paid extensions from Chrome Web Store over the coming months. Paid Chrome extensions will no longer be available due to increasing instances of fraudulent transactions that led to a temporary suspension on the paid extensions.
Earlier this year, Google announced some changes to the Chrome Web Store to suppress malicious extensions. Since March, developers haven’t been able to upload new paid Chrome extensions. However, this week’s announcement confirms that paid Chrome extensions are not coming back ever again.
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What Google is basically doing is it’s shutting down the Chrome Web Store payments system that developers use to charge for extensions and in-app purchases. So, if a developer is using Chrome Web Store payments to monetize the extensions, they’ll have to migrate to another payment processor, the company said.
The search giant has provided a timeline of how it will discontinue paid Chrome Chrome extensions. Google will take down the free trial option on December 1, and the payment access through the Web Store will be restricted for all the paid Chrome extensions on February 1, 2021.
Google is also planning to switch off its licensing API, which helps developers verify if a user has actually paid for the subscription or not. So, it’s asking the developers to implement another mode for tracking user licenses.
Most of the Google Chrome users don’t have a paid extension, so this won’t bother them. However, it’s a big deal for the developers out there who rely on paid extensions.
