1282982 - Implement chrome.management.setEnabled

Status: NEW

(WebExtensions :: General, enhancement, P5)

Description

[Matthew Wein [:mattw]]

Chrome documentation: https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/management#method-setEnabled

Comment 1

[Bob Silverberg [:bsilverberg]]

Some examples of usage from "popular chrome extensions":

- Video Downloader Pro is using it to enable a particular extension (Google Cast), after asking the user's permission.

- Adblock has a feature that allows a user to disable all other extensions, for which it uses setEnabled.

Comment 2

[Bob Silverberg [:bsilverberg]]

We are going to hold off on implementing this API method until some compelling use cases are presented by the developer community.

Comment 3

[vincent]

Here is an example of use case for wich I need this API working also to enable / disable a WebExtension.

I have a WebExtension (call it A) with allow users to enable / disable several parameters related to our company user experience, including the use of our a newtab page.
As in WebExtension, newTab feature is provided by key chrome_url_overrides in manifest, I can't enable or disable it on the fly from my Extension. A solution is to have a dedicated webExtension (call it B) who only provide this newTab feature, and we propose to our users to install it only if they want to enable this feature. 

If a user change his mind, and want to disable it, we would like to have a simple way to disable it.
To allow users to enable or disable this new tab page in one click from extension A, I need to enable or disable extension B. That means calling setEnable extension B from A.

Comment 4

[ottodevs]

(In reply to Bob Silverberg [:bsilverberg] from comment #2)
> We are going to hold off on implementing this API method until some
> compelling use cases are presented by the developer community.

2 years later and setEnabled still only works for themes...

Here is one of the best use cases:

An extension manager, where the user can manage selective activation of add-ons from a handful icon on the add-ons bar, primarly for security purposes, like the metamask extension add-ons or other cryptocurrencies/financial/sensitive related add-ons that expose their APIs to other tabs with potential harmful effects, this kind of "add-on manager" would also be useful for performance purposes, where the user can define profiles or sets of enabled/disabled add-ons to quickly change their state.

The Chrome web store has plenty of this extension managers, being very popular some of them, like Extensity or Extension Manager.

Comment 5

[Firefox Bug Husbandry Bot]

Bulk move of bugs per https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1483958

Comment 6

[Chris Royer]

Another example it would help someone develop a better add-on manager since Bug 1499500 was caused in version 59, things like https://ainoob.com/en/project/nooboss could be developed for Firefox.

Comment 7

[Trishul]

I really need this API to support extensions to complete my addon (I have it working seamlessly in chrome)

Firefox - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/permission-inspector/
Chrome - https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/permission-inspector/ahfoecogpaccmnaiilgchbfemajmkcdi

Comment 8

[anon]

After the changes to the add-on manager in Firefox 68, it would be nice if this feature could be reconsidered. The add-on manager is fine for users with only a few extensions. However, for users that have many extensions installed, the add-on manager is inefficient. Here are some issues with the current about:addons page:

• Interacting with an extension now requires multiple clicks.
• Not many extensions are displayed on the screen and a lot of scrolling may be required to find one.
• Enabled and disabled extensions look the same. When scrolling fast, it's easy to miss when the other section begins.
• If a user wishes to temporarily enable/disable multiple extensions that are displayed on the screen, the extensions are immediately sorted into the opposite category, requiring more scrolling to access them again.

With the capability to enable/disable an extension, extension managers in Firefox could do the following:

• Compactly display the extensions in either a sidebar, toolbar button popup, or customized add-on page.
• Display a find box that could search through extension names as well as descriptions.
• Sort the extensions by enabled/disabled or alphabetically with favorite extensions optionally on top of the list.
• Enable or disable extensions with a single click.
• Go to an extensions options page or home page with a single click.
• Switch between groups of extensions with profiles.
• Disable all extensions and then restore the same extensions back to enabled with a toggle switch.
• Use tabs or folders to place extensions into categories like enabled, disabled, favorites, recent, etc...

10 of the top Chrome extension managers currently have around 500k users. While a small number, it still shows that there is an audience for this feature.

Google Chrome extension managers:

• Extensity (166k)
• SimpleExtManager (78k)
• Extensions Manager (aka Switcher) (74.6k)
• Extension Manager (65k)
• Disable Extensions Temporarily (36.6k)
• Chrome Extension Manager (35.8k)
• One Click Extensions Manager (19.5k)
• Custom Chrome - Extension Manager (11.6k)
• Extensions Manager (10.8k)
• NooBoss(9.9k)

Comment 9

[github]

Would like to add additional pain points from the built in add-on manager:

• can't stack add-on icons in toolbar (useful for hiding mostly passive security/privacy add-ons)
• can't quickly (few clicks) add/remove/enable/disable/configure add-ons from toolbar
• add-on screen doesn't allow sorting/organizing of list
• add-on screen doesn't support ctl+f
• no add-on scoping (tab,container,site) /automation

Comment 10

[[e-mail]]

If you have more than a handful of extensions, firefox's addon menu is very tedious. The vast amounts of empty space does not help.

Comment 11

[Rob Wu [:robwu]]

Bug 1336908 added support for enabling/disabling themes. Disabling/enabling extensions is not supported yet due to concerns of abuse.

If a patch comes along that has safeguards against abuse (e.g. prompting the user before allowing an extension to disable another extension, with clear attribution and hooking up with the "Report abuse" feature, potentially with an opt-in (internal permission / preference)), then we are willing to approve it.

Comment 12

[szh7379]

(In reply to [e-mail] from comment #10)

If you have more than a handful of extensions, firefox's addon menu is very tedious. The vast amounts of empty space does not help.

Can't agree more, nobody only install few addons, not every addon need be enabled all the time, it hurt the performance of Firefox.

Comment 13

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

What about allowing it for enterprise force_installed extensions?

Comment 14

[[:7sDream]]

Please consider implementing this feature, as allowing the enable/disable functionality for extensions can be very useful, not limited to a better add-on manager.

The NooBoss extension (on Chrome) has an automatic management feature, which can automatically enable or disable certain extensions based on the currently opened URLs. I use it frequently; for example, enable the video capture extension only when I watching YouTube; enable the "remove Google redirect" extension only when I visit Google search; enable Tampermonkey only for websites where I need it, and so on.

This can significantly reduce the background tasks of extensions unrelated to the current user activity, which I believe is beneficial for both performance and battery runtime.

Comment 15

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

Attachment: Bug 1282982 - Allow setEnabled for policy installed extensions. r=robwu!

Comment 16

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

[Tracking Requested - why for this release]: At the RSA conference, I heard from multiple enterprise addon vendors that this was a major issue for them. So I'd like to get it in this release is possible.

I'm actively working on a patch.

It will be a very isolated, enterprise only patch.

Comment 17

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The bug is marked as tracked for firefox139 (beta). We have limited time to fix this, the soft freeze is in 9 days. However, the bug still has low priority and has low severity.

:mixedpuppy, could you please increase the priority and increase the severity for this tracked bug? If you disagree with the tracking decision, please talk with the release managers.

For more information, please visit BugBot documentation.

Comment 18

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

This will land in nightly today.

Comment 19

[Rob Wu [:robwu]]

Mike - this bug requests the feature in general, but the patch does not make the feature generally available. It limits the feature to extensions installed through the enterprise policy. Would it make sense to move the patch to a new bug blocking this bug for clarity?

Comment 20

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

Yeah, that's fair.

Comment 21

[Phabricator Automation]

Comment on attachment 9485358 [details]
Bug 1282982 - Allow setEnabled for policy installed extensions. r=robwu!

Revision D247771 was moved to bug 1966113. Setting attachment 9485358 [details] to obsolete.

Comment 22

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

I opened https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1966113 for this./