Vendor-neutral open-source Chrome Webstore alternative?

[vairag22]

Are there any vendor-neutral open-source alternative to the Chrome Webstore? You know like open-vsx.org, an alternative to Visual Studio Marketplace. Did anyone ever try to do it?

[megastallman]

I was also thinking about that kind of option, but it probably needs much bigger effort from UC team, and it would be too difficult to catch up with google market. Thinking even, not about open-vsx.org, but more about F-Droid store.
But I basically think that google market is not that dangerous. It is more about extension developrs - to avoid adding telemetry and other trojan functional.

One more idea - why not adding https://github.com/NeverDecaf/chromium-web-store during UC build process? But this Chromium Web Store plugin periodically connects to 2 google domains to check/download plugins. So, I keep it disabled all the time, because I prefer a silent browser, that doesn't knock everywhere when not asked to.

So, maybe the guys are right about providing us the best of that browser, and then we can compromise it as much as we want.

[Ahrotahn]

It would be pretty easy to have a page open on first launch. I think the FAQ would be a better page than the readme since the browser is already installed and end users would be more likely to want to know how to install extensions, enable spellcheck, widevine, etc.

[vairag22]

Yeah FAQ is more suitable than README. But I think a custom launch page that has both FAQ and Changelog will be better as it would cater both new and old users.

[wchen342]

Yeah I think a landing page that launches each update instead of only first installation is the best option, because it counts both new and old users. We can add a switch for each page visited so old users won't keep visiting seen pages. FAQ is good but it has the same probelm with README: not all users know to visit them.

[PF4Public]

Yeah I think a landing page that launches each update instead of only first installation is the best option

Please don't do this to me! I hate it when Vivaldi wants to brag about itself upon each update! I simply do not care!

[Ahrotahn]

Concerning the original topic:

Any servers that any of us host would be just as prone to outages and compromises as Googles's servers if not more so since we're not a large corporation.

I think if we were to go so far as to try to include the webstore extension then it would be less effort to use the existing code in Chromium by setting the URL for the webstore behind a disabled flag. The URL's value could be contained in the flag choices header which we have full control over and isn't domain substituted since it's created at patchtime. This would also allow end users the ability to set the URL to whichever server they are comfortable using instead of being dictated by us.

I don't believe that undergoing such a project is something that would be all that beneficial, but only for the current state of affairs. Once manifest v3 rolls out there may be renewed interest once devs are no longer allowed to submit v2 extensions. I guess we'll have to see how things pan out with that.