What you need to know
- Google is launching two new badges on the Chrome Web Store.
- The Featured badge will highlight high-quality extensions that follow Google's best practices.
- The Established Publisher badge is granted to developers that have verified their identity and have no record of violations.
Google is increasing its efforts to help Chrome users find the best browser extensions by launching new badges for the Chrome Web Store. Starting today, users who visit the store will start seeing two new badges appearing on select extensions: the Featured badge and the Established Publisher badge.
The new Featured badge will appear on extensions that follow Google's "technical best practices" and meet the company's standards for design and user experience. This includes adhering to user privacy guidelines and a landing page that clearly explains what the extension does with high-quality images and descriptions.
The Established Publisher badge would appear on extensions by developers that have been verified. These developers have also "established a consistent positive track record with Google services" and comply with the company's Developer Program Policy.
Google says that its Chrome Team manually checks extensions to ensure that they qualify for the Featured badge. A cursory glance at our best Chrome extensions for working from home shows that many of our selections already feature either badge or both, offering great ways to keep you productive. Google also notes that in order to ensure quality, developers cannot pay for these badges. That said, developers can request that their extensions be reviewed in order to potentially receive the Features badge.
For those of you who rely heavily on extensions for your browsers, this could be a useful way of weeding out low-quality ones. Last year, the company also introduced new Google Chrome security protections that would inform users if they're about to download "bad" extensions that aren't trusted.
