Chrome Web Store

Chrome Web Store is a Google site that allows developers to publish add-ons to the Chrome browser. These include extensions, apps, and themes. The Chrome Web Store also has a games section, which contains apps that are games. Additionally, some apps on the Chrome Web Store are simply links to websites that function like apps.
Google has announced a timeline of policy changes that will lead to content being removed between December 1, 2020 and 2025.
== Chrome Apps ==
A Chrome app is a web application that runs on the Chrome browser. These were originally supported on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chrome OS, but support on all but Chrome OS is now very limited. Google removed the apps section of the store for Windows, Mac, and Linux in December 2017, though until 2023 it is still possible to install apps on these platforms with a direct link. In early 2023, support for launching Chrome Apps on non-Chrome OS platforms was removed, and with the launch of the new Chrome Web Store in late 2023, support for installing Chrome Apps on these platforms was removed.
Google has since announced a timeline for the complete removal of apps. https://blog.chromium.org/2020/08/changes-to-chrome-app-support-timeline.html
March 2020:
Chrome Web Store stopped accepting new public Chrome apps. Developers will be able to update existing Chrome apps through June 2022.
Enterprise administrators may continue to submit new private and unlisted Chrome apps to the Chrome Web Store.
June 2021:
General support for Chrome Apps on Windows, Mac, and Linux will end June 2021. Organizations will be able to use a policy setting to extend support on Windows, Mac, and Linux through June 2022. General support for Chrome Apps on Chrome OS will remain enabled, without requiring any policy setting, through June 2022.
June 2022:
Chrome Web Store will stop accepting new and updated private and unlisted Chrome apps.
End support for Chrome Apps, NaCl, PNaCl, and PPAPI for all platforms.
In October 2021, Google announced that support for Chrome apps on Chrome OS for Enterprise and Education customers will remain available until at least January 2025. 
== Chrome Extensions ==
Chrome extensions add functionality to the browser. Google has announced that it is shutting down its payment system for paid extensions. Free trials for paid extensions will end on December 1, 2020, and all payment support will end on February 1, 2021. Many such extensions have a free base version with in-app purchases. https://developer.chrome.com/webstore/cws-payments-deprecation
Additionally, manifest version 2 Chrome Extensions may be removed from the Chrome Web Store once manifest version 3 is finalized. (There was a period of about 1 year, 3 months following the replacement of manifest version 1 with manifest version 2 before manifest version 1 extensions began to be removed.).
According to a timeline published on 2021-09-23, developers will no longer be able to update manifest version 2 Chrome Extensions after January 2023, so it is likely that those extensions will be removed from the store at some point after that time.
According to a timeline update published on 2022-09-28, public manifest version 2 Chrome Extensions will be made unlisted in June 2023, and after the enterprise policy expires in January 2024, all remaining manifest version 2 extensions will be removed from the Chrome Web Store..
The current timeline, published on 2023-11-16, indicates that manifest version 2 extensions will be removed in June 2025.
== Statistics ==
On June 30, 2020, DebugBear found 137,345 extensions and 39,263 themes. They didn't attempt to find apps. Of these, 4.7% had some form of payment support. Within paid extensions, 86.4% required a one-off payment, 6.3% had in-app purchases, and the remainder had a subscription model. DebugBear uploaded the list to GitHub. 
On August 2, 2019, Extension Monitor reported 188,620 extensions. While the write-up doesn't make a distinction, DebugBear believed this included apps. 
As of 2023-12-06, chrome-stats.com reports 122,168 extensions and 32,696 themes exist on the Chrome Web Store.
== Archiving ==
Apps and extensions can be downloaded as .crx files from Google's CDN. 
Crx4Chrome has a large collection of .crx files for both apps and extensions. This includes older versions of apps/extensions, which in many cases are still downloadable from Google's CDN. 
CRXcavator, operated by Cisco's Duo Security division, scans the entire Chrome Web Store every three hours for new or updated Chrome extensions. This site then performs a security assessment on each extension. This site also stores the source code for each discovered extension version and makes this data accessible to the public. This site launched around early 2019, so extensions that were removed before that time are not included in the site's collection. 
== References ==