Google Chrome extension sync stability tweaks on the way

When they announced that extension sync had arrived in the Google Chrome dev channel, bleeding-edge users fell over themselves updating. Within mere hours (or likely minutes), the complaints started.

Yes, the initial iteration of extension sync was not without its problems. It made Google Chrome a little crashy for some users, but hey -- we're talking about the first go at a brand new feature on an unstable application here. On top of that, it's opt-in and must be enabled via a command line switch. Caveat emptor, right?

Still, the Chrome developer crew wasn't about to take the weekend off and let extension sync continue causing frustration. This morning, a tweak to the extension sync code has landed in the Chromium source code which will "only allow installation of extensions/apps with gallery update URL via download from gallery."

This should help prevent a number of issues -- since sync will now presumably grab extensions using the same method Chrome already used to update your installed extensions. It does, however, mean that sync will only work on extensions you've installed via the official Gallery.

I'm certainly OK with that -- I don't actually use any non-Gallery extensions any more. If you are using some, well... At least you'll be able to sync most of your extensions automatically and Chrome won't crash on you.

Expect to see this one make the jump from Chromium snapshot builds to the Google Chrome dev channel rather quickly.

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