Featured and established publisher badges are now listed in the Chrome Web Store

If you’ve visited the Chrome Web Store recently, you may have noticed that many extensions appear with a prominent and established publisher badge in the Store.

The Chrome Web Store is the place to go when it comes to installing browser extensions. Since many browsers are based on the same core as Chrome, users of these browsers can also install extensions from the Google store.

The badge may resemble the recommended badge that Mozilla has been using since 2019 in the Firefox Addons store, and there are indeed some similarities. Mozilla curates recommended Firefox extensions, and extensions with the Featured Badge in Chrome are also curated by members of the Chrome team.

Google notes that the featured extensions technically follow the company’s best practices and “meet a high standard of user experience and design.” Additionally, to be selected by a member of the Chrome team, extensions must respect users’ privacy and have a “store listing page that is clear and useful to users” and features “quality images and a description detailed”.

The second badge that Google released in the Chrome Web Store provides validation for publishers. The “Established Publisher Badge” highlights publishers in the Chrome Web Store who have verified their identity and have a “consistent positive track record with Google services and developer program policy compliance.”

The publisher badge is displayed to the right of the publisher’s name or web address. It comes in different sizes, depending on the length of the publisher’s name.

Google notes that any extension developer will be considered, as long as the developer doesn’t “have any unresolved violations and follows the Chrome Web Store Developer Program Policies.” New developers take at least a couple of months before they qualify for inclusion.

Google is testing other inclusion options. It is currently running a test that “allows developers to nominate extensions for the Featured badge.”

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The Featured badge confirms that an extension adheres to Google’s best practices and respects user privacy. It doesn’t tell users anything about the functionality provided or how useful it is. One of the most popular Chrome extensions, uBlock Origin doesn’t have the featured bag or vendor verification badge, but it’s still one of the most useful extensions for the browser.

The established publisher badge seems to be more useful as it weeds out new publishers and some of the bad actors. While Chrome users shouldn’t blindly trust it, it can play an important role when it comes to checking Chrome extensions.

Now you: What’s your take on Chrome’s new established editor and featured badges?

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