After three and a half years, Google has finally announced the official Chrome Apps retirement timeline. The process is happening in increments, starting with the Chrome Web Store no longer accepting new apps this March and ending with Google dropping Chrome App support on Chrome OS in mid-2022.
Here is the full timeline Google posted on its blog:
- March 2020: Chrome Web Store will stop accepting new Chrome Apps. Developers will be able to update existing Chrome Apps through June 2022.
- June 2020: End support for Chrome Apps on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Customers who have Chrome Enterprise and Chrome Education Upgrade will have access to a policy to extend support through December 2020.
- December 2020: End support for Chrome Apps on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
- June 2021: End support for NaCl, PNaCl, and PPAPI APIs.
- June 2021: End support for Chrome Apps on Chrome OS. Customers who have Chrome Enterprise and Chrome Education Upgrade will have access to a policy to extend support through June 2022.
- June 2022: End support for Chrome Apps on Chrome OS for all customers.
Google initially announced it would retire Chrome Apps back in 2016. This process took so long presumably because Google didn’t think the web was at a place to fill the hole Chrome Apps would leave behind. Now, that has all changed.
“We are confident that the Web can deliver first class experiences on an open platform,” Google writes in its announcement blog.
Related: What is a Chromebook, what can and can’t it do?
The company also notes that extensions will not die with Chrome Apps. Google says it is committed to extension development and that “fostering a robust ecosystem of extensions is critical to Chrome’s mission.”
Google also created a migration site it will continually update throughout this retirement process.
