Google to let businesses create curated Chrome Web Stores for extensions

Google has announced it will soon allow organizations to create their own curated "Enterprise Web Store" of company-sanctioned browser extensions for Chrome and ChromeOS, aimed at improving productivity, security, and management for businesses.

The new store, planned to enter preview later this year, aims to provide businesses with a dedicated, curated environment for browser extensions commonly used in their organization.

Chrome Enterprise is Google's platform to support businesses with secure, cloud-based, and scalable solutions for managing devices, browsers, and applications.

It extends the capabilities of ChromeOS and the Chrome browser with features like advanced security controls, centralized management, and enterprise-level support.

The new Enterprise Web Store for extensions will offer two main advantages. First, it will allow businesses to curate recommended extensions tailored to their specific needs.

This will help standardize tools across the organization while minimizing security risks by preventing users from downloading unverified or risky add-ons that could potentially steal corporate data.

Secondly, integrated extension telemetry will provide IT admins real-time insights into extension usage and activity.

Deep integration with Google SecOps and risk scoring offers detailed information on potential security threats, enabling timely intervention and better control over the browser environment.

More Chrome Enterprise features

Apart from the Enterprise Web Store, Google has also announced the introduction of the following features for Chrome Enterprise:

• AI features "Help me Read" to summarize documents, "Welcome Recap" to continue from the last session point, and "Live Translate" for real-time audio translations.
• Copy/paste control policies, screenshot protections with new "Private Preview" feature, and "Evidence Locker" tool for secure file storage during incident response operations.
• New system version rollback feature on ChromeOS that retains all user files.
• AI-recommended policies and natural language search on the Google Admin Console.

Google announced some of these features earlier this month with the introduction of its new line of business Chromebook devices, Chromebook Plus, which enable AI-powered experiences.