Google did not achieve its goal of definitively saying goodbye to all Chrome Appsfrom 2018. Instead, they now choose to maintain another two-year timeline, in which the support of Chrome Apps is slowly being reduced.
In 2016, Google announced that it wanted to reach the end of Chrome Apps in two years, but four years later this still hasn’t happened. At that time, the plan was to stop support for Chrome on Windows, Mac and Linux, so this year, Google will start with those user groups. Only after that will it stop supporting Chrome Apps on its own Chrome OS.
The end for Chrome Apps falls on Windows, Linux and Mac users in June this year, with the addition of Chrome Enterprise and Chrome Educations in December. Chrome OS will be supported until the middle of 2021, with Chrome Apps ending forgood in June 2022.
Chrome extensions are the future
With Chrome Apps, Google offered the possibility to run applications through the browser, even though a browser wasn’t always necessary. Chrome Apps was not used much by users of Chrome, and Google thinks that with some more investment, Chrome Extensions would be a good alternative for Apps.
In the blog post announcing the departure of Apps, Google also mentions that the support for Chrome Extensions is still up and running and there will still be investments to expand and improve that side of the coin.