Browser settings hijacking continues to be a top issue for Chrome users, particularly on Windows. A user’s start page, home page and default search engine are critical parts of their Chrome experience, so we are creating an extension-based Settings API for Chrome on Windows to ensure all users have notice and control over any settings changes that take place in their browser. We expect to release this API to the Stable channel in May, after which it will be the only way for developers to make programmatic settings changes in Chrome on Windows. The API is available now on the Windows Dev channel.

If your software relies on making changes to user settings within Chrome as part of its feature set, make sure you begin moving your code to use this new API now and send us your feedback.

Update May 16, 2014: We won't be restricting other methods of changing settings until Chrome 36 which should be released around mid-July. This should give you another full release cycle to switch over to the new API.

Posted by Erik Kay, Engineering Director