[user24]

yes that's true, I should have been more specific that I wasn't talking about extensions and themes - those do rightfully belong in a Chrome-only marketplace, because they genuinely only work on Chrome.

But the 'apps' are literally just websites. Some of them use newer APIs which other browsers don't support yet.

The same situation happened with localStorage, CSS, cookies, Ajax, JSON. The correct approach now is the same approach we used with those technologies; use them where we can, fall back where we can't. The approach Google's pushing is: Use them on Chrome, lock out where you can't.

[WesleyJohnson]

Websites require servers to operate, 'apps' do not necessarily have this same requirement. You can certainly create a standalone app in Google Chrome that I wouldn't classify as an extension because it neither augments existing website(s) or the browsing experience.

For example, I was working on a finance management app in Chrome along the lines of Quicken or MsMoney. The 'app' used plain HTML, jQuery and local storage to function and save your transactions. No server is needed in this scenario and I surely wouldn't call this a website or an extension.

[user24]

> 'apps' do not necessarily have this same requirement

But a great many do. Many of the 'apps' on Google's web store are literally just normal web apps doing their normal thing, expect that Google is presenting them as though they don't work in anything but Chrome.

> No server is needed in this scenario

Where is the html/etc hosted?