Advice Request Is Developer Mode risky in Chromium browsers?

[South Park]

I have been wondering if using Developer Mode is risky in Chromium browsers, but I haven't been able to find anything current about this topic. There's an add-on I'd like to use on Chromium, but it isn't available in the extension store because of policy. If I use Developer Mode to install it, would it make general browsing any less safe?

 

[The_King]

If I use Developer Mode to install it, would it make general browsing any less safe?

If you install a malicious extension in Chrome using dev mode it can possibly compromise your entire browser and your PC.

If you feel comfortable posting which extension you want to install then maybe someone can suggest an alternative that is available in the Chrome extension store.

 

[shmu26]

Make sure you trust the extension, and make sure you disable Developer Mode after you install it. Don't leave Developer Mode enabled.

 

[South Park]

In this case, I trust the extension, which is open source and available as an official Firefox add-on. If I install it in Developer Mode and then turn Developer Mode off, will the extension still automatically update?

 

[The_King]

In this case, I trust the extension, which is open source and available as an official Firefox add-on. If I install it in Developer Mode and then turn Developer Mode off, will the extension still automatically update?

A good reason to ditch chrome for FF.

Seem like it needs to be in the chrome web store to auto update and not installed in dev mode..

No, chrome would not auto-update the unpacked extension(that is in developer mode). Whenever you load an unpacked extension, you get a unique app id which will be different from the one that is hosted on chrome web store or any other server. 21-Apr-2018

Are unpacked Chrome extensions automatically updated?

I want to use an old version of Evernote Web Clipper and prevent the browser from updating it, so I extracted the .crx and loaded it as an unpacked extension. Can Chrome automatically update extens...

stackoverflow.com

 

[South Park]

Thank you all for your answers. It turns out that when I install a .crx extension in developer mode and then turn developer mode off, auto-update depends on the Chromium variant and the platform.

Chromium 96 stable (not ungoogled) on Windows 10: Shows an error message on update, disables the add-on until permissions are re-granted.
Kiwi 96 on Android 9 phone: Auto-updates without errors, asks for new permissions
Kiwi 96 on Android 5 tablet: Does not try to update, must be updated manually.