📢 Support ending for the Chrome and MS Edge browser extension by 2024 JANUARY

[AgataWlodarczyk]

Dynatrace discontinued support for the Chrome and MS Edge browser extensions in January 2024 as remotely hosted code will no longer be allowed for those browsers.

The SaaS vendor RUM browser extension will soon no longer be hosted in the Chrome store as remotely hosted code is being disallowed by Google. As a result, the JS Agent will no longer pass the Chrome store review process and subsequently, Dynatrace no longer supports browser extensions as of January 2024. However, Dynatrace has solutions available for customers on a case-by-case basis.

Read more:
1. Overview
2. What it means to our customers 
3. Timeline 
4. Alternative Solutions 

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1. Overview 

One of the consequences of the rollout of Manifest Version 3 for Chrome and Microsoft Edge  extensions is that remotely hosted code will not be allowed. An extension will only be able to execute JavaScript that is included within its own package. Because we inject the JS Agent into the customer’s page, and it’s not bundled with the browser extension, we will not pass the Chrome store review process beyond June 2024. Even if we were to bundle the JS Agent within the extension, it would most likely not be approved because we are using some functions that will not be allowed. 

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2. What it means to our customers 

This means that we have discontinued support for the extension and the customers who use our browser extension to inject data will not be able to do so any longer.   

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3. Timeline 

As of the first release of MV3 from Google in June 2024 with version 127 and later, the extension will be disabled in dev/beta/canary versions.   

Also starting in June 2024, the extension might also be rejected in stable Chrome versions depending on Googles evaluation and rollout, but the customers can disable the rejections for with an Enterprise policy.

Once v2 extensions are deleted from the Chrome store, the extension will no longer be usable even with an Enterprise policy.

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4. Alternative Solutions  

Depending on the type of customer application (e.g. Salesforce, Office 365 etc.), there might be other options such as Agentless monitoring with manual injection. We are aware that this solution might not work for all customers, and we’d have to look at applications on a case-by-case basis to see if there are other alternatives. For example, for Salesforce, we also have the option of using the Salesforce Streaming API. There are also extensions available in the Dynatrace HUB for some applications.

[ChadTurner]

Thank you @AgataWlodarczyk for this Notice

[Fin_Ubels]

If there's one thing you can count on, it's google discontinuing something 😢

[michael_taylor]

can we put this link in the documentation as well.

[Xin_Peng]

It's a sad news as we just enabled RUM browser extension monitoring. The timeline section  motioned about Google Chrome only.  Will it apply to MS Edge as well? is Edge a better choice from now on to Jan., 2024? Will MS Edge continue to support RUM extension?

[Mike_L]

The announcement is for both Chrome and Edge.

[loutfi_samadi]

This is a big ouch, as we're left with just two options, OneAgent and Agentless 😭

[Akhil-Jayendran]

Sad news, Thank you @AgataWlodarczyk  for this Notice. We are missing one easy way of agentless injunction.

[MattSeverance]

January 2024, will it still be useable or a Hard cutoff? Completely done by Jan 2024? Is it based on a particular version? Old versions that would still have extensions - an old version might still work? Asking for one of my clients that uses SAP C4C. Thanks.

[bernhard_lackn1]

They will remove it from the store. So the extension cannot be installed any more. We do not know if the plugin will also be kicked out by certain Chrome version but we assume that this will also happen at some point.

[fstekelenburg]

This is interesting enough to know. If (and as long as) the browser, and extension, is not updated, will the extension keep functioning? This may give organisations some extra time.

[natanael_mendes]

thanks @AgataWlodarczyk for this notice

[Daniël]

As the expiration date is coming closer and closer the webextension is going to become unavailable I hope there are already some best practices or tips available which can be shared over here.
In my company we're trying to move, where possible with vendors, from the webextension to the agentless solution. For some it looks promising for some a bit challenging.

A few question I have:

- which suggestions are there for applications that can't move to an agentless solution? (eg a saas provider isn't supporting the ability to add a javascript tag)

- any suggestion to change the configuration within Dynatrace for an application from webextension type to agentless? I'm hoping to keep the existing application running (including baselines, history, configuration etc etc) and have it being modified in the backend rather then creating a new application and migrate all the settings with the consequence that baseline needs to be built again, key user actions to be defined and the history of the application remains behind in the old one. So far support is indicating that they can't change the type of application within Dynatrace.

Looking forward seeing the responses in this matter.

[bernhard_lackn1]

I'll try to answer the questions:
- Suggestions for applications that cannot use agentless: We need to look into that case by case. Sometimes applications support injecting code in other ways or provide montoring data on their own which could be used.

-  changing application from webextension to agentless: this is currently not supported but if this is really important we could look into this. Plz check with the respective product manager (Christian Gustafson)

[sivart_89]

@bernhard_lackn1 we have an application hosted by SAP which we cannot inject JS code into the HTML pages OR install the OneAgent on the application server.

Your suggest of 'We need to look into that case by case. Sometimes applications support injecting code in other ways or provide monitoring data on their own which could be used', how would we start with that?

[fstekelenburg]

It looks like there's a half year more time to think about it, but I second your call for best practice alternatives Daniel.
What alternatives are there, when agents and agentless are not possible? 

For instance, are monitoring through reverse proxies (man in the middle) or injection of agentless through systems like F5 Big-IP feasible alternatives already researched?

[Malaik]

Bad news for some clients. thanks for sharing.

[AurelienGravier]

So sad, it was a great alternative for all applications without the possibility of manual injection!

Google calls the shots! 😳

[fstekelenburg]

Question: has this accouncement only be placed on the community? I can not find it in the release notes or other source.
Unfortunatly not all organisations are following the community (I know, wonder why not as well :)).
This means that it may come as of a unpleasent surprise for those who don't. 
@AgataWlodarczyk ?

[tijust1]

@AgataWlodarczyk What is the solution for Workday as this is another SaaS based application. Do we have any other alternative?

Thanks,

Tijust

[Mickael_]

@AgataWlodarczyk 

The new deadline seems to be June 2024, right ?

https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/develop/migrate/mv2-deprecation-timeline?hl=en

Mickael

[Daniël]

I'm indeed curious to the formal reaction from Dynatrace on the latest Chrome news and support timelines they expect (or other new developments).

As I'm still looking for an alternative are there already some suggestions from other people? I was personally thinking of the idea to perhaps create a sort of proxy with deep monitoring from Dynatrace which can do the injection. This proxy should be between the end-user and the (saas) application where injection can't be done (eg microsoft powerbi). This is not ideal as you would at an additional dependency but in my view one of the few options to keep the monitoring alive. 

[opera_admin]

This announcement is a very very embarrasing issue. We have two thousands users monitored with the browser extension when using a SAP application in a SaaS mode.

We have spent a lot of time for configuring this monitoring, including deployment, settings, dashboarding, and so on ...

I can't imagine that the service offered by the RUM browser extension stops without any alternative.

[AmitChiba]

This is extremely disconcerting. We were about to roll out the extension to our entire organisation (over 20000 workstations), so as to be able to provide RUM for SaaS based applications. The way I see it, is that we now have no way of monitoring MOST SaaS based applications.

I truly hope that an alternative is found that covers a massive gap that will now exist.

[islam_zidan]

thanks @AgataWlodarczyk for this notice. Do we have any replacement/workaround for the current running environments?

[christian_gusta · Accepted solution]

This is something that Google has decided and is not something that Dynatrace has decided so we are looking at alternatives but we don't have a solution yet. 

Google has now finalized the dates and the post have been updated with the new dates. This means that the extension will stop working June 2024 but they also state that the use of the Enterprise policy will allow the extension to work until 2025. This means that the extension will continue to work for some time, but since we cannot upload new versions of the extension we cannot provide support for it.

For workarounds we sadly don't have many options other than Agentless, Salesforce streaming API or there might be extensions in the Dynatrace Hub for some applications. 

[Lasher]

What is replacing the SESSION REPLAY features of the RUM browser extension?

[fstekelenburg]

May I suggest to continue to discuss the impact of loosing the extension option, and any alternatives available, in regard to (unmaged) SaaS applications in the topic Monitoring SaaS Web Applications (like Office 365). It already has a interesting suggestion already mentioned here earlier.

Link:
https://community.dynatrace.com/t5/Open-Q-A/Monitoring-SaaS-Web-Applications-like-Office-365/td-p/11...

[ed_mcdonald]

A product idea around this has been submitted by a community member: https://community.dynatrace.com/t5/Product-ideas/Replacement-for-RUM-Browser-Extension/idi-p/239532#... 

Please feel free to comment and upvote if you believe it a potential solution. 

[Bill_Demsky]

Please consider providing a self-contained extension and a configuration file that we can deploy to our users workstations using the tools we have to manage many applications on our endpoints. A self contained extension appears to be acceptable, and having the configuration file of monitored URLs on the workstation keeps the solution self-contained. We have tools to do the deployment, not as nice was the existing, but not unusual to deploy updates using existing tools. Perhaps that is too simple, and I have missed some details, but we need solutions that are creative.

[arpitasingh]

Hello Agata,

We recently noticed a flag added by Google on this extension page to indicate that the extension may not meet Google's best practices. Our business is aware of competitive products that are available to install via Chrome extensions to monitor our users' performance. I am curious to understand whether Dynatrace will upgrade their extension to meet these best practices or simply discontinue this feature?