Latest Chrome update issues?

I have version Version 35.0.1916.114 m of Google Chrome. Friday I saw many of my extensions were disabled and "greyed out" and could not be enabled because they were not from the Chrome Store. Today I see that they can be enabled once again. Does anyone know if Google plans to try this again in the future where the only extensions come from their store?

Also, I noticed that with the latest update there are all sorts of new notifications in my system tray: icons and update status info for Chrome, Google Drive and some others.

Is there any way to make Google Chrome updates manual? I just don't like these auto updates from them anymore. Or is it better to just start using Chromium again? Is there any program or extension for Chromium that give notifications about updates being available along with a change log or allows you to select which update features you want?

 

I run Chrome in a "manual update" config:

1) Make sure both Google services are set to manual (the default for one of them is Auto Delayed)
2) Delete both Google tasks in Task Sceduler
3) Delete (or just disable if you're uncomfortable deleting) the Google Update plugin in about: plugins

With the above settings, you will now have control over when Chrome updates by simply going to Settings > About Google Chrome

 

Nice catch, never knew they re-enabled extensions outside of the store again. As for permanency it's anyone's guess. There is a bug that disables the extension whenever you enable "Allow access to file URLs", but otherwise I'm glad it's back.

 

About as permanent as "crap it's gone!". Thank you Google, you saved morons from messing up manual installation of browser extensions... as if that is what anyone should worry about!

1. It restricts freedom.
2. It censors extensions.
3. It does relatively nothing for computer security.
4. It adds next to nothing to what is already in place.
5. It generates money for Google.