I installed the extension on Bookworm and Trixie and Chromium refuses to
enable it "because it is no longer supported".
It worked on Debian bullseye and buster.

control: severity -1 important

Even though chrome now discourages older plugins, they can be manually enabled:
https://support.google.com/chrome_webstore/answer/2664769?visit_id=638851973258110667-2097406925&p=unsupported_extensions&rd=1#unsupported_extensions

Best wishes,
Mike

control: severity -1 important

Even though chrome now discourages older plugins, they can be manually enabled:
https://support.google.com/chrome_webstore/answer/2664769?visit_id=638851973258110667-2097406925&p=unsupported_extensions&rd=1#unsupported_extensions

Best wishes,
Mike

Hi Michael,

Am Wed, Jun 11, 2025 at 12:21:09AM +0000 schrieb Michael Gilbert:

Thanks for pointing this out. That workaround may indeed still exist.
However, I am not convinced that this alone justifies keeping lwn4chrome
in Debian going forward (cc: Andrew Pollock as upstream).

From my point of view, there are several concerns:

 0. If manual re-enabling is required, this should at least be
    documented clearly in README.Debian. Without that, users will
    reasonably conclude that the package is simply broken on
    current Chromium versions.

 2. The upstream situation is problematic. The original source no
    longer appears to be available online (including Andrew's other
    sites, such as his blog). This is also mentioned in bug #1126052.
    In practice, this means Debian has become the de-facto upstream,
    with no realistic path for upstream maintenance or revival.

 3. Chromium has explicitly moved to disabling older extension formats,
    and this trend is very unlikely to reverse. Keeping a package that
    depends on users bypassing upstream browser safety mechanisms feels
    brittle and increasingly out of step with how Chromium is intended
    to be used.

 4. The functionality itself is modest. Even the description only
    promises to make LWN "slightly easier to read". Given the
    maintenance cost, the ongoing compatibility issues, and the need
    for manual user intervention, I am not sure the benefit-to-effort
    ratio is still reasonable.

 5. From a user perspective, I suspect very few Debian users would
    notice or be negatively impacted if this package were removed. On
    current stable and testing releases, it no longer works out of the
    box, and requiring users to override Chromium's extension policy is
    a significant hurdle.

Taken together, this makes me question whether lwn4chrome still meets
Debian's usual standards for usability and maintainability. While I
appreciate the historical usefulness of the package, removal may now be
the least surprising and most honest option for users.

I'm happy to hear other views, but this is why I currently lean towards
dropping it from the archive.

Kind regards
    Andreas.

Hi Michael,

Am Wed, Jun 11, 2025 at 12:21:09AM +0000 schrieb Michael Gilbert:

Thanks for pointing this out. That workaround may indeed still exist.
However, I am not convinced that this alone justifies keeping lwn4chrome
in Debian going forward (cc: Andrew Pollock as upstream).

From my point of view, there are several concerns:

 0. If manual re-enabling is required, this should at least be
    documented clearly in README.Debian. Without that, users will
    reasonably conclude that the package is simply broken on
    current Chromium versions.

 2. The upstream situation is problematic. The original source no
    longer appears to be available online (including Andrew's other
    sites, such as his blog). This is also mentioned in bug #1126052.
    In practice, this means Debian has become the de-facto upstream,
    with no realistic path for upstream maintenance or revival.

 3. Chromium has explicitly moved to disabling older extension formats,
    and this trend is very unlikely to reverse. Keeping a package that
    depends on users bypassing upstream browser safety mechanisms feels
    brittle and increasingly out of step with how Chromium is intended
    to be used.

 4. The functionality itself is modest. Even the description only
    promises to make LWN "slightly easier to read". Given the
    maintenance cost, the ongoing compatibility issues, and the need
    for manual user intervention, I am not sure the benefit-to-effort
    ratio is still reasonable.

 5. From a user perspective, I suspect very few Debian users would
    notice or be negatively impacted if this package were removed. On
    current stable and testing releases, it no longer works out of the
    box, and requiring users to override Chromium's extension policy is
    a significant hurdle.

Taken together, this makes me question whether lwn4chrome still meets
Debian's usual standards for usability and maintainability. While I
appreciate the historical usefulness of the package, removal may now be
the least surprising and most honest option for users.

I'm happy to hear other views, but this is why I currently lean towards
dropping it from the archive.

Kind regards
    Andreas.

Hi,
Thanks for looping me in.
My website infrastructure is a bit of a mess at the moment and I haven't
been able to prioritise working on fixing that. I could relocate the
upstream for this extension to GitHub though, and while I'm at it resolve
any outstanding issues with the extension functioning desirably. I hadn't
realised it had been packaged for Debian...

Hi,
Thanks for looping me in.
My website infrastructure is a bit of a mess at the moment and I haven't
been able to prioritise working on fixing that. I could relocate the
upstream for this extension to GitHub though, and while I'm at it resolve
any outstanding issues with the extension functioning desirably. I hadn't
realised it had been packaged for Debian...

Hi Andrew,

Am Thu, Jan 22, 2026 at 11:02:16AM +1000 schrieb Andrew Pollock:

:-)

IMHO the less effort way to deal with this.

This would be really helpful.  It would be great if you ping here.
IMHO it would be also a good idea to migrate the Debian packaging
to the Debian team on Salsa when upgrading the package.

LOL

Thanks a lot for stepping in
    Andreas.

Hi Andrew,

Am Thu, Jan 22, 2026 at 11:02:16AM +1000 schrieb Andrew Pollock:

:-)

IMHO the less effort way to deal with this.

This would be really helpful.  It would be great if you ping here.
IMHO it would be also a good idea to migrate the Debian packaging
to the Debian team on Salsa when upgrading the package.

LOL

Thanks a lot for stepping in
    Andreas.

Hi again,

Am Thu, Jan 22, 2026 at 07:10:50AM +0100 schrieb Andreas Tille:

I have not found lwn4chrome at Github.  Do you see any blockers?

I'd happily help in migrating to Salsa in case lwn4chrome can be found
on some upstream location and it will work with recent chromium.

Kind regards
   Andreas.

Hi again,

Am Thu, Jan 22, 2026 at 07:10:50AM +0100 schrieb Andreas Tille:

I have not found lwn4chrome at Github.  Do you see any blockers?

I'd happily help in migrating to Salsa in case lwn4chrome can be found
on some upstream location and it will work with recent chromium.

Kind regards
   Andreas.

Hello,

I haven't had the opportunity to prioritise the time yet. I might be able
to get to it this weekend.

Regards

Andrew

Hello,

I haven't had the opportunity to prioritise the time yet. I might be able
to get to it this weekend.

Regards

Andrew

Progress: https://github.com/andrewpollock/lwn4chrome

Progress: https://github.com/andrewpollock/lwn4chrome

Hi Andrew,

Am Mon, Feb 16, 2026 at 07:05:25PM +1000 schrieb Andrew Pollock:

Thanks a lot.  Its nice to know that you are actively working on this
code.  Do you think you can tag some commit which you consider a
release we could package and confirm whether it works with recent
Chromium.

I'd be happy to see this packaged - even more if the packaging
repository could be moved to Salsa to make it easily accessible for any
DD.

Thanks again
   Andreas.

Hi Andrew,

Am Mon, Feb 16, 2026 at 07:05:25PM +1000 schrieb Andrew Pollock:

Thanks a lot.  Its nice to know that you are actively working on this
code.  Do you think you can tag some commit which you consider a
release we could package and confirm whether it works with recent
Chromium.

I'd be happy to see this packaged - even more if the packaging
repository could be moved to Salsa to make it easily accessible for any
DD.

Thanks again
   Andreas.

I'm not well-positioned to get to this in a timely manner at the current
moment, just to set expectations. I'm happy to tag the commit that is
currently in the Chrome Web Store, but that's realistically all I can
commit (no pun intended to) at the moment.

I'm not well-positioned to get to this in a timely manner at the current
moment, just to set expectations. I'm happy to tag the commit that is
currently in the Chrome Web Store, but that's realistically all I can
commit (no pun intended to) at the moment.

Hi Andrew,

Am Wed, Feb 18, 2026 at 09:18:35PM +1000 schrieb Andrew Pollock:

I'd happily NMU this based on a packaging repository in Debian
team on Salsa if Michael is fine with this.

Kind regards
    Andreas.

Hi Andrew,

Am Wed, Feb 18, 2026 at 09:18:35PM +1000 schrieb Andrew Pollock:

I'd happily NMU this based on a packaging repository in Debian
team on Salsa if Michael is fine with this.

Kind regards
    Andreas.

Am Wed, Feb 18, 2026 at 01:55:53PM +0100 schrieb Andreas Tille:

Done and uploaded to delayed=10.

Kind regards
    Andreas.

Am Wed, Feb 18, 2026 at 01:55:53PM +0100 schrieb Andreas Tille:

Done and uploaded to delayed=10.

Kind regards
    Andreas.

We believe that the bug you reported is fixed in the latest version of
lwn4chrome, which is due to be installed in the Debian FTP archive.

A summary of the changes between this version and the previous one is
attached.

Thank you for reporting the bug, which will now be closed.  If you
have further comments please address them to 1106453@bugs.debian.org,
and the maintainer will reopen the bug report if appropriate.

Debian distribution maintenance software
pp.
Andreas Tille <tille@debian.org> (supplier of updated lwn4chrome package)

(This message was generated automatically at their request; if you
believe that there is a problem with it please contact the archive
administrators by mailing ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org)
Format: 1.8
Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2026 14:28:41 +0100
Source: lwn4chrome
Architecture: source
Version: 1.7-0.1
Distribution: unstable
Urgency: medium
Maintainer: Michael Gilbert <mgilbert@debian.org>
Changed-By: Andreas Tille <tille@debian.org>
Closes: 1106453 1126052
Changes:
 lwn4chrome (1.7-0.1) unstable; urgency=medium
 .
   * Non-maintainer upload.
   * New upstream version
     Closes: #1106453
   * Fix Homepage
     Closes: #1126052
   * Add watch file
   * Maintain in Debian team on Salsa
   * d/copyright: Add Source
   * Standards-Version: 4.7.3 (routine-update)
   * debhelper-compat 13 (routine-update)
   * Remove Priority field to comply with Debian Policy 4.7.3 (routine-
     update)
   * Use correct machine-readable copyright file URI.
   * Add debian/upstream/metadata
Checksums-Sha1:
 1e8da801c5bbad2a0661c6a3823f046642534cb2 1889 lwn4chrome_1.7-0.1.dsc
 f5197f5dba961224d0482a73f2507eddcb68dc05 13822 lwn4chrome_1.7.orig.tar.gz
 5f832244b5818b3f749ee6f9ef6d96c4a117710f 1596 lwn4chrome_1.7-0.1.debian.tar.xz
 58e46ab1dd29a674816d9c7b6eacb35eeab44263 5634 lwn4chrome_1.7-0.1_amd64.buildinfo
Checksums-Sha256:
 7f14561570da3d548fe833e3a9df17ea5f31d0ebcb39ab0d7b5d435520cb61ce 1889 lwn4chrome_1.7-0.1.dsc
 2d5404dccff592a9dbc693682f755b001d832d69eccd250592efbcbbef7871af 13822 lwn4chrome_1.7.orig.tar.gz
 30af00b048551cbaf1866a55a4ffa95b7ce229574100587e2c947fa844da5de4 1596 lwn4chrome_1.7-0.1.debian.tar.xz
 b099f91ee6641dba9a3975925edcb1337e6f0b7386dd9cadf24950af94256d9c 5634 lwn4chrome_1.7-0.1_amd64.buildinfo
Files:
 7fed431907d78410567ae2e449a1ecf7 1889 web optional lwn4chrome_1.7-0.1.dsc
 c059ecd77762aa5aeb299bf19c05e666 13822 web optional lwn4chrome_1.7.orig.tar.gz
 728d698aa9dcd1a708a45bdfb3e9c4c1 1596 web optional lwn4chrome_1.7-0.1.debian.tar.xz
 394f8ec026acd7133d6934b3b475b27a 5634 web optional lwn4chrome_1.7-0.1_amd64.buildinfo
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
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=V0OA
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----