title: Loading unpacked extensions error when running Protractor E2E tests
body: <p>After some recently rolled out policy updates with Chrome, we are now experiencing the unpacked extension issue when running Protractor E2E tests with Selenium Web Driver.</p>
  
  <p>The error is:</p>
  
  <pre class="lang-none prettyprint-override"><code>Failed to load extension from:C:\Users\...\AppData\Local\Temp\scoped_dir9090_11922\internal.
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Loading of unpacked extensions is disabled by the administrator.</p>
  
  <p>This internal folder was unziped from internal.zip, and contains the following <code>manifest.json</code>:</p>
  
  <pre class="lang-json prettyprint-override"><code>{
    "key": "MIGfMA0GCSqGSI...",
    "name": "Chrome Automation Extension",
    "version": "1",
    "manifest_version": 2,
    "description": "Exposes extension APIs for automating Chrome",
    "background": {
      "scripts": ["background.js"]
    },
    "permissions": [
       "tabs", "management", "&lt;all_urls&gt;"
    ]
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>In the <em>protractor config</em> file we tried to disable extensions here, but it had no effect:</p>
  
  <pre class="lang-json prettyprint-override"><code>multiCapabilities: [        
           {
               browserName: 'chrome',
               chromeOptions: {
                   args: [
                       '--disable-extensions', '--disable-plugins', '--start-maximized'
                   ]
               }
           },
      ]
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>As per <a href="https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=604324#c22" rel="nofollow noreferrer">comment 22 on March 31st</a> in <a href="https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=604324" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this Chrome bug</a>, they introduced a new Chrome option, <code>--useAutomationExtension</code>. So as soon as I get Protractor working again on my box, I will try it as follows:</p>
  
  <pre class="lang-json prettyprint-override"><code>chromeOptions: {
      args: [
            '--disable-extensions', '--disable-plugins', '--start-maximized',
            '--useAutomationExtension=false'
      ]
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <h3>My primary question is:</h3>
  
  <p>Has anyone pinpointed exactly the extension name which is unpacked, and what to communicate to their IT department for whitelist purposes?
  <a href="https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromedriver/issues/detail?id=639" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Here is an old post which addresses this issue</a>.</p>
  
  <h3>In addition:</h3>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Has anyone successfully implemented the <code>--useAutomationExtension=false</code> option in <em>protractor.conf.js</em>?</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>I will update this post as I progress throughout the day, hoping to add some clarity.</p>