The future is in the cloud

Google finally got back to us regarding why v14 was rejected, and it has something to do with how we’re coding the subscription verification logic. We’ll try to refactor the code to comply, but this puts us at another fork in the road: we’ll probably have to eventually migrate the Options page to be completely server-side. Frankly, this is what we should have done from the very beginning if we’d had enough resources and time then. This is how the big freemium extensions do it (e.g., Loom), and “this is the way” 🤓. Moving Options to the server has many upsides with only one minor downside:

• ➕ We can continuously improve it without having to go through the lengthy extension review process.
• ➕ We have complete control over our code without having to meet stringent MV3 requirements (example).
• ➕ Better protection from bad actors cracking the extension, etc.
• ➖ The Options page will be a little slower to load.

While we’re at it, we also plan to modernize the UI (finally) so the Options page has the same look and feel as the side panel. Since we’re hardcore about privacy, we’re going to try and see if we can implement a server-side Options page without requiring user registration and login.

Note that all this won’t be happening until version 15, so it’s likely about a year away. Until then, we’ll complete all the biggest features planned for v14 (data encryption, macro recorder). If Google won’t accept our refactored code, we’ll release the latest version to the BETA channel. If Google rejects that as well, we’ll stop there because we’re not going to win going up against a big corporation. In the worst-case scenario, to use the latest features in v14, you’ll have to use the Edge or Firefox version (sorry) until v15 with the server-side Options page is released sometime in 2026. If it’s any consolation, you always own your own data, and it can be imported/exported between all Lightning Autofill versions without restrictions across all browsers.