I didn't know this was a restriction before! Interesting. I would have assumed old headless had a profile, that typical command-line efforts[1] would let one load extensions. Are we sure that your question is valid? Are we sure that previous headless Chrome didn't have profiles or couldn't load extensions? I'm not sure this question is valid. I think maybe the assumptions here are incorrect.
The new Chrome headless certainly purports to be "just Chrome" "without actually rendering." One of the notable differences in the new headless mode is that it at least shows the stock/built-in extensions. From the submission:
> Similarly, when it comes to plugins, the old headless Chrome used to return no plugins with navigator.plugins, which is a technique that used to be exploited for detection when Headless Chrome got released 6 years ago, cf this blog post. The new headless Chrome returns the same plugins as a headful Chrome, and that’s the same for the mimeTypes obtained with navigator.mimeTypes:
Maybe perhaps the new headless is faking it, but my impression is that extensions definitely work as normal in the new headless Chrome. How or whether they worked before is another very very interesting question I'd like answers to.
I do wish the AMA dev had actually replied to this. My hope is that this wasn't an issue before (but default plugins just weren't installed, and now they are, just to alter fingerprinting), and that now the situation is unchanged but default plugins are installed.
The new Chrome headless certainly purports to be "just Chrome" "without actually rendering." One of the notable differences in the new headless mode is that it at least shows the stock/built-in extensions. From the submission:
> Similarly, when it comes to plugins, the old headless Chrome used to return no plugins with navigator.plugins, which is a technique that used to be exploited for detection when Headless Chrome got released 6 years ago, cf this blog post. The new headless Chrome returns the same plugins as a headful Chrome, and that’s the same for the mimeTypes obtained with navigator.mimeTypes:
Maybe perhaps the new headless is faking it, but my impression is that extensions definitely work as normal in the new headless Chrome. How or whether they worked before is another very very interesting question I'd like answers to.
I do wish the AMA dev had actually replied to this. My hope is that this wasn't an issue before (but default plugins just weren't installed, and now they are, just to alter fingerprinting), and that now the situation is unchanged but default plugins are installed.
[1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16800696/how-install-crx...