Experimental Dropbox Build 3.7.31 bundles the Dropbox Gmail extension for Chrome

Adding an opt-in method of installing the Chrome extension during installation = Hey thanks! This is really convenient and helpful!

Bundling the extension by default during installation = Really?! Are you kidding?! This extension isn't vital to the Dropbox experience and is only useful to a small subset of users. If you tell users this extension exists, those who want the functionality will gladly install it. I hope you're at least bundling a 1.0 version when this build is released since the version on the Chrome store says it's BETA version 0.9.7.

Wait a minute, isn't this the main reason Google is blocking all offline extension installs across all platform soon and enforcing all installations to be done via its web store?

Why is Dropbox wasting time on something that's about to be broken soon? Unless they have a deal with Google to allow this? If so, isn't that anti-competitive?

I hope they're doing it very carefully. Last I checked, making any changes to Chrome's settings files (like adjusting a homepage) will cause Chrome to reset all extensions and extension settings. It does this with no warning. And if you're not logged in and synced to Google, all those settings are gone.

I hate when companies do this.