Reason for installation through Chrome Web Store

Question

Is there a technical reason, why a Google Drive application must be installed through the Chrome Web Store (which severely limits the number of potential users)?

Answer 1

In order to sync with the local file system, one would need to install a browser plug-in in order to bridge the Web with the local computer. By default, Web applications don't have file I/O permissions on the user's hard drive for security reasons. Browser extensions, on the other hand, do not suffer from this limitation as it's assumed that when you, the user, give an application permission to be installed on your computer, you give it permissions to access more resources on the local computer.

Considering the add-on architectures for different browsers are different, Google first decided to build this application for their platform first. You can also find Google Drive in the Android/Play marketplace, one of Google's other app marketplaces.

In the future, if Google Drive is successful, there may very well be add-ons created for Firefox and Internet Explorer, but this of course has yet to be done and depends on whether or not Google either releases the API's to the public or internally makes a decision to develop add-ons for other browsers as well.