I have installed the getting started polymer app (yo polymer).
And I am setting the auto-register to false on the platinum-sw-register element.
As I am not calling the elements register method I do not expect the service worker to be registered. But in chrome dev tools I can see service worker which seems to be activated and running even after deleting it and refreshing the page.
Am I misunderstanding what this property is used for? I was expecting not to see the service worker in the chrome dev tools until I manually called the register method on the element.
You've got a correct understanding of what that property is for.
I'd recommend using a new Chrome Incognito window when experimenting with service workers (including those registered via
<platinum-sw-register>
). It ensures that you'll start fresh each time.I just modified a local copy of the demo to remove the
document.querySelector('platinum-sw-register').register();
call, and confirmed that in an Incognito window, there's no service worker registration listed underchrome://serviceworker-internals/
. So the property appears to be behaving as intended.