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It seems it scans your extensions not your system - reading the details. The intro made it a bit unclear.
Still pretty annoying browsers haven't patched that yet.
It's either the extension's choice to become detectable ("externally_connectable" is off by default) or it makes unique changes to websites that allow for its detection.
The headline seems pretty misleading. Here’s what seems to actually be going on: > Every time you open LinkedIn in a Chrome-based browser, LinkedIn’s JavaScript executes a silent scan of your installed browser extensions. The scan probes for thousands of specific extensions by ID, collects the results, encrypts them, and transmits them to LinkedIn’s servers. This does seem invasive. It also seems like what I’d expect…
I disagree, I think we should push back hard on behavior like this. What business is it of LinkedIn's what browser extensions I have installed? I think the framing for this is appropriate.
Interesting. I didn't know a extension’s web-accessible resource (e.g. chrome-extension:// /...) could be abused to learn about the user's installed extensions by checking whether it resolves or not.
The headline seems pretty misleading. Here’s what seems to actually be going on: > Every time you open LinkedIn in a Chrome-based browser, LinkedIn’s JavaScript executes a silent scan of your installed browser extensions. The scan probes for thousands of specific extensions by ID, collects the results, encrypts them, and transmits them to LinkedIn’s servers. This does seem invasive. It also seems like what I’d expect…
And probably also vibe-coded therefore 2 tabs of LinkedIn take up 1GB of RAM (was on the front page a few days back).
How a web site can search one's computer?
TFA explains it is looking for installed browser extensions (which sites are allowed to do)
⇒ which Chrome allows sites to do.
How a web site can search one's computer?
TFA explains it is looking for installed browser extensions (which sites are allowed to do)
Considering the goal is to identify people, this is undeniably PII. As the article demonstrates, it also pertains sensitive information.
How a web site can search one's computer?
TFA explains it is looking for installed browser extensions (which sites are allowed to do)
> Every time any of LinkedIn’s one billion users visits linkedin.com, hidden code searches their computer for installed software
and then proceeds not to explain how it’s doing that to me, a Safari user.
Because, spoiler: it isn’t. Or, it might try to search, and fail, and nothing will be collected.