LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions • Hacker News Board

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#231

Post by Rychard » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 2:44 PM UTC

nickvec wrote: post #222

lastofthemojito wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this is why I run ad blockers. It's pretty wild that we live in a world where the actual FBI has recommended we use ad blockers to protect ourselves, and if everyone actually listened, much of the Internet (and economy) as we know it would disappear. The FBI is like "you should protect yourself from the way that the third largest company in the world does business", and the average person's response is "nah, that w…

Majority of people use their mobile devices these days to browse the Internet. Installing an ad blocker on your iPhone is a significantly bigger challenge than on desktop.

Firefox on Android supports it without any issue. That would cover a significant enough segment of the population that it might encourage actual change in the industry if people started moving to that platform.

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#232

Post by jacquesm » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 2:44 PM UTC

replwoacause wrote: post #41

haswell wrote: post #14

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.

> I think we should push back hard on behavior like this.

Indeed, so I gather all of you have canceled your LI account over this?

I never made one in the first place because it was pretty clear to me that this company - even before the acquisition - had nothing good in mind.

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#233

Post by hedora » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 2:45 PM UTC

z3ratul163071 wrote: post #13

why would the browser ever expose extensions api to a web page. does firefox does this as well?

The answer to "why would Chrome ever undermine privacy and security?" is always "Google's revenue stream".

I'm happy to see that this doesn't hit firefox. I wonder if safari is impacted.

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#234

Post by jacquesm » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 2:45 PM UTC

kps wrote: post #53

replwoacause wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why is it possible for a web site to determine what browser extensions I have installed? If there are legitimate uses, why isn't this gated behind a permission prompt, like things like location and camera?

Because Google.

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#235

Post by nickvec » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 2:45 PM UTC

VladVladikoff wrote: post #69

>The user is never asked. Never told. LinkedIn’s privacy policy does not mention it. OMG is literally every article written with LLMs these days I just can't anymore. It's all so tiring.

Ehh… this quote alone is pretty benign. If you didn’t mention it, I wouldn’t have even considered the possibility of AI.

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#236

Post by SirHumphrey » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 2:45 PM UTC

nickvec wrote: post #222

lastofthemojito wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this is why I run ad blockers. It's pretty wild that we live in a world where the actual FBI has recommended we use ad blockers to protect ourselves, and if everyone actually listened, much of the Internet (and economy) as we know it would disappear. The FBI is like "you should protect yourself from the way that the third largest company in the world does business", and the average person's response is "nah, that w…

Majority of people use their mobile devices these days to browse the Internet. Installing an ad blocker on your iPhone is a significantly bigger challenge than on desktop.

It’s becoming easier on iPhone (even uBlock origini is now available, if only the lite version), which is nice because internet is becoming more and more unusable without them.

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#237

Post by jacquesm » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 2:46 PM UTC

VladVladikoff wrote: post #83

haswell wrote: post #14

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…

It is likely in response to scraping. Linked in is heavily scraped by scammers who do the BEC scams. So linked in is trying to find ways to link together banned accounts, to handle their ban evasion. I run a site which attracts a lot of unsavoury people who need to be banned from our services, and tracking them to reban them when they come back is a big part of what makes our product better than others in the industr…

> it's entire purpose is literally to make the website more enjoyable for the good users.

There are people who actually enjoy using LinkedIn?

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#238

Post by pants2 » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 2:46 PM UTC

nickvec wrote: post #222

lastofthemojito wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this is why I run ad blockers. It's pretty wild that we live in a world where the actual FBI has recommended we use ad blockers to protect ourselves, and if everyone actually listened, much of the Internet (and economy) as we know it would disappear. The FBI is like "you should protect yourself from the way that the third largest company in the world does business", and the average person's response is "nah, that w…

Majority of people use their mobile devices these days to browse the Internet. Installing an ad blocker on your iPhone is a significantly bigger challenge than on desktop.

Not really - I use Brave browser on iPhone, a simple app install, and it blocks ads extremely well, even on YouTube and Instagram.

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#239

Post by searls » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 2:46 PM UTC

Read this:

> Every time any of LinkedIn’s one billion users visits linkedin.com, hidden code searches their computer for installed software, collects the results, and transmits them to LinkedIn’s servers

And thought, "no way in hell this gets by Safari."

And then, under "The Attack: How it Works":

> Every time you open LinkedIn in a Chrome-based browser

Shocker. If you use a Chromium-based browser, you should expect to be trading away your privacy, IME.

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#240

Post by streetfighter64 » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 2:46 PM UTC

nickvec wrote: post #222

lastofthemojito wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this is why I run ad blockers. It's pretty wild that we live in a world where the actual FBI has recommended we use ad blockers to protect ourselves, and if everyone actually listened, much of the Internet (and economy) as we know it would disappear. The FBI is like "you should protect yourself from the way that the third largest company in the world does business", and the average person's response is "nah, that w…

Majority of people use their mobile devices these days to browse the Internet. Installing an ad blocker on your iPhone is a significantly bigger challenge than on desktop.

Not anymore. You can just find one on the app store and install it, almost exactly the same as you do in a browser's extension "store". It won't be as good as uBlock but it certainly works fine even in Safari.