I can't say I needed yet another reason to hate the current state of LinkedIn, but I am not surprised in the slightest.
LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions
471–480 of 836 posts
Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions
#472Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many extensions designed to scrape data from social media websites are disguised as simple extensions that do something else. If I had to guess: I sought that automatic content blurrer, neurodivergent website simplifier, or anti-Zionist tagger actually work. They’re all just piggybacking on trending topics to get users to install them and then forget about them, then they exfiltrate the data when you visit LinkedIn.
This. Do not install any extension unless you absolutely need. Assume they all leak your browsing data. Not familiar with Google but if you can just vibe code your own extension then do that.
They're also the only avenue to breaking out of the browser sandbox.
Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions
#473Enumerated a full list. https://git.gay/SiteRelEnby/browsergate-list https://git.gay/SiteRelEnby/browsergate-list/src/branch/main...
Some of the spiciest:
* Anti-Zionist Tag (directly inferring political opinion)
* PordaAI (Islamic content filter)
* simplify (browsergate.eu specifically called out as a neurodivergent accessibility tool. Job search autofill that markets itself as particularly useful for people who struggle with forms)
* No more Musk ("Hides digital noise related to Elon Musk")
* Political Circus ("Politician -> Clown AI Filter")
* Job application trackers and utils ("Job Follow-Up Tracker" etc)
* Various "Distraction Blocker" type addons
LinkedIn scanning for tools that scrape LinkedIn:
* LinkedIn Cookie Sync for Headhunting Agent
* LinkedIn Cookie importer for Derrick (lol "for Derrick")
* MailMatics Cookie Grabber
* LinkedIn Fake Job Post Detector. Yes, they're detecting an addon that exposes fake job postings on their own platform.
*NOT* in the list, if you were wondering:
* Shinigami Eyes
* Dark Reader
* Adblockers
* Password managers
* FoxyProxy
* User-Agent spoofers, request modification tools, etc
* Most privacy/security tools (no uBO, no Privacy Badger, no FoxyProxy, no NoScript, etc.
For the latter category, the most interesting things there we found *were* searched-for are BuiltWith Technology Profiler, and some browser addons bundled from scanners (e.g. "Malwarebytes Browser Guard Beta").
Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions
#474Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t think it would necessarily have to be six bucks a month. Something Awful is a one time fee of ten bucks (a few bucks more to get rid of ads). I wouldn’t really mind a one-time fee for a lot of sites if it meant that they didn’t have to do a bunch of advertising bullshit,
Yes, but the Awful registration fee is more like a speedbump to make banned behavior at least a little expensive to the offending users. Most of the revenue comes from completely optional aesthetic purchases: avatars, avatars _for others_, smilies, etc. I suspect it's a whale based economy.
> whale based economy
Please explain this term. Google was not useful.
Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions
#475Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't worry, soon you'll need to pay every website 5.99 a month because AI is destroying click through rates. The internet will likely be far worse without ads than with ads. Solving the tracking problem doesn't need to be mixed up with blocking ads outright. What's funny is that tracking isn't nearly as meaningful for click through rates on ads as relevance to what's on the page, and yet so much effort is placed ont…
>The internet will likely be far worse without ads than with ads. Ads won't go away. They'll just move from infesting websites to infesting AI chatbots.
That'd be ideal because it would mean I could browse the internet without ads and just never use AI chatbots. Unfortunately I think ads are only going to spread and what we'll actually end up with is "more ads everywhere".
Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions
#476Earlier 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?
Generally the whole thing needs to be flipped upside down. Extensions is the easy one, there's not reason a random website can list your installed extensions, zero.
For other capabilities, like BlueTooth API, rather than querying the browser, assume that the browser can do it and then have the browser inform the user that the site is attempting to use an unsupported API.
Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions
#477Earlier quoted context omitted.
You mean the internet you pay to access and which was around before the ads were even on it? That internet? I'm not trying to be mean I'm just trying to historically parse your sentence/belief. Because for me this is a simplified analogy of what happened on the internet: a) we opened a club house called the internet in the early 1990s, just after the time of BBSs b) a few years later a new guy called commercial busin…
> a) we opened a club house called the internet in the early 1990s, just after the time of BBSs "we" is doing a lot of work here. No clubhouse got optical switching working and all that fiber in the ground for example. Beyond POC, the Internet was all commercial interests.
No. The internet was not a commercial enterprise, it was first and foremost a military enterprise, just like GPS.
Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions
#478Earlier 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.
How is installing uBlock Origin Lite on iPhone a big challenge? Installing it on my SO's device was quite trivial.
Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions
#479Earlier quoted context omitted.
>the average person's response is "nah, that would take at least a couple of minutes of my time, As a data point I, a technical person who tweaks his computer a lot, was against adblocking for moral reasons (as a part of perceived social contract, where internet is free because of ads). Only later I changed mi mind on this because I became more privacy aware.
You mean the internet you pay to access and which was around before the ads were even on it? That internet? I'm not trying to be mean I'm just trying to historically parse your sentence/belief. Because for me this is a simplified analogy of what happened on the internet: a) we opened a club house called the internet in the early 1990s, just after the time of BBSs b) a few years later a new guy called commercial busin…
This is ignoring things like newspapers that were made obsolete by the internet. At some point someone does need to actually pay for the content we see online. That is if we want that content to actually be good.
Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions
#480Earlier 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…
>the average person's response is "nah, that would take at least a couple of minutes of my time, As a data point I, a technical person who tweaks his computer a lot, was against adblocking for moral reasons (as a part of perceived social contract, where internet is free because of ads). Only later I changed mi mind on this because I became more privacy aware.
The social contract was "your ads aren't annoying or invasive, and don't waste my time, so I earn you some money"
But ads are all of those things now, so I feel no obligation. I only got an ad blocker around the time ads were becoming excessively irritating.