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Adware vendors buy Chrome Extensions to send ad- and malware-filled updates

arstechnica.com

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Re: Adware vendors buy Chrome Extensions to send ad- and malware-filled updates

#11

Post by jaredsohn »

I would like it if the browser's DOM view would highlight changes made by an extension (at least directly; if the user injects JavaScript, it might be easier to just show that JavaScript rather than the changes that that code made to the DOM.) Also, it should log it (although this may create security concerns) so that one could occasionally look over what their extensions are doing.

Similarly, there should be a log for AJAX requests made by the extension directly.

Re: Adware vendors buy Chrome Extensions to send ad- and malware-filled updates

#12

Post by riquito »

pasbesoin wrote: post #4
yaakov34 wrote: post #2

Can we start a petition for Google to let us disable extensions on specific sites? After reading the last few stories about this, I am quite sure I don't want any extensions whatsoever running in the same tab as my Gmail account. I think there is some extension that does this for you (turns off other extensions per site), but then we get into a "who guards the guardians" situation. Not to mention we need better and f…

Look into running separate sessions of your browser(s). Both Firefox and Google Chrome (or Chromium) allow you to do this, although the interfaces for doing so differ. A simple way to do this is to use different brands of browser, e.g. Gmail in Chrome and everything else in Firefox. But... if you really prefer one browser over another, for all use, then the separate profiles thing works. Note that in Chrome, this is…

To run a new, separated Firefox with a (possibly) different profile

    firefox -no-remote -ProfileManager
It's always handy to have a "vanilla" profile, to compare how much the extensions tuned down the browser or try to understand if the error that you're seeing is caused by an extension. Having a "privacy" profile with some ad-hoc extensions helps too.

Re: Adware vendors buy Chrome Extensions to send ad- and malware-filled updates

#15

Post by jaredsohn »

The browser (or an extension if possible) should include a list of extensions sorted by when they were last added/updated.

Beyond helping determine why you're now seeing extra ads, this could help debug why certain sites are no longer working.

Re: Adware vendors buy Chrome Extensions to send ad- and malware-filled updates

#17

Post by ch0wn »

That shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who has an app on any app store. I get at least two emails per week from some shady advertiser that wants to place ads, add notifications, gather user data or some else equally awful.

I had at least one app where I didn't pay close enough attention to the permissions it required upfront and at some point it started injecting ads into random pages (it was a stopwatch, by the way). I guess the only way to effectively counter this is a better permission system.

Re: Adware vendors buy Chrome Extensions to send ad- and malware-filled updates

#18

Post by anonymfus »

yaakov34 wrote: post #2

Can we start a petition for Google to let us disable extensions on specific sites? After reading the last few stories about this, I am quite sure I don't want any extensions whatsoever running in the same tab as my Gmail account. I think there is some extension that does this for you (turns off other extensions per site), but then we get into a "who guards the guardians" situation. Not to mention we need better and f…

Opera 12 has ability to disable access of specific extensions to https sites and/or private tabs (by default access to https sites is enabled and to private tabs is disabled). May be there is a hope that they implement it in Blink based Opera, but now they only have ability to disable access of specific extensions to private windows and have no private tabs at all.

Re: Adware vendors buy Chrome Extensions to send ad- and malware-filled updates

#19

Post by dublinben »

27182818284 wrote: post #10
quadrangle wrote: post #6

Obligatory note: Another example of why we should only run Free Software and only from trusted sources. Users of Trisquel or gNewSense never have problems like this.

Obligatory response that not everyone has time or training to examine code for problems. Google is a trusted source.

>Google is a trusted source

Hardly, if this kind of thing is allowed in their marketplace.

Re: Adware vendors buy Chrome Extensions to send ad- and malware-filled updates

#20

Post by Houshalter »

yaakov34 wrote: post #2

Can we start a petition for Google to let us disable extensions on specific sites? After reading the last few stories about this, I am quite sure I don't want any extensions whatsoever running in the same tab as my Gmail account. I think there is some extension that does this for you (turns off other extensions per site), but then we get into a "who guards the guardians" situation. Not to mention we need better and f…

That's a good idea but only a crutch. I don't want extensions invading my privacy on any site. Finer grained permissions would be ideal.
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