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Google purges bad extensions from Chrome

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Re: Google purges bad extensions from Chrome

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like Chrome's "security model" for extensions is just as awful as Android? Large, sweeping permissions categories rather than fine-grained control, and all-or-nothing acceptance.

Pretty much the same, which is different to general websites, which do on-demand permissions (as with iOS model). Chrome extensions can request only access to specific URL regex's, so they can be fine-grained about location, but the actual permissions tend to be coarse-grained. And as a user, you can't change the URL regex (that's some low-hanging fruit right there - users should be able to edit the URL pattern for a…

I really appreciate that an SPA can function more as an offline application, not just a website. I wish that there were a standard endorsed beyond just the manifest.json though... I wish there were a .{someExtensionThatIsReallyZip} package that contained a manifest.json, as well as all other files that package needed... this is how chrome extensions are, but it would be nice to see a standard model for apps supported by more browsers for this.

For all the things I didn't/don't care for regarding flash and silverlight, having a single compressed downloadable package is a nicety. I think Silverlight did a better job of it though. When Adobe bought Macromedia, my sincere hope was that they'd turn flash into a more open format that was an archive manifest with svg, mp3 and other assets with closer to plain JavaScript for their part. That could have been something browsers would be more likely to have embraced.

Re: Google purges bad extensions from Chrome

#42
I don't understand why you can't block (or lockout) certain permissions for extensions. If an extension requests permission to browsing history, you should be able to install the extension by deny it access. this is the same problem that I see on Android.

Re: Google purges bad extensions from Chrome

#44
post #9

This is fantastic news. The Quick Note Chrome extension from Diigo (now removed) submits every URL visited to a third-party server and those URLs are then crawled the next day. We just switched our 25 member customer service team to Chromeboxes and were very concerned to find soon after that an EC2-based crawler was querying private URLs of our platform. Because the Chrome Web Store had not banned bad actors like Dii…

I think Awesome Screenshot is "bad" extension too, but purging from the store is too much.

Re: Google purges bad extensions from Chrome

#45
post #26
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just as a reference, you might like this tool - I've gotten great results with some really gnarly minified/obfuscated JS. http://www.jsnice.org/

Oh there is a built in version in the Chrome debugger. And it can sure handle js uglify, etc there are tools and systems that allow you to remove more than that and then it becomes really difficult to get a handle on WTF is going on.

Sure, but this one is much more advanced than the the one in the Chrome Inspector, which only formats. This one renames variables and functions, adds comments, and even annotates types.

Re: Google purges bad extensions from Chrome

#46
post #9

This is fantastic news. The Quick Note Chrome extension from Diigo (now removed) submits every URL visited to a third-party server and those URLs are then crawled the next day. We just switched our 25 member customer service team to Chromeboxes and were very concerned to find soon after that an EC2-based crawler was querying private URLs of our platform. Because the Chrome Web Store had not banned bad actors like Dii…

ISTR Diigo breaking our rules for the delicious API... In 2007? I guess some stuff doesn't change.

Re: Google purges bad extensions from Chrome

#48
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good thing would probably to have a way to see the requests triggered by installed extensions. Even checking this list once in a while and manually reporting the suspicious ones with a "report" button would make these rogue extensions almost worthless.

Just a guess but can you see those in the DevTools on the Network tab? Needs to be open before you load the page. I'd check but I don't have any extensions installed except WTF and the WebGL Inspector.

You can see EFF PrivacyBadger code getting injected in the source tab in dev tools, not positive about network requests. It wouldn't be hard to test though, just make a simple extension that does XHR to example.com and load it up locally. Chrome extensions are surprisingly easy to write, and there are some simple tutorials if you google around a bit :)

EDIT: here's how to inspect extensions you're curious about: https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/tut_debugging

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