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“Stylish” browser extension steals all your internet history

robertheaton.com

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Re: “Stylish” browser extension steals all your internet history

#11

Post by eastendguy »

This reminds of the "WOT, Web of Trust" (haha) privacy issue in 2016: Reporters (disguising as business men) were offered data that includes the surfing habits of three million German citizens. This data was, at least partly, collected by the “Web of trust” (WOT) browser extensions. The reporters were able to use this data to identify the browsing habits of individual persons – including high-ranking German and EU politicians.

English: https://ocr.space/blog/2016/11/wot-browser-extension-collect...

Re: “Stylish” browser extension steals all your internet history

#14

Post by kawera »

lifthrasiir wrote: post #2

tl;dr: Use Stylus [1]. Use Stylus. Use Stylus. I guess there should be an addon that notifies users for any ownership changes to browser addons they use. Or is there? [1] https://github.com/openstyles/stylus

This extension disables any updated extension that requires new permissions, among other niceties: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/extensions-update-...

(I'm only a user)

Re: “Stylish” browser extension steals all your internet history

#15

Post by izacus »

dannyw wrote: post #12

Google needs to take action here. From requiring re-confirming permissions every time a significant privacy policy change is made, or just by nuking SimilarWeb altogether from the web App Store.

I can already see the followup HN news: "Google attacking developers on Chrome Web Store and breaking free web!"

Re: “Stylish” browser extension steals all your internet history

#17

Post by Chilinot »

TheCapeGreek wrote: post #16

As others have said, immediately switch to Stylus. While we're at it stop using Ghostery as well since they were bought by an ad company. Use Privacy Badger or a decent alternative (noscript + heavy/custom uBlock lists should work just fine)

If you dont want the heavy handed solution that NoScript provides, i would suggest "uBlock Matrix".

Re: “Stylish” browser extension steals all your internet history

#18

Post by mcjiggerlog »

This is a huge problem for the extension ecosystem in general. Who originally publishes an extension may not be the same entity that is pushing you updates in two years time, and there's no way as a user to know this.

I publish a few extensions [1] [2] [3] and have been contacted multiple times by companies asking to buy them for several thousand dollars. They told me the going rate was 0.20 USD per user. You can imagine what kind of deals are being made when the extension has a million plus users.

When pushed for exactly why they wanted to buy the extensions, which are in no way monetizable, they gave vague answers about "user insights". I can guarantee there will be many other major extensions that have sold out their users.

[1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/old-reddit-redirec...

[2] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/break-timer/hklkdb...

[3] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/reddit-comment-col...

Re: “Stylish” browser extension steals all your internet history

#20

Post by icebraining »

Chilinot wrote: post #17
TheCapeGreek wrote: post #16

As others have said, immediately switch to Stylus. While we're at it stop using Ghostery as well since they were bought by an ad company. Use Privacy Badger or a decent alternative (noscript + heavy/custom uBlock lists should work just fine)

If you dont want the heavy handed solution that NoScript provides, i would suggest "uBlock Matrix".

I think it's just "uMatrix".
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