The "Window Resizer" extension for Chrome now contains malware (2013) • Hacker News Board

Re: The "Window Resizer" extension for Chrome now contains malware (2013)

#121

Post by erichurkman » Wed, Jan 15, 2014, 4:46 AM UTC

prafuitu wrote: post #112

Svip wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically, he is quoted by another poster further up in the discussion. But the developer does not deny this quote.

Holly crap? Do you honestly think I can monitor the whole internet so I can deny every affirmation made by some random dude? Look! I deny it now, ok?! I haven't done anything like that. I just mentioned somewhere that it is technically possible to do such thing in an attempt to increase users' awareness about what would truly be a "horrible thing", unlike my attempt to support further development of my extension thro…

That's why I asked. I saw a few accusations of it, but in all the referenced threads, could not locate you mentioning the accusation at all. I've not used the extension in a while, otherwise I would have dug into the JS itself to answer the question.

Re: The "Window Resizer" extension for Chrome now contains malware (2013)

#122

Post by prafuitu » Wed, Jan 15, 2014, 11:28 AM UTC

gorhill wrote: post #120

paulirish wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the extension text, they say: "This extension is ad supported, you can disable your support by going to the options and making a one-time donation. We depend on your support, but we understand if you would prefer to withhold it." This, from what I can tell, plays within the bounds of Chrome's policy on extensions. (I also spent some time looking at the extension source to verify that the only annoying thing they d…

The extension did more than just add ads. A javascript listener for the click event was attach to each link on the result page. If the user hovered with his mouse over a link, he couldn't tell the link would lead him to http://www.ecosia.org/ . But this is exactly what was happening, because the click listener was changing the URL only after the user clicked. So now the user was redirected to http://www.ecosia.org/ a…

Paul was talking about a different extension, but anyway...

The onclick event listener is the same thing Google does with the search results. Perform a search on Google and right-click a link, then you'll see the URL changes to the a Google proxy server that collects data about your click for analytics purposes. The reason is so the whole process is more transparent and the users can see the actual URL they end up with when clicking the link. The intention was not to hide anything, but to keep things as unobtrusive as possible. I'm sorry if it felt any other way!

Re: The "Window Resizer" extension for Chrome now contains malware (2013)

#123

Post by chrisbalt » Wed, Jan 15, 2014, 6:23 PM UTC

prafuitu wrote: post #109

chrisbalt wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I wish I had called out more clearly in my post ("See it in action") was the fact that the "feature" would re-enable itself after every update of the extension, which seemed to be quite frequently. It's a shame; it really was a feature-packed, helpful extension.

No it doesn't re-enable after any update. It only re-enables if you uninstall the extension and install it back, because settings are lost and it switches to the default. Please check your facts before making such claims, ok? Anyone with minimal JavaScript skills can look at the source code and see exactly what's happening! Thanks!

Whether or not it was your intention or the design of your extension, that was the behavior I observed - hence my factual claim.

I've looked deeply into your extension and you did a very nice, impressive job. I don't believe anyone is discounting the quality of your work here. The pattern you exhibited by enabling the ecolinks feature by default (right or wrong) simply highlighted, for many, the risks inherent in granting browser extensions such great permissions to the browser.

Re: The "Window Resizer" extension for Chrome now contains malware (2013)

#124

Post by Cowicide » Sat, Jan 18, 2014, 9:19 AM UTC

timmclean wrote: post #52

I'm most concerned about the keylogging claims. Does anyone have a copy of the CRX so that we can determine if keystrokes were in fact being transmitted?

Unfortunately, the developer was such a douche about everything, I would find it difficult to trust him just based upon his behavior alone. Would I want my data in his hands? NOPE.