Browser extensions are underrated: the promise of hackable software

Post by Seb-C » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 9:22 AM UTC

jackfraser wrote: post #155

lbatx wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Extensions should be able to have their permissions limited by domain (e.g. to customize YouTube or Reddit) at a minimum. This seems like a good idea until you realize that the behavior you might want to modify is coming from a different domain loaded by the page and you have no control over how they set that up.

So the app should ask for a permission to a reasonable set of domains, and when you're installing it, you should get a clearly laid out permissions / privacy risk management worksheet to look at and agree to.

Post by megous » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 9:58 AM UTC

miguelmota wrote: post #147

megous wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why you uncheck "update add-ons automatiocally' in the add-on manager.

Standard users would have no idea they can do that or even bother. Extensions are risky additions to the browser because it's 3rd party code that can read your web pages and local storage values.

    ~/.mozilla/**/*.xpi

    find -maxdepth 1 -mindepth 1 -type d ! -name .git -print0 | xargs -0r rm -rf

    for f in ../extensions/*.xpi ; do
            unzip "$f" -d "$(basename "${f%.xpi}")"
    done

    git add -Af .
    git commit -m "Changes"

Post by andreareina » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 10:50 AM UTC

dTal wrote: post #161

zmmmmm wrote: post #128

> The modern browser extension API has done a good job balancing extensibility with security No, it hasn't. Almost every single extension I install tells me some variant of "This extension can intercept and modify all of your browsing traffic". That's not "well balanced", it's completely broken. This is happening clearly for extensions by well intentioned people that do not need those permissions . I can't help but c…

>I can't help but cynically interpret the current situation as intentional on Google's part because having the security model be "trust Google to vet the extensions" happens to centralise all the power with them. Isn't the situation the same with Mozilla? I thought that the reason was that most extensions do, in fact, need to be able to view and modify all your web browsing traffic. For example, my essential addons a…

Post by Faark » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 11:30 AM UTC

ignoramous wrote: post #153

on_and_off wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If plugins were allowed for apps, pretty sure there'd be a better story around privacy today . Honest question : Can you expand on how this would work please? If anything, extensions as in chrome extensions is something I try to avoid as much as possible : giving access to all of my data to a third party extension promising that is going to increase my privacy but that I need to trust 100% with a complete access is…

> Honest question : Can you expand on how this would work please? Such a thing is already possible today. Some require root, some require breaking PlayStore's terms of use. One such example is: XPrivacyLua [0] by the creator of NetGuard. It helps fake location data, hide contacts and calendar, fake device-id, IMEI, MAC addresses etc on a per-app basis. Another example is how VPN in Android [1][2] is widely used to bl…

Post by LocalH » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 1:30 PM UTC

andreareina wrote: post #166

dTal wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I can't help but cynically interpret the current situation as intentional on Google's part because having the security model be "trust Google to vet the extensions" happens to centralise all the power with them. Isn't the situation the same with Mozilla? I thought that the reason was that most extensions do, in fact, need to be able to view and modify all your web browsing traffic. For example, my essential addons a…

I think there's a lot of room for finer-grained permissions. Why is it that removing (uBlock Origin), adding (Stylus), and modifying (Privacy Badger) elements all require the same permissions?