LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions • Hacker News Board

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#501

Post by voganmother42 » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 5:02 PM UTC

pqtyw wrote: post #145

chii wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but the language of "your computer" implies files on your computer, as it would be what people commonly call it. Merely just the extension is not enough. If it has the ability to scan your bookmarks, or visited site history, that would lend more credence to using the term "computer". The title ought to have said "linkedIn illegally scans your browser", and that would make clear what is being done without being sensat…

Extensions are files installed on your computer, though?

Reminds me of https://xkcd.com/1200/

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#502

Post by pbiggar » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 5:02 PM UTC

SiteRelEnby wrote: post #473

SiteRelEnby wrote: post #456

Enumerated a full list. https://git.gay/SiteRelEnby/browsergate-list https://git.gay/SiteRelEnby/browsergate-list/src/branch/main...

Some of the spiciest: * Anti-Zionist Tag (directly inferring political opinion) * PordaAI (Islamic content filter) * simplify (browsergate.eu specifically called out as a neurodivergent accessibility tool. Job search autofill that markets itself as particularly useful for people who struggle with forms) * No more Musk ("Hides digital noise related to Elon Musk") * Political Circus ("Politician -> Clown AI Filter") *…

The Anti-Zionist tag is interesting. It seems that it's actually an extension that would be used by Zionists, as it identifies anti-zionists, and the wording incorrectly claims that anti-Zionism is hate speech (whereas it is in fact Zionism that is hate-based ideology).

A lot of Zionists claim -- incorrectly -- that all Jews as Zionists. But certainly the major groups of Zionists are Christian zionists and Jewish Zionists. I would say there is a very very high chance that if you use the Anti-zionist Tag Chrome extension, that you are Jewish.

So it seems quite likely that Linkedin is actually tracking Jews with this.

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#503

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 5:02 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#504

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 5:04 PM UTC

haswell wrote: post #14

The headline seems pretty misleading. Here’s what seems to actually be going on: > Every time you open LinkedIn in a Chrome-based browser, LinkedIn’s JavaScript executes a silent scan of your installed browser extensions. The scan probes for thousands of specific extensions by ID, collects the results, encrypts them, and transmits them to LinkedIn’s servers. This does seem invasive. It also seems like what I’d expect…

[deleted]

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#505

Post by caminante » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 5:05 PM UTC

alt227 wrote: post #442

luxuryballs wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if they do a better job at showing me an ad that might be relevant to me, how is that disgusting? if I have to see an ad at all I at least want them to give it their best shot

I cant believe that people still have the attitude that the trillions of dollars being invested in all this technology and tracking is just to give them a more relevant ad . Do people really not remember scandals like Cambridge Analytica, and realise that these ads combined with social media feeds can be used to literally control and manipulate peoples decisions and behavoir? Theres a reason Facebook and Youtube just…

You're glossing over the nuance of the Cambridge Analytica scandal or at least I don't see how it's connected here.

Facebook was a party, but not the protagonist.

- a Cambridge researcher (Aleks Kogan) created a personality quiz FB app advertised as academic research

- users had to consent to download the app

- the app nefariously scraped users' friends' data (300k users unlocked 87 million users' data)

- the information was sold to Cambridge Analytica

- who then used the information to profile American voters

LinkedIn already has all of this information from the information you feed it. Scanning for more information provides more refined views, but LinkedIn already has your graph.

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#506

Post by lukechu10 » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 5:07 PM UTC

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #417

dotancohen wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> distribute to sites I visit, if it meant zero tracking How would your ISP know to which sites to distribute the money, if there were no tracking?

Oh ISPs are definitely collecting your browsing habits, and selling them to the highest bidder. It's one of the major reasons why I use a vpn.

Well what makes you think the VPN providers are not tracking?

You would have to either self-host your own VPN server somewhere (maybe on a public cloud provider) or if you are truly paranoid, use something like Tor.

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#507

Post by dcchuck » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 5:07 PM UTC

haswell wrote: post #14

The headline seems pretty misleading. Here’s what seems to actually be going on: > Every time you open LinkedIn in a Chrome-based browser, LinkedIn’s JavaScript executes a silent scan of your installed browser extensions. The scan probes for thousands of specific extensions by ID, collects the results, encrypts them, and transmits them to LinkedIn’s servers. This does seem invasive. It also seems like what I’d expect…

I agree. The first paragraph on the page implies the javascript can natively search your machine (vs. via Browser Extensions)

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#508

Post by totallymike » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 5:08 PM UTC

Terretta wrote: post #454

abustamam wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may be a hot take but I'd be willing to pay my ISP $10 extra that they would distribute to sites I visit, if it meant zero tracking and ads. I use an ad blocker but I genuinely want to support content creators in a way that doesn't optimize for ads or clicks. There would need to be a way for ISPs to know which websites are getting my traffic in order to know who to distribute the money to, which I'm not a fan of…

content creator is new speak people with something to share, people with something to say, who share and say it because they want to that's how pamphleteers worked, that's how the Internet worked at scale, static (CMS-managed) information sites cost effectively nothing even for arbitrary amounts of traffic, and smoothed across a range of people sharing stuff, it approaches zero per person publishing used to be free w…

I couldn’t disagree with this more if I tried. The biggest benefit of the internet is to make it easier to talk to each other and share ideas. Putting financial gates in front of that ability is hot garbage.

Also, I agree that the platforms and paradigms we have are fucked up, but do believe that people who put work into making something deserve to charge for it if there are folks who’d pay.

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#509

Post by longislandguido » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 5:09 PM UTC

gabbagool wrote: post #441

haswell wrote: post #14

The headline seems pretty misleading. Here’s what seems to actually be going on: > Every time you open LinkedIn in a Chrome-based browser, LinkedIn’s JavaScript executes a silent scan of your installed browser extensions. The scan probes for thousands of specific extensions by ID, collects the results, encrypts them, and transmits them to LinkedIn’s servers. This does seem invasive. It also seems like what I’d expect…

Just because someone lets the electrician (LinkedIn) into their home (browser) doesn't mean they can do whatever the hell they want that isn't expressly prohibited. If the electrician wants to rifle through my desk drawers, they should ask for permission, and I will politely tell them to leave.

If your electrician was known to be hostile like the Internet, then you'd put locks on your drawers.

The browser security model right now is more like those completely ineffective "gun free zone" signs cities tack up in public parks.

Re: LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions

#510

Post by autoexec » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 5:09 PM UTC

throwawayq3423 wrote: post #457

mrguyorama wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You miss the point. We literally had all of this. We had regular, affordable, high quality printed media for every hobby and interest and industry, that you could get delivered to your home address and collect in your own archive if you want, and your local library could do the same. Those pieces of paper could not track anything about you. They tried, selling their subscriber lists, but that was the best tracking th…

You make the argument from the consumer side, it's hard to argue, but digital systems are far more profitable. So that's how we got the world we got.

It turns out that "makes the most money for a small amount of people" is pretty much the same as "makes everything shitty for everyone else". It's time that we either stop accepting "most profitable" as an excuse for making things worse or start regulating/punishing bad behavior until it becomes so costly that it's no longer profitable.