Submitted 17 hours ago by Beep@lemmus.org to technology@lemmy.world
https://qcontinuum.substack.com/p/spying-chrome-extensions-287-extensions-495
If a organization with a tiny fraction of Google’s resources can detect these extensions Google can too. There is only one reason malware extensions and Android apps are being distributed by Google - they make more money distributing malware than they would if they detected and blocked it.
And these assholes pretend they are blocking app stores like F-Droid for “our protection”.
Google just shrugs and points to the little messagebox that pops up and explains almost nothing asking you for permission.
I’ve disabled Google’s Play Protect after it deleted multiple apps I rarely use and all their settings and having to spend hours configuring them again. I know I can manually change individual app settings to prevent that from happening, but given all the years Google’s been distributing malware why trust them? The fact Google regularly distributes malware and then wants permission to scan my phone for malware is laughable.
I avoid apps from the Google store because they can be downright dangerous, but I have few worries about that “dangerous” third party F-droid store.
Great work to the investigators here. I’m going to comb through this list a little. See what things stand out.
using chrome
and using non-free extensions as well
wow so many trade mark violations, so blantant that even a shit a automated system shouldve caught it, but no google is too busy selling ads and profiling users
The thing I’ve heard about Google is that there isn’t as high of a career path for people that want to maintain software and keep it running well. If you can create a new app or service and it gets X downloads then you can ask for more money and a lot of SWEs will game that. So, far better to add to the graveyard than anything else.
for “pelotudos” (idiots)
they can use Brave, it’s easy-peasy (not nuclear science)
Yeah the Brave CEO has donated to anti LGBTQ campaigns.
No thanks
Hey, I don’t say that Brendan is perfect.
Just to add a little context to this. The Brave CEO donated $1k to California’s Proposition 8 almost 20 years ago (in 2008). 6 years later he formally apologized for it and stepped down as the CEO of Mozilla.
wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich
His apology is viewable on his website: brendaneich.com
He also created JavaScript, IIRC.
Big no thanks.
And how exactly does this protect against spying extensions?
Using a reskinned Google Chrome protects you from malicious Chrome extensions how, exactly?
Brave users don’t use external addons (Brave provides native addons). Then, you use Brave without Chrome Webstore addons.
Brave is in the list.
Brave is shit
No bueno.
Armand1@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
I’ve gone through the list a bit and out of the most popular ones that spied on you, most were adblocks, coupon finders or AI Chatbots.
Some notable extensions:
Worth a read regardless.
x00z@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Stylish is long known and the opensource Stylus fork is suggested. github.com/openstyles/stylus