Google said today it plans to add a new section on the Chrome Web Store where extension developers will disclose what user data they’re collecting from users and what they plan to do with the information. From a report: The new section is set to go into effect on January 18, 2021, and will appear as a “Privacy practices” button on…
Tag: extensions
Proctoring Software Company Used DMCA To Take Down a Student’s Critical Tweets
A series of tweets by one Miami University student that were critical of a proctoring software company have been hidden by Twitter after the company filed a copyright takedown notice. TechCrunch reports: Erik Johnson, a student who works as a security researcher on the side, posted a lengthy tweet thread in early September about Proctorio, an Arizona-based software company that several…
The Best Chrome Extensions To Prevent Creepy Web Tracking
Wired has highlighted several browser extensions that “are a simple first step in improving your online privacy.” Other steps to take include adding a privacy-first browser and VPN to further mask your web activity. An anonymous reader shares the report: Privacy Badger is one of the best options for blocking online tracking in your current browser. For a start, it’s created…
Google Is Pulling the Plug On Paid Chrome Extensions Over the Next Year
Google has announced that paid Chrome extensions will no longer be available and will be phased out over the next year. 9to5Google reports: Following a temporary suspension on paid extensions this year due to fraudulent transactions, Google will pull the plug on paid extensions entirely over the next several months. Developers haven’t been able to submit new paid extensions since March,…
Browser Extension uMatrix Ends Active Development
Slashdot reader Hmmmmmm quotes Ghacks: Raymond Hill, known online as gorhill, has set the status of the uMatrix GitHub repository to archived; this means that it is read-only at the time and that no updates will become available. The uMatrix extension is available for several browsers including Firefox, Google Chrome, and most Firefox and Chromium-based browsers. It is a privacy and…
‘If Everyone Hates Object-Oriented Programming, Why Is It Still So Widely Spread?’
Object-oriented programming “has been wildly successful. But was the success just a coincidence?” asks Stack Overflow’s blog: Asking why so many widely-used languages are OOP might be mixing up cause and effect. Richard Feldman argues in his talk that it might just be coincidence. C++ was developed in the early 1980s by Bjarne Stroustrup, initially as a set of extensions to…
Brave Complains Google’s Newly-Proposed ‘WebBundles’ Standard Would ‘Make URLs Meaningless’
“Google is proposing a new standard called WebBundles,” complains Brave’s senior privacy reseacher. “This standard allows websites to ‘bundle’ resources together, and will make it impossible for browsers to reason about sub-resources by URL.” This threatens to change the Web from a hyperlinked collection of resources (that can be audited, selectively fetched, or even replaced), to opaque all-or-nothing “blobs” (like PDFs…
Firefox Android Build That Caused Issues Is Working As Intended
Today, Mozilla launched the updated Firefox Android app with a version that many thought was a beta because it was full of bugs and UI issues. According to The Register, this was a deliberate software release and is the new version of Firefox for Android, which is set to hit the UK today, August 25, and the U.S. on the 27th….
The Next Step In SSD Evolution: NVMe Zoned Namespaces Explained
FallOutBoyTonto writes: In June we saw an update to the NVMe standard. The update defines a software interface to assist in actually reading and writing to the drives in a way to which SSDs and NAND flash actually works. Instead of emulating the traditional block device model that SSDs inherited from hard drives and earlier storage technologies, the new NVMe Zoned…
Cluster of 295 Chrome Extensions Caught Hijacking Google and Bing Search Results
An anonymous reader writes: More than 80 million Chrome users have installed one of 295 Chrome extensions that have been identified to hijack and insert ads inside Google and Bing search results. The malicious extensions were discovered by AdGuard, a company that provides ad-blocking solutions, while the company’s staff was looking into a series of fake ad-blocking extensions that were available…