What happens when a Chrome extension with 2m+ users changes hands, raises red flags, doesn't document updates? Let's find out Back in November, 2020, netizens warned that a Chrome extension called The Great Suspender may be malicious. Around that time, Google was made aware of these concerns and looked into the situation. The Register understands that the unidentified maintainer of the project subsequently resubmitted the extension without the …
Had a shock a couple of days ago, building up software on a new PC. Moving through the list of stuff on the old one, came to BitTorrent, and installed the latest. What a nest of mebbe-malware! Took me three hours to be sure I'd neutralized it.
I think indeed that the ownership has moved on to some group of malware vendors. And from the lack of too many negative reports (there are a few) I think that it is just that everyone these days is installing one of the many many other torrent wranglers. Thus the product's near-automatic updates to rotten-ware are only happening to older installs? It was a night-and-day difference to me, but how many other people wouldn't even notice?
Isn't there a clearing house for "this product has gone bad!" ?
Not to turn this into a Linux plug, but I have not had that problem with my Linux distros, besides there being free and open source versions of almost everything... the commercial softwares that accumulate extra junk in the Windows version installer, the Linux version has zero additional software. Strictly speaking, there's no technical reason for this, they seem to have just de-facto decided that Windows users will put up with it while Linux users will not.
Even the infamous RealPlayer from years past, which I heard got quite bad in the Windows version (i.e. lots of extra software, and intentionally confusing stuff like you go and uncheck all the boxes, but a few unchecking means you *do* install the extra software), the Linux version was RealPlayer and only RealPlayer up to the end.
Straw man - the "Linux plug" was in response to a comment relating to the installation of native software:
Had a shock a couple of days ago, building up software on a new PC. Moving through the list of stuff on the old one, came to BitTorrent, and installed the latest.
Irrespective of operating system, browser or other specific technology choices though, the fundamental issue is one of untrusted code execution; specifically, _who_ do we trust? Can I trust my hardware (particularly the firmware) at all? If so, then do I trust the operating system - even if it was pre-installed by the vendor (think Android) together with a bunch of arbitrary software of their choice? How about when I choose some ${package} for the software I'm developing as a convenience utility?
The reality is that at some point you have to trust your supplier. I don't claim to have a good answer for the core problems, though I do like the kubeos ideas. Given that I'm a reasonably experienced "IT professional" without a watertight solution, and in the context of the article; is it truly reasonable to expect "average users" to be able to make an informed decision about what they install from an apparently-supplier-sanctioned source (the Chrome web store)?
If the answer is "No, an average user cannot be expected to make an informed choice" then there is a consequential burden on the supplier to do so on their behalf. Apparently, in this case, they have fallen short because the black-hats have found a loophole in the decision-making progress and are ahead for a while. Unfortunately, Google appear to have chosen the Boeing strategy of denying this and working to close the hole.
Run Slackware! Review the source of all packages line by line before you compile them from source! Throw out those binary blobs! Shun your Broadcom and your NVidia, and your Intel backdoored silicon, run it all on OpenSPARC on an FPGA! You will be immune from all bait-and-switch attacks.
What do you mean it's slow and it doesn't work?? :(
It has been know for years they have just been getting worse and that was before Google decided to make changes to Chrome that makes most extensions useless.
I stopped using Chrome years ago and if Firefox dies I am screwed because I use both Icecat and Seamonkey.
Seamonkey is also the only modern browser that still has a up to date 32 bit version as far as I know.
Possibly because you are still using 32 bit processors? Not much has equalled the old netbooks for stuffing into a small bag and being the best value for money being, mostly, in my case 10 year old fully depreciated Atoms. My major gripe is Linux Mint will drop support for its last 32 bit release in 2023. Guess that will make them landfill.
OK it's Chromium rather than Chrome but it supports the same extensions.
I agree about the netbooks. My eeePC was on Mint 19.3 until recently but I decided to move to something a little less resource-hungry . It now happily runs MX Linux 19.3. It is a bit different to Mint, but it runs better and I'm quite happy with it (and they have no current plans to drop 32bit support).
Gotta admit I'm not too chuffed about all this -- I've been used to the limit on what I can run under Linux being simply resource contraints (i.e. due to slow CPU meaning some video encode would take a week, or low RAM meaning something would grind to a halt due to swapping), not due to "we're not building for your CPU any more."
But, I did read (with Ubuntu) that with 18.04, 10% were running 32-bit, and 10% of that 10% (i.e. 1%) actually needed 32-bit.. (the other 9% were running 32-bit Ubuntu on 64-bit systems, since the page then said something like "if you're not sure, get this version"... and possibly thinking the 32-bit version was more app-compatible, since the earlier 64-bit Windows versions did have a few compatibility problems with old apps. I think 16-bit and DOS apps.. I don't think later Windows versions fixed the compatibility, it's just people didn't use apps that old any more.)
For the other 9% that can run 64-bit they should offer an migration path. I managed to upgrade a 32-bit OpenSUSE VM to 64-bit relatively painlessly by following a page of instructions, so it can be done, and it could be automated fairly easily.
Strange how you think your old netbook will suddenly stop working when Mint drops support for it..
Does Mint come with a kill-switch? Whatever, there are plenty of other operating systems that will continue to support i386. https://itsfoss.com/32-bit-os-list/
The biggest problem with Chromium over Google Chrome has been that the Offline GoogleDocs extension only works under actual GChrome, and there is no intention in either camp to fix it. (I'm mainly using GDocs for some of my fanfiction/original fiction).
Based on the stats, a TON of people still use Chrome. I use Chrome because, while it is a resource hog, Firefox is worse. About a year ago, I heard how much better Firefox had gotten about resource management and process isolation so I gave it another shot - it may be better but it is (still) a horrible resource hog.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
