Malware in the browser: how you might get hacked by a Chrome extension

Re:Malware in the browser: how you might get hacked by a Chr... by nkozyra on Monday July 18, 2016 @12:31PM (#12116107)

This is true. They've actually made it difficult to do even with Developer Mode active, which is probably a net win.

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Re:Malware in the browser: how you might get hacked by a Chr... by bad_user on Monday July 18, 2016 @01:16PM (#12116484)

Obviously there's no net win, given that TFA is talking about extensions distributed on Chrome's Web Store, infecting over 130000 users before it was banned.

That kind of proves the walled garden is pretty ineffective, the only accomplishment being the lock-in of users to Google's Web Store as the sole distribution mechanism, thus keeping Chrome a proprietary platform, in spite of the open-source nature of its code.

The only real advantage of the web store is the ability to uninstall banned extensions. But that could have been accomplished just as well by digital signing of the distributed packages.

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Re:Malware in the browser: how you might get hacked by a Chr... by martinald on Monday July 18, 2016 @02:08PM (#12116954)

Yes, and Web Store only has problems if you want to keep stuff internal ('enterprise' distribution).

This does seem like a total mess.

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Re:Malware in the browser: how you might get hacked by a Chr... by noinsight on Monday July 18, 2016 @04:52PM (#12117998)

It's so annoying - on Windows, you can't even prevent Chrome from complaining every time you start it up when you have Developer Mode (and unpacked extensions) active. On Linux it doesn't, fortunately. I just want to use my own extension and it's not something that others would benefit from.

I even tried to put my extension up on the Web Store just because of this but I gave up once my (obviously valid) credit card got rejected. Now I just live with it.

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