Browser extensions turn nearly 1 million browsers into website-scraping bots
Link to the list of extensions at the end of the article
https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/07/browser-extensions-turn-nearly-1-million-browsers-into-website-scraping-bots/Open linkView original on lemmy.ml
19 replies
Still sounds gross. While the developer might have opted in to selling your processing power to scrape websites, I doubt the users of each extension opted in.
The popular Dark Reader is not affected by this as far as I know. Only this knock off for the edge browser. Source: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vT1XgBs25gRlg5e3nYCAff967WMtZZTO-TB3rR9zszaJpTpCVFg8j7FkBxnHb3tw3aHGjKBGSxYyLgV/pubhtml
I use the inbuild Dark Mode in Vivaldi (on/off with shortcut, wors even in intern pages and menus) and none of the extensions from the list, most extensions from the Store anyway are redundant in Vivaldi translation, reader mode, tabs, feeds, ad/tracker blocker..........)
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The list;
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vT1XgBs25gRlg5e3nYCAff967WMtZZTO-TB3rR9zszaJpTpCVFg8j7FkBxnHb3tw3aHGjKBGSxYyLgV/pubhtml
I'll save everybody a click because it's what we all want to know. "Dog Facts Unlimited" extension is on the list.
My disappointment is immesurable and my day is ruined.
"Cat Facts Unleashed" too.... My heart is sinking and I am dying now....
Dark Reader is on the list :(
That is not THE Dark Reader! Only this knock off for the edge browser is affected.
Oh wow thanks for letting me know!
oh shit. I used to use this but removed later after realizing it wasn't open source.
It's disheartening seeing screen readers on this list. That seems predatory.
Damn now how am I gonna live without "Change my cursor to Sims 4"?
Definitely read the original SecureAnnex article as well. The behavior of this software and the people behind it are damning.
I used Youtube unhook in the past but before the AI craze so I'm probably good.
I know a lot of people use Dark Reader so that's gotta hurt.
Other than that I think I'm safe.
The popular Dark Reader is not affected by this.
Only this knock off for the edge browser. Source
I see Dark Reader for Edge but not Firefox. Are they the same extension?
This is from Mozilla
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/android/addon/darkreader/
They seem to all link back to the same github page.
https://github.com/darkreader/darkreader
Edit: not the same one as on the list