Widespread Browser Extension Is Collecting Your Data

You have likely heard warnings about installing browser extensions before. Okay, so they can be useful and many of them are fun. In fact, one called Stylish allows a user to customize a website’s page to look the way they want it to, rather than them having to see it the way the site’s designer intended. That one is so popular that it boasts 1.8 million downloads for both Google Chrome and Firefox. Unfortunately, Stylish also collects data on users’ browsing history and sends it back to the developers.

A software engineer from San Francisco found the problem with the extension. Although Stylish claims to collect and return only anonymous data, it was actually sending unique tracking identifiers, which he said can permanently associate a user account with Stylish and therefore attach an identity to the activity.

If you have downloaded Stylish and don’t want all of your information sent away not knowing exactly what will be done with it, then you should manually delete it. You will need to go into your browser settings or preferences menu to do this. In some cases, you may need to go into the advanced options. If you were considering downloading it, you no longer can. Both Google and Mozilla have removed it from their stores for violating data privacy policies.

As for other extensions, beware of downloading those too. Not only do many of them contain spyware that may be used to market products to you, but they also can contain malware than can do more harm. In addition to malware, if hackers get large amounts of data on users, they can devise very specific phishing campaigns that may be difficult for a user to determine is actually phishing.

There are very few extensions that you need in order to successfully browse to websites. One that should be removed is Adobe Flash Player. Websites are moving away from that one, as it has an exploitable vulnerability nearly every couple of months. Many others are not necessary and present added risk into your browsing experience. So, if you don’t need it, disable it. How you do this differs depending on which browser you use.