Be careful when you install Microsoft Edge extensions from the Microsoft Store
Browser extensions can extend the functionality of the web browser they are installed in or a site significantly; this is true for all browsers that support extensions, and the new Chromium-based Microsoft Edge is no exception to the rule.
Microsoft operates its own extensions store as part of Microsoft Store, and things seemed to have taken a turn for the better with the switch to the Chromium base earlier this year.
Classic Microsoft Edge suffered from a lack of available extensions, and while Microsoft tried to explain the low number of extensions for the browser, it was clear that the browser could not compete with Google's or Mozilla's extension stores.
The switch to Chromium pushed the number of available extensions for Microsoft Edge and the Store is now hosting thousands of extensions for the browser. Edge users may install Chrome extensions as well next to that.
The increase seems to have brought along with it the issues that the other popular extension stores face from time to time. Microsoft had to remove malicious extensions from its Edge extensions store in May, and it appears that the company had to remove additional extensions this month.
Sites like Techdows published articles on the removal. According to the information, users of Edge opened support requests when they started to notice that searches were redirected when they used the Microsoft Edge browser.
It turned out that rogue extensions were responsible for that. All of these extensions were hosted on the official Microsoft Store; they used names of popular services and programs, e.g. NordVPN, Adguard VPN or The Great Suspender to lure users into installing the extensions.
Microsoft pulled the fake extensions from its web store and users who installed these in Edge will have them disabled on the next start of the browser automatically.
Raymone Hill, maker of the popular content blocker uBlock Origin, discovered another fake extension in the store that was based on an earlier version of uBlock Origin and manipulated website content to inject content on websites the user visited.
The two incidents suggest that users need to be very careful when installing extensions from the Microsoft Edge extensions store as Microsoft's protections are as weak as Google's protections on the Chrome Web Store.
In other words: there is always the chance that an extension is malicious in nature because of an insufficient vetting process. This leads to the following question: what can you do to protect yourself?
One of the best options is to analyze the code of the extension, but that is hardly something that all Edge users can do. Reviews and ratings help only so much, as they can be faked and sometimes, may not be available. You could look for reviews on trusted sites, or make sure that the company that supposedly created the extension has indeed created it by verifying that on the company site.
Now You: do you vet extensions before you install them?
Doesn’t Windows 8 know that www. or http:// are passe ?
Well it is a bit difficulty to distinguish between name.com domains and files for instance.
I know a service made by google that is similar to Google bookmarks.
http://www.google.com/saved
@Ashwin–Thankful you delighted my comment; who knows how many “gamers” would have disagreed!
@Martin
The comments section under this very article (3 comments) is identical to the comments section found under the following article:
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/15/netflix-is-testing-game-streaming-on-tvs-and-computers/
Not sure what the issue is, but have seen this issue under some other articles recently but did not report it back then.
Omg a badge!!!
Some tangible reward lmao.
It sucks that redditors are going to love the fuck out of it too.
With the cloud, there is no such thing as unlimited storage or privacy. Stop relying on these tech scums. Purchase your own hardware and develop your own solutions.
This is a certified reddit cringe moment. Hilarious how the article’s author tries to dress it up like it’s anything more than a png for doing the reddit corporation’s moderation work for free (or for bribes from companies and political groups)
Almost al unlmited services have a real limit.
And this comment is written on the dropbox article from August 25, 2023.
First comment > @ilev said on August 4, 2012 at 7:53 pm
For the God’s sake, fix the comments soon please! :[
Yes. Please. Fix the comments.
With Google Chrome, it’s only been 1,500 for some time now.
Anyone who wants to force me in such a way into buying something that I can get elsewhere for free will certainly never see a single dime from my side. I don’t even know how stupid their marketing department is to impose these limits on users instead of offering a valuable product to the paying faction. But they don’t. Even if you pay, you get something that is also available for free elsewhere.
The algorithm has also become less and less savvy in terms of e.g. English/German translations. It used to be that the bot could sort of sense what you were trying to say and put it into different colloquialisms, which was even fun because it was like, “I know what you’re trying to say here, how about…” Now it’s in parts too stupid to translate the simplest sentences correctly, and the suggestions it makes are at times as moronic as those made by Google Translations.
If this is a deep-learning AI that learns from users’ translations and the phrases they choose most often – which, by the way, is a valuable, moneys worthwhile contribution of every free user to this project: They invest their time and texts, thereby providing the necessary data for the AI to do the thing as nicely as they brag about it in the first place – alas, the more unprofessional users discovered the translator, the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, the greater the aggregate of linguistically illiterate users has become, and the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, as it now learns the drivel of every Tom, Dick and Harry out there, which is why I now get their Mickey Mouse language as suggestions: the inane language of people who can barely spell the alphabet, it seems.
And as a thank you for our time and effort in helping them and their AI learn, they’ve lowered the limit from what was once 5,000 to now 1,500…? A big “fuck off” from here for that! Not a brass farthing from me for this attitude and behaviour, not in a hundred years.
When will you put an end to the mess in the comments?
Ghacks comments have been broken for too long. What article did you see this comment on? Reply below. If we get to 20 different articles we should all stop using the site in protest.
I posted this on [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/] so please reply if you see it on a different article.
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Article Title: Reddit enforces user activity tracking on site to push advertising revenue
Article URL: https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
No surprises here. This is just the beginning really. I cannot see a valid reason as to why anyone would continue to use the platform anymore when there are enough alternatives fill that void.
I’m not sure if there is a point in commenting given that comments seem to appear under random posts now, but I’ll try… this comment is for https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
My temporary “solution”, if you can call it that, is to use a VPN (Mullvad in my case) to sign up for and access Reddit via a European connection. I’m doing that with pretty much everything now, at least until the rest of the world catches up with GDPR. I don’t think GDPR is a magical privacy solution but it’s at least a first step.