Your Chrome Extensions May Be Spying On You

By   ISBuzz Team
Writer , Information Security Buzz | May 09, 2017 09:00 am PST

Google is a highly innovative Tech company specializing in internet related products and services. Over the years, Google has transformed into a multi-billion dollar empire with a broad range of products and ingenious features, with Chrome extensions being one of them.

In a world of web browsers, security experts and geeks are of the opinion that Chrome is by far the best choice when it comes to ensuring online privacy and security. However, there’s still no guarantee about the third party extensions you install on your Chrome browser which can track your online activities and interests.

Chrome has hundreds and thousands of extensions that range from productivity to social and even games! A recent examination done by security experts concluded that popular extensions and apps on Chrome are aggressively tracking their users.

As harmless the practice may seem, third party extensions are readily spying every page a user visits which forms a clear picture of the user’s browsing history. Furthermore, they go beyond that to document the pages you visit and the accounts you have linked together. For example, if you have connected your Facebook account with Twitter, a third-party extension would know of it.

The reason why such extensions get away with spying on you is them including default permissions that we agree to when clicking on the ‘Agree’ column on terms and conditions. That allows the extensions unrestricted access to view all the websites you visit.

That being said, some of the permissions are robust and require access to function to their full extent. However, more often than not, some extensions are implanting open source scripts that gather your browser’s traffic.

What happens to the gathered data?

Data collected from your browser could be sold to third-party analytics services and any other highest bidder for their marketing campaigns. The extensions go on to crawl your browser for more information such as the pages you visited on a website and how frequently you visited.

How to safeguard your Chrome activities?

Fortunately, advancements in tech have pros too. Just like you can mask your real IP with an encryption tool, there are many Chrome extensions that secure you against such surveillance done by browser extensions.

A VPN for Chrome would secure your online activities on your Chrome browser and keep you secure from malicious entities. In today’s digital world, hacking incidents have become increasingly common, highlighting the need for a Chrome VPN. It allows users to get unlimited access to a private and fast internet with robust VPN encryption algorithms and secure your online communications.

What is more interesting is the fact that this Chrome VPN extension provides tracker protection against online trackers, malware protection against viruses, and most importantly WebRTC leak protection that keeps your real identity hidden and secure at all times. This will combat trackers from crawling on your Chrome history and eliminate any chances of surveillance. You can connect to 35 countries and get unparalleled security on your Chrome browser.

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