Google Chrome ships a default, hidden extension that allows code on *.google.com access to private APIs, including your current CPU usage
Simon Willison (@simon@simonwillison.net)
Google Chrome ships a default, hidden extension that allows code on *.google.com access to private APIs, including your current CPU usage
Yet another reason to switch to Firefox, or even better, a hardened fork like LibreWolf !librewolf@lemmy.ml
What functionality would I lose/gain if I switch from Firefox to Librewolf? I'm admittedly an amateur in the privacy space, and I've been pretty content with Firefox + Ublock and container tabs for different profiles, but I consistently get the issue that my browser fingerprint is pretty unique, and I have no idea how to or even if I can anonymize that anymore.
Librewolf is not associated with Mozilla and does not receive their primary source of funding from Google like Mozilla does. I really like having the same browser and browser synchronization between my phone and desktop/laptop, so librewolf is out for me. They have no interest or resources to build an Android version. Waterfox does at least have desktop / android option and takes things at least one small step further away from Google.
Tangent note: I think browser fingerprinting is only a source of concern if you use VPN. Otherwise, your IP is already a good enough identifier, and quite likely doesn't rotate often enough. Please someone correct me if I'm wrong.
Switching from Firefox to Librewolf has some pros and cons. Librewolf is a fork of Firefox focused on privacy and security, with telemetry stripped out and privacy settings maxed out by default. You'll gain better out-of-the-box privacy protections, meaning less tracking and data collection without having to tweak settings yourself.
However, you might lose some convenience. Librewolf might not support certain Firefox features like Sync, since it relies on Mozilla's servers (not sure about that point, maybe it does work). It can also break some websites due to the stricter privacy settings. Another thing to consider is that you won't get updates as quickly as Firefox.
Regarding browser fingerprinting, it's a tricky beast. Librewolf can help somewhat by making your fingerprint less unique, but it's not a silver bullet. Tools like uBlock Origin and container tabs are great, but adding something like the CanvasBlocker extension can also help reduce fingerprinting. Ultimately, no setup is perfect, but Librewolf is a solid step towards better privacy.
Yes, why to do this?
Mostly it's just FF but with more private defaults (that you can change in the settings trivially anyway), although there are one or two extras.
There is a potential issue, though. Librewolf runs behind, so security vulnerabilities, particularly for zero-day exploits, take longer to be patched.
if itβs fingerprinting you care about, iβd give mullvad browser a try. itβs a firefox fork tailored to increase privacy and blend you into the crowd (as long as you donβt change any setting/install addons). itβs very very neat.
Would everyone who is surprised by this please raise your hand? . . . That's what I thought.
I am
License and registration, sir
Really? That's not what the data from your api says /s
You don't need to actually write it, just raise your hand and we have registered your vote, either via your computer's camera, Google Nest, Google Assistant or inferred it by analysing the WiFi data returned by your Google Mesh network.
Keep your hand raised because I'm coming in for a perfectly-landed high-five!
Not surprised, but still disappointed.
This is hilarious! It even works on Edge, Vivaldi and even Brave π€£. Good thing I use Firefox in almost everything or general day to day use
Firefox π π
π¦π¦
Vivaldi and Brave have the option to disable the Hangouts extension in settings, which should disable this.
As linked in the article, it is indeed used for "Hangouts" (Meet) troubleshooting.
This is good news since Vivaldi is my goto chromium browser (when I need to really use it)
I'll admit, in several places I used Edge as an effort to have at least some layer of distrust between myself and Google. I'll have to quit that though.
I like your style. I went looking and found "switchbar" which kinda/sorta eases this bouncing between browsers idea:
https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/open-with-switchbar/klgpknafjlhnpkppfbihchgfebbdcomd
It's not elegant, but it supports the workflow you suggest. I kind of like the idea of using Edge for google.com and Chrome for microsoft.com. I'm not optimizing my experience (it may in fact be very sub-optimal), but I'm also using competition to neutralize potential shenanigans.
such a sensationalist article there. mozilla isnt an advertising company, they bought a company that specialises in privacy focused ad campaigns so they can provide an alternative to google for companies.
which is what they should be doing.
Welp, might as well just use w3m π€£
idk what to tell you if you're still using chrome
Or anything Google for that matter. I see a lot of praise on Lemmy for their Pixel phones, but it wouldn't surprise me if they eventually find there was a backdoor in their firmware all this time. Yes of course, I can not prove that right now, but this news about Google Chrome isn't news for no reason. Don't trust anything Google if you care about privacy, it is literally their business model (selling targeted ads).
Relevant username.
Wrll you have to use a pixel phone to use graphene os
Well pretty much all computers have a backdoor to the CPU. That hasn't been proven for Pixel phones though.
I fucking hate Google and wouldn't use any of their (proprietary) software, but Pixel phones are amazing. Hear me out, Google is the only phone manufacturer right now, that puts extensive hardware security features like MTE, a secure element, as well as a bunch of others in their phones. The Google Titan M2 is based on an open-source project called OpenTitan, and Google has even contributed their own changes upstream. It's based on the open RISC-V architecture, and it's the most complete and secure implementation of a secure element that you can find in an Android phone. The only thing that comes even close is the "Secure Enclave" in Apple ARM chips, that are used in modern iPhones, iPads and Macs. I understand the concern about a potential backdoor in the firmware, but that's a valid concern with basically every CPU on the market right now. x86 are ARM are completely proprietary, so you can't really trust any CPU based on one of these architectures. The old Google Titan M1 was based on ARM, Apple's Secure Enclave is also based on ARM, as well as Snapdragon's SPU (which is incomplete and insecure anyway). The Titan M2, being based on open hardware architecture and firmware, is the most trustworthy secure element, despite being made by Google. It includes features like Insider Attack Resistance, support for the Weaver API, Android StrongBox hardware keystore implementation and is used for a secure implementation of Android Verified Boot. GrapheneOS is free, open-source, and doesn't use any proprietary Google apps/services by default. Although I hate Google, a Pixel with GrapheneOS is currently the best option for a secure smartphone.
I do: DON'T
#UninstallChrome
#SwitchToFirefox
Here, you forgot this: \
If you're still using Google Chrome in 2024, you might be a moron. #Firefox
Remember when Google pushed for use of open standard in the browser to force Microsoft IE out of the market? Oh yeah I βmember
They have become the evil they once sought to combat.
Google does a lot of standards breaking things.
Like allowing a link on Google Apps Marketplace to open a new window (like popup) with POST instead of GET. (This pretty much ensures that buying an app will fail for browsers that follow the spec)
This garbage behavior is in Chromium as well?
There's a bunch of stuff in Chrome that's special-cased to only allow Google to access it.
Not sure if it's still there, but many years ago I was trying to figure out how to do something that some Google webapp was doing (can't remember which one). I think it was something to do with popping up a chromeless window - that is, a new window with no address bar or browser chrome, just some HTML content.
Turns out the Chromium codebase had a hard-coded allowlist that only allowed *.google.com to use the API!
Edit: my memory was a bit wrong. It was this: https://stackoverflow.com/a/11614605. The Hangouts extension was allowlisted to use the functionality, but if any other extension wanted to use it, the user had to enable an experimental setting.
Are you talking about the "apps" that Chrome used to support? They removed the feature years ago to reduce bloat and RAM usage or something like that.
Before they removed the feature, I had actually figured out how to create my own "apps" that'd simply load webpages I visited often at the time, like Twitch.
I don't know why, but my head automatically put that as "the apps formerly support by Google" the same as "the artist formerly known as Prince"
I found what I was talking about: https://stackoverflow.com/a/11614605. It was a feature that the Hangouts extension could use, but the user had to manually enable it in the browser settings for any other extensions to use it.
The apps feature is still there just with a different name. It's labeled as "create shortcut", and you have to check the box to open a new window. I use it just because Firefox doesn't have a similar feature.
How long until it will be used as a backdoor to hack womeone's PC?
Chrome is the backdoor and you already installed it
Seems google has already done that
Negative number.
Ianal, but this sounds like something worthy of suing their ass over. There's not much Google would respond to and good luck beating their lawyers, but the only language they speak is $, so please try to take as much as possible away from them for this garbage.
Hmmm, no way this could ever turn into a security hole, I'm sure of it.
I will stick with using Firefox.
That's the way to go
I already ditched Windows for Linux a month ago because of spyware. Everything Google-related is next. My phone is going to be the hardest thing to de-infest.
In my experience you either have to trade one devil for the other with Apple or accept buying hardware from the ad company so you can use GrapheneOS.
There are more options than GrapheneOS with broader device support, such as Calyx or LineageOS.
But if you use Android already, you can start by using F-Droid (or others) to install apps to find FOSS replacements for apps you use.
You could always go the used/refurbished route to not directly give the chocolate factory money
I already ditched Windows for Linux a month ago because of spyware.
Great!
Everything Google-related is next.
Even better.
My phone is going to be the hardest thing to de-infest.
If you plan on getting a new phone soon, I recommend a Google Pixel, on which you can install GrapheneOS. Yes, ironically Google devices are the best for installing alternative operating systems and removing all the Google BS. GrapheneOS is completely free and open source, and based on the Android Open Source Project. It incorporates many privacy and security enhancements, and gives you total freedom and control over your device. In my opinion, it's the best option for degoogling a phone.
Kagi is a great replacement for Google search. It does cost money though.
Or you can take a Duck. Then get one more Duck. Then you can Go.
Welcome to the world of freedom. The first months may be a bit uncomfortable, but it's a journey worth taking. Be welcome!
I'm also doing this. Proton is amazing, for the most part. Ente Photos is also incredible for ditching Google Photos, although I'll probably switch to Proton Photos when that comes out since Ente is pricey.
Honestly I just keep my phone as my designated privacy nightmare so I can get free phone calls on wifi and keep in touch with family members who are still on facebook.
Just use Firefox
shrug
My biggest issue is video streaming on older computers. I have an old laptop I use casually for video playing in the background, and Webkit browsers like Edge definitely load YouTube with far less stuttering. I'm still trying to find good alternatives - lately even changing the user agent doesn't seem to make it faster.
This to me sounds like an issue with hardware video decoding not working right and it falling back to software decoding on the CPU.
there's a portion of the internet that just doesn't work in Firefox because the company pays only $2 million a year for developers and they can't do it
I mean web developers not the Firefox developers stop down voting me
I use Firefox and Linux and I don't drive a car how about that
please give me $40
βDonβt be evilβ
Not anymore.
this just in: google is still spying on you in every way possible
Uhh do we know if this extends to sites.google.com?
You can check this yourself. Just paste this into the developer console:
chrome.runtime.sendMessage(
"nkeimhogjdpnpccoofpliimaahmaaome",
{ method: "cpu.getInfo" },
(response) => {
console.log(JSON.stringify(response, null, 2));
},
);
If you get a return like this, it means that the site has special access to these private, undocumented APIs
{
"value": {
"archName": "arm64",
"features": [],
"modelName": "Apple M2 Max",
"numOfProcessors": 12,
"processors": [
{
"usage": {
"idle": 26890137,
"kernel": 5271531,
"total": 42525857,
"user": 10364189
}
}, ...
Not an area I'm familiar with, but this user says no:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40918052
lashkari 5 hours ago | prev | next [β]
If it's really accessible from *.google.com, wouldn't this be simple to verify/exploit by using Google Sites (they publish your site to sites.google.com/view/
<sitename>
)?DownrightNifty 5 hours ago | parent | next [β]
JS on Google Sites, Apps Script, etc. runs on *.googleusercontent.com, otherwise cookie-stealing XSS >happens.
Why do people still use Chrome?
Please uninstall it from everyone's home pc and phone that you come into contact with
Does this also affect Chromium, or is it just Google Chrome?
The article mentions it being affecting Google Chrome through Chromium, but it's not clear if it also affects Chromium on its own, or other Chromium-based browsers.
It allegedly also affects Edge and Vivaldi, so it seems to be chromium not chrome
Just now tested in Vivaldi and it works, so yeah seems like Chromium π₯²
Chromium is also affected.
Chromium alone depends on if it's the Google version or the Un-Googled version. For the Google version of Chromium, it still has that hangouts extension. However, the Un-Googled Chromium has that extension removed via the build flags, the one to note is enable_hangout_services_extension=false.
As others have said though, it can also depend on what other Chromium-based is being used. Some browsers like Brave and including Vivaldi can have this turned off in the settings. Others like Edge and Opera are affected as well. However it doesn't affect every Chromium-based browser.
Doesn't seem to work on cromite desktop (good)
This that and the article are very light on details, but I couldn't find an article deeper in details
My laptop, that I own and runs Linux that I installed, has chrome in it. I'm order to log into Gmail for work, it installs an extension that is capable of telling Gmail if my disk is encrypted. I know because you get an error message until my disk was actually encrypted. It was a big surprise to me, and I wonder if this is done by the same piece of code.
Btw would there be a way to do virtualization through perhaps docker or flat pack or chroot that can isolate chrome in a sandbox and prevent it from a) reading and writing files anywhere on any disk and b) get other data such as CPU, disk encryption etc?
My laptop, that I own and runs Linux that I installed, has chrome in it. Iβm order to log into Gmail for work, it installs an extension that is capable of telling Gmail if my disk is encrypted. I know because you get an error message until my disk was actually encrypted. It was a big surprise to me, and I wonder if this is done by the same piece of code.
That's strange, I've never heard of that before
Btw would there be a way to do virtualization through perhaps docker or flat pack or chroot that can isolate chrome in a sandbox and prevent it from a) reading and writing files anywhere on any disk and b) get other data such as CPU, disk encryption etc?
There are some isolation mechanisms on Linux like Firejail or Bubblewrap. The latter is used by Flatpak to sandbox applications. These are rather weak though, and Flatpak weakens the security of bwrap further. By default, Flatpak application permissions are also set in a Manifest file, which is created by the maintainer of the package. To get more control over your Flatpak sandbox, you need to use an application like Flatseal.
Docker (or containers in general) aren't meant for isolation/sandboxing, but this approach would also work. I would create a container using Distrobox or toolbx, and install Chrome inside the container.
This will not prevent Chrome from getting your CPU information though. To protect against that, you would have to use a virtual machine (and spoof the your CPU model if you want to hide that from Chrome).
Can someone explain this to me like I'm 5. I understand it's not good but I don't know why and I would like to understand it.
Effectively Google has a browser extension (just like the ones you'd install from the Chrome Web Store like uBlock Origin) that comes with the browser that's hidden.
This extension allows Google to see additional information about your computer that extensions and websites don't normally have access to, such as checking how much load your PC has or directly handing over hardware information like the make and model of your professor.
The big concern in the comments is that this could be used for fingerprinting your browser, even in Incognito mode.
What this essentially means is that even though the browser may not have any cookies saved or any other usual tracking methods, your browser can still be recognised by how it behaves on your machine in particular, and this hidden extension allows Google to retrieve additional information to further narrow down your browser and therefore who you are (as they can link this behaviour and data to when you've used Google with that browser signed in), even in Incognito mode.
information like the make and model of your professor
Oh no, not my professor :( (/s)
So since they only just seem to have discovered this, does that mean this invisible extension also likely to be present on Chromium based browsers such as Brave and Thorium etc...?
Thank you for this info. If this is just an extension, can we just uninstall it or turn it off?
Fingerprinting.
Bingo! Google wants to go cookieless and fingerprinting has been one of the solves Iβve always read about in the SEO world.
even in Incognito mode.
I thought extensions don't run in incognito mode?
I know Firefox doesn't run them by default - you can specify which extensions you'd like to run in incognito mode.
Refreshing change from reading about some new AI powered tracking nonsense in Windows.
Is this for malicious harvesting or is this part of their chrome device trust product for enterprises?
No, as far as I know this has nothing to do with attestation/verification for enterprise users.
WINK
Suprise Suprise!
i think it's used for the performance testing feature in google meet n stuff like that..
Of course there's some legitimate use case to it. Just like every privacy rights undermining bill helps "the children". Doesn't mean that's the only or even the main goal.
Google Meet can show CPU usage, they aten't trying to hide this.