We all know very well that extensions give browsers additional capabilities that do not exist natively. They are small additional tools that simply help users. However, now according to the latest reports, recently, a well-known extension caught stealing users’ data secretly and sending it to another firm for its own profit.
Immediately Remove This Extension From Your Browser
Extensions give browsers additional capabilities that do not exist natively. They are small additional tools that simply help users.
However, they are not always controlled by browser stores, hence, there may be problems. This is what is happening now in Chrome and Firefox, with a much-needed extension, Stylish.
This extension exists for both Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome browsers and allows users to customize the pages they visit, giving them a unique image by changing the many elements of these pages.
These features made this extension an option for many users, who seek to personalize their navigation, giving a new image to the sites they visit.
Since changing hands last year, Stylish has undergone some changes, which have gone unnoticed by all users. An analysis now found that Stylish is sending browsing data to its parent house, the SimilarWeb, and that allows users to identify unequivocally.
The security researcher who discovered this behavior detailed this situation and reported that too much data is being sent anonymously as expected.
The bigger problem is that this information also follows a unique identifier of each user, which allows tracing the data collected for each of the users, something that violates their privacy.
SimilarWeb has expressed in its policy the collection of data but refers that it does so anonymously, something that does not actually happen, as it has now been proven.
Both the Chrome and Firefox versions have been removed from their stores, but it is now necessary for users to remove Stylish from their browsers, or they will continue to send data to SimilarWeb.
This is a security issue that recurrently affects browsers, all due to the lack of evaluation of the extensions and the way in which the programmers look for data to later sell. It is similar to what happens in operating systems and unfortunately has no solution. So, what do you think about this? Simply share all your views and thoughts in the comment section below.
