this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2024
1533 points (99.4% liked)

Technology

59988 readers
2387 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
L3s
[email protected]
[email protected]
L4s
enu
1533
Google Chrome ships a default, hidden extension that allows code on *.google.com access to private APIs, including your current CPU usage (fedi.simonwillison.net)
submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by [email protected] to c/technology
199 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/23752739

https://simonwillison.net/2024/Jul/9/hangout_servicesthunkjs/

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago (1 children)

This is not a typical extension and it cannot be removed. It doesn't even show up in the list of installed extensions.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Maybe recompiling? But I suspect that Chrome as it is, is closed source?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

Chromium is open source. Google Chrome is not open source.

[–] ABasilPlant 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] Katana314 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Seems like a great option. Can anyone more familiar with the code confirm this removes the aforementioned CPU-fingerprinting plugin?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

It does. You can even try it out yourself. Install Ungoogled Chromium, go to google.com and paste the following code in the Developer console (which you can bring up by pressing F12 and clicking on 'Console' at the top of the DevTools interface):

    chrome.runtime.sendMessage(
      "nkeimhogjdpnpccoofpliimaahmaaome",
      { method: "cpu.getInfo" },
      (response) => {
        console.log(JSON.stringify(response, null, 2));
      },
    );

If it returns nothing or an error, you're good. If it returns something like this:

{
  "value": {
    "archName": "arm64",
    "features": [],
    "modelName": "Apple M2 Max",
    "numOfProcessors": 12,
    "processors": [
      {
        "usage": {
          "idle": 26890137,
          "kernel": 5271531,
          "total": 42525857,
          "user": 10364189
        }
      }, ...

it means that the hidden extension is present, and *.google.com sites have special access in your browser.