Google removes adware extensions from Chrome

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Google has removed two Chrome extensions that allegedly changed their code to target users with ads. The makers of the removed extensions are said to have received money for their sale.

Last weekend, it emerged that makers of popular extensions were offered money to sell them, after which the seller added code to the extensions that ran ads on websites. Because Google does not review changes to Chrome extensions and extensions are automatically updated, this could go unnoticed, so that users did not notice where the ads suddenly came from.

Two extensions that would have been sold by the maker have now been removed, writes The Wall Street Journal. Below that is ‘Add to Feedly’, which allows users of the RSS reader to add websites. The extension’s creator, Amit Agrawal, admitted last weekend that he sold his “four-digit number” extension to a company that added ads to his extension. The same would have happened with the Tweet This Page extension.

The two removed extensions had relatively few users: Add to Feedly had 32,000. However, makers of more popular extensions would also have been approached.

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