I like this project, but I also worry that eventually we’re going to lose access to extensions entirely because people will take away the wrong message.
Safeguards are good, but at a certain point I want my devices to trust that I know what I’m doing.
The most important thing is whay you tell the user -
Windows says "We don't know where Trojan.exe came from, it could be a virus, are you sure you want to run it?"
Chrome says: "You downloaded Trojan.exe from our store, we manage it and check it for viruses. It only asks for harmless permission, install it!"
One is warning you, the other is entrapment.
> It only asks for harmless permission, install it!
Not true. It lists all the permissions being requested. Sure the scrollbar issue is real and should be an easy fix.
I don't understand why people are so confused about permissions. If the user grants your extension permission to read your browsing history so it can provide value to them, why is that a problem? It's not. The problem is if the user grants a malicious extension the same permission because the extension is fraudulent. The author said this extension would never pass chrome store review, so it seems that the user would never be in this position in the first place and your example doesn't really match reality.
I don't understand why people (read: devs) still assume permissions are read and understood.
The vast majority of people simply do not read nor understand permissions and just instantly hit the OK button. Even Linus from LinusTechTips doesn't read permissions, and he's even a tech guru unlike most people.
The only thing that has permission to read and modify website data on my browsers is my password manager. I trust it. Without that permission it could not operate and provide me immense value. Yes, I would be hosed if it got pwned. It's a calculated risk on my part.
One cannot live in a world where we have the benefits of browser extensions and also disallow all behavior that could ever possibly be used for bad. It's an inconsistent worldview.
This is very disrespectrull.
When you supply exhaustive documentation of your software, how it works, what it does, to users, then you can mock them.
It is not unusual to see stories of malicious applications or extensions with hundreds of thousands of happy users and good reviews.
Ask the not-tech-savvy.
I see it asking for two very scary permissions, two somewhat scary permissions, and one annoying one?
The user isn't giving informed consent, because even if, like you, they are informed about what the worst case is for granting this permission, they have no reasonable knowledge about whether the worst case is likely, even knowing that they've been asked to give permission. The questions are simply too generic for informed consent to be possible. (Mobile apps are getting better here as well, but there's still a long way to go.)
So the permissions aren't actually about managing your risks; they're about managing Google's risks.
Windows says "Now I know I say this for literally every program you download, but I'll say it again. It might be harmful because all programs can do anything at all. Good luck!".
Chrome says: "This might be harmful and it can do these things: X, Y, Z."
Apart from the stupid scrollbar issue that's clearly better.
The only problem is they have done the permission model that we've known for like a decade is broken: ask for permissions up front, you can grant all or deny all.
Could they not have spoken to the Android team who spent like a decade fixing that mistake and moving to fine grained on demand permission prompts?
Maybe the middle ground is all extensions have a legal entity in your country so you can sue them for spyware.
Or pwned
The same can happen with any piece of software in the world. Why single out extensions?
Regarding extensions code: indeed, I do read the code of extensions that require some elevated permissions, if these extensions are not otherwise vetted. This is why I avoid installing excessively complicated extensions, unless they ask for minor permissions. Having the list of tabs if no big deal; accessing data in your tabs, even for a particular site, triggers scrutiny.
It also makes it easier to deal with it after the fact. You can fork an open source project the minute it's detected that it's doing something it shouldn't. When closed source software goes bad you can't pick right up from the last known good version and move on, you have to find a product that entirely replaces what you had and hope that it does everything you need at least as well which isn't always likely since you were presumably using the other software because it was better than existing alternatives.
As well as almost all regular software is backed by some large company with legal presence to hold responsible. The same can not be said for most extensions.
This is also true of web extensions. I suspect you've never developed one. You can't read another extension's data. It's also not true on desktop platforms. The user is still the security domain in desktop computing.
> As well as almost all regular software is backed by some large company with legal presence to hold responsible. The same can not [sic] be said for most extensions.
Is this true? All the browser extensions I use are published by a real legal entity that can be sued if they are negligent. What corner of the web are you on?
There will always be a forked browser or an independent browser that supports/allows extensions as long as the web uses HTTP.