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Google has kicked five malicious ad blockers off the Chrome Store

April 19, 2018 By discountbonus_sd3n3h



While installing ad blocking extensions is becoming the norm for everyday web surfers, the number of imposter and malicious browser extensions has increased alongside it, taking advantage of the less savvy users.

AdGuard, a company that provides its own paid ad blocking service, has released a report listing five fake extensions that have made their way to top spots in Chrome’s Web Store and been installed by millions of users.

Popularity contest

These malicious extensions spam keywords and code to cheaply climb the ranks in search results for phrases such as 'adblocker' and 'ad block' and, considering their relatively similar names and appearance to legitimate extensions, end up getting downloaded by users. 

AdGuard reports that more than 20 million users in total have downloaded and installed the five extensions, with one in particular topping out at 10 million downloads.

  • Google Chrome's ad blocker is now live

The fake extensions appear to do what it says on the tin as they use copied code from legitimate blockers, cloning their functionality entirely. The catch, however, is that they add their own malicious code to gain access to users’ browsers and information.

The five extensions mentioned in the AdGuard report have since been taken down by Google. While two of them aren’t strictly ad blockers, they abuse the same exploit. Here’s the list:

  • AdRemover for Google Chrome™
  • uBlock Plus
  • Adblock Pro
  • HD for YouTube™
  • Webutation

If you plan on using an ad blocker, it's well worth doing a bit of background research on browser extensions before installing them to be sure they have known authors and are recommended by reputable sources.

  • The best Chrome extensions 2018: enjoy a better online experience



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Filed Under: Internet

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Disclaimer: All the links on this page are ‘affiliate links’. This means we will earn commission from every customer we refer from this website. Our reviews are honest, we wouldn’t waste your time or put our reputation on the line by recommending anything we didn’t fully believe in.

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