<story><title>Using fake reviews to find dangerous extensions</title><url>https://krebsonsecurity.com/2021/05/using-fake-reviews-to-find-dangerous-extensions/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>extesy</author><text>&amp;gt; In other words, there a great many developers who are likely to be open to someone else buying up their creation along with their user base.&lt;p&gt;As a maintainer of a relatively popular extension (hoverzoom+, ~360K users) I get business offers all the time [1]. A few of them are pretty good, actually. I&amp;#x27;m not surprised that some developers eventually give up and take one of those offers. But I am surprised that there aren&amp;#x27;t more of these &amp;quot;under new management&amp;quot; extensions, or maybe we just don&amp;#x27;t know about them.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;extesy&amp;#x2F;hoverzoom&amp;#x2F;discussions&amp;#x2F;670&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;extesy&amp;#x2F;hoverzoom&amp;#x2F;discussions&amp;#x2F;670&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dang</author><text>Related current thread based on that link:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Many temptations of an open-source Chrome extension developer&lt;/i&gt; - &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=27327892&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=27327892&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Using fake reviews to find dangerous extensions</title><url>https://krebsonsecurity.com/2021/05/using-fake-reviews-to-find-dangerous-extensions/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>extesy</author><text>&amp;gt; In other words, there a great many developers who are likely to be open to someone else buying up their creation along with their user base.&lt;p&gt;As a maintainer of a relatively popular extension (hoverzoom+, ~360K users) I get business offers all the time [1]. A few of them are pretty good, actually. I&amp;#x27;m not surprised that some developers eventually give up and take one of those offers. But I am surprised that there aren&amp;#x27;t more of these &amp;quot;under new management&amp;quot; extensions, or maybe we just don&amp;#x27;t know about them.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;extesy&amp;#x2F;hoverzoom&amp;#x2F;discussions&amp;#x2F;670&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;extesy&amp;#x2F;hoverzoom&amp;#x2F;discussions&amp;#x2F;670&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gnicholas</author><text>The Hover Zoom extension I&amp;#x27;m seeing in the Chrome Store [1] refers to a prior version that was overrun by malware and removed from the store.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;This is an open source version of the original HoverZoom extension which is now overrun by malware and deleted from store. In this version all spyware has been removed, many bugs were fixed and new features were added.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Were you involved with the project when that all went down?&lt;p&gt;1: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;chrome.google.com&amp;#x2F;webstore&amp;#x2F;detail&amp;#x2F;hover-zoom%20&amp;#x2F;pccckmaobkjjboncdfnnofkonhgpceea&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;chrome.google.com&amp;#x2F;webstore&amp;#x2F;detail&amp;#x2F;hover-zoom%20&amp;#x2F;pccc...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>