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Comment by LordDragonfang | Hacker News Reader

You'd think the people who read this site would be more internet literate.

"Download this browser extension so we won't track you without consent" isn't a very good proposition no matter how internet literate you are. I'd argue that the very concept of internet literacy is broken if any of this sounds normal to you.

> "Download this browser extension so we won't track you without consent" isn't a very good proposition no matter how internet literate you are.

If said browser extension actually doesn't track you, this is a non-sequitur.

Hard to argue an extension tracks you if the single only thing it ever does is print "Hello" on top of every page you visit... still that extension would need to be able to access and modify every site you visit by definition.

The exact same thing is happening here.

The web extension honor system "security" model is broken because that extension that prints Hello at the top of the page might later be modified by a malicious actor to do something else [1].

[1] https://www.reviewgeek.com/45420/over-70-chrome-browser-exte...

I suppose, but I don't want to download it, so I won't. Much like I wouldn't try to delete Bonzi Buddy by downloading the Bonzi toolbar. This is just a JavaScript block (for now) but I have no idea what it means internally and having an insignia that reports back to Google everywhere I go sounds kind of like the thing I was trying to avoid in the first place.

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