Great Suspender Chrome Extension malware

stphnstevey

https://www.windowscentral.com/great-suspender-gets-pulled-chrome-web-store
I use Chrome Extensions sparingly because of the threat of malware, but this really puts you off using any at all, apart form those from Google and other larger companies
What do others think about security issues here?

[Deleted User]

This has been a really interesting tale dating back to June last year when the original owner 'sold' the rights to an unnamed new owner who then updated the code around October last year without sharing it with the open source community and has refused to answer or interact to any enquiries.

Microsoft pulled it from Edge in October, seems Google have been a bit slow to react but it isn't clear whether it is malware or just some stealthy tracking that was added to the code. Either way the whole situation is very suspicious and it is a real shame because this extension had a massive following among the technical community for people who 'need' a thousand browser tabs open all the time - I know of some IT colleagues that have used it for years.

Anyway, in terms of using extensions, yes I agree with you, need to be careful with them. Was tricky with this one because it had an excellent reputation even though it was from a big company. It is one tactic of malicious developers to take over an otherwise reputable piece of software and turn it into a privacy nightmare. It could even be commercially motivated, maybe a competitor bought it via an anonymous party to destroy it and drive users to their product. 

There doesn't seem to be any real evidence of a security breach but it would do no harm to run some full malware scans on your computer and clear your browser cache and cookies.