A while back I noticed a visual bug on a specific webpage. I mean a real insect bug, crawling across the bottom of the screen on a corporate webpage[1]. It genuinely scared the shit out of me. I thought there was a bug inside my laptop. I had a few reputable extensions in that browser profile, but it contained bpwc. Downloaded, of course from the official repo.
I restarted my browser and removed bpwc from that profile. I never saw it again. Now i use it only in a specific browser profile called paywalls. I don't know what extension or ad injection caused it, but that experience, along with the countless articles about the malware in extensions has caused me to be a lot more careful.
I am not accusing bpwc of course, it is open source and well regarded, but if anyone has any insight into what happened I would be curious to hear.
On Firefox, this extension doesn't ask to run on all domains that you visit, only the news sites it bypasses paywalls. For example I visited deepl.com now and it doesn't have permission to run.
That's the default, but Firefox does offer toggle to give it permission to run on all pages you visit, I never clicked it (never seen the need to).
Also for Firefox, Mozilla banned it from their extension store (like Chrome did) after a legal threat from news publishers, but they still have to sign the extension and approve every new release even though it is distributed outside the Mozilla extension store now.
> Download this repository as a zip-file from GitFlic
Please don't do that
pogue•50m ago
It's a shame the creator had to put this on a Russian github clone. But after getting DMCA'd off Gitlab, Mozilla Extensions & Github they didn't have much of a choice.
kkfx•16m ago
I see no shame in that except a thing: devs should own their infra, instead of relaying on third parties. A thing too many still fails to understand.
KnuthIsGod•4h ago
Just dreading a supply side attack...
Cider9986•4h ago
I restarted my browser and removed bpwc from that profile. I never saw it again. Now i use it only in a specific browser profile called paywalls. I don't know what extension or ad injection caused it, but that experience, along with the countless articles about the malware in extensions has caused me to be a lot more careful.
I am not accusing bpwc of course, it is open source and well regarded, but if anyone has any insight into what happened I would be curious to hear.
[1] https://deepl.com
DarkFuture•47m ago
That's the default, but Firefox does offer toggle to give it permission to run on all pages you visit, I never clicked it (never seen the need to).
Also for Firefox, Mozilla banned it from their extension store (like Chrome did) after a legal threat from news publishers, but they still have to sign the extension and approve every new release even though it is distributed outside the Mozilla extension store now.
Link for Firefox version: https://gitflic.ru/project/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-fire...