Use Extension Defender to protect Chrome

Over the past couple of weeks news broke that some extensions for Google’s Chrome web browser were hiding what they were doing. It wasn’t malware, but adware that was the problem. The news was broken by Amit Agarwal, and you can read about it from here. Since this came out, Google has taken steps to remove these add-ons.

However, if you’re still worried, and perhaps you should be, then there are ways to check what is going on with the extensions you have installed in Chrome.

Extension Defender is perhaps the best way to check what is going on with all of those add-ons. It works in much the same way as an anti-virus or anti-malware program would, even getting daily updates of definition files.

Once you’ve installed it, and it’s free from the Chrome Web Store, you’ll fine the icon residing on your menu bar (you may need to click the arrow to the right of the URL bar). This brings up a new tab with an option to “Scan now”.

The scan is quick, it’s over in a few seconds. As you can see in the image below, it found three items of concern. All of these are disabled in Chrome, but I never actually removed them. One is the Feedly extension that Amit Agarwal wrote about in the above reference. Another is an image zoom program that I replaced with “Hover Free”.

A handy remove option is included at the right, saving you the trouble of heading into Settings to take care of the problem. It’s simple, free and constantly updated. I recommend you give it a shot.