Google to prohibit all mining extensions in Chrome

The announcement of Google cited by at least two big technology-related outlets tells that it’s about time they banned cryptocurrency-mining extensions for Chrome, the popular browser made by this company.

The issue of in-browser mining through extensions has initially been raised in October last year in a developers’ blog. It was only a matter of time before the Google team found out how to block all plugins which mine cryptocurrency. The primary reason is that even some charity projects offering to install their mining addon might be compromised. As one can see from the project dedicated to bail funds for poor, it is not actually necessary for a charity to use in-browser extensions to get donations - they can either develop their own separate software or just insert a CoinHive script on a site like Salon, a news agency, did in exchange for ads-free space.

The current cryptocurrency market is overrun with questionable offerings and financial tools, so it is not hard to imagine that some malicious Chrome plugins’ developers might have had the audacity to offer a malicious mining extension promising the returns while actually stealing a part of them. Another very possible fraud mechanism which could have been used by hackers before the ban - an extension dedicated to unrelated topic that secretly mines cryptocurrency for hackers. All these variations are now blocked by Google.

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