As of today, Google's Chrome Web Store will no longer accept extensions that extract cryptocurrencies. The company says there has been an increase in "malicious extensions" in recent months that seem to be useful, but they are actually incorporating hidden cryptocurrency mining scripts that run in the background without consent, consuming valuable computing resources. Google says that existing extensions will be removed from the Chrome Web Store at the end of June, although extensions for purposes related to Blockchain "other than mining" will still be allowed.
Google had previously allowed the cryptocurrency of mining in extensions provided that it was the sole purpose of the extension and the user was informed about the process. However, Google said that about 90 percent of all extensions with mining scripts sent by developers did not comply with Google's policies and were rejected or removed from the store as a result.
Mining can negatively affect system performance. significant power of the CPU to execute the rigorous calculations necessary to extract the digital tokens. It is also known that companies and hackers sow backdoor coin extraction scripts on public websites to obtain the appropriate computational power of unsuspecting browsers.
In a blog post, the product manager of the Google extensions platform, James Wagner, said:
"The extension platform offers powerful capabilities that have enabled our community of Developers create a dynamic catalog of extensions that help users get the most out of Chrome.Unfortunately, these same capabilities have attracted malicious software developers who try to abuse the platform at the expense of users. "
Cryptocurrencies are notoriously volatile and regulators, as well as technology companies, have increasingly sought to curb harmful activity. Google, Facebook and Twitter banned all ads related to digital tokens.
