Open source ad blocker changes hands, turns to malware (Nano Adblocker/Defender)

[Frick]

Adblockers installed 300,000 times are malicious and should be removed now

If you have Chromium versions of Nano Adblocker or Nano Defender, pay attention.

arstechnica.com

[Announcement] Recent and upcoming changes to the Nano projects · Issue #362 · NanoAdblocker/NanoCore

Important updates and disclaimers: The WebStore listings are no longer under my control. I am not responsible for the actions of the new developer(s). If you feel concerned about the recent changes...

github.com

The short story is that the guy behind Nano Adblocker sold it and the new owners turned it into malware. It doesn't seem to do much beyond adding likes and stuff to instagram. Interesting nontheless, although not that uncommon.

 

[Solaris17]

yeah your right about that. it happens a lot in the extension world.

I personally recommend ublock origin. (not the original 'ublock')

I think its a good idea for everyone to prune their extensions from time to time.

 

[tabascosauz]

Sad thing is, Nano was based on uBlock Origin. Personally, I always thought Origin to be the best and never used anything else after I found it, but this seems to be a reminder that nothing is safe from (what I hope is not) a trend in malware.

 

[biffzinker]

I've stuck with uBlock Origin since Adblocker Plus started to allow whitelisted ads. I should get around to setting up Pi-hole on the Raspberry Pi 3 I have.

 

[Gruffalo.Soldier]

yeah your right about that. it happens a lot in the extension world.

I personally recommend ublock origin. (not the original 'ublock')

I think its a good idea for everyone to prune their extensions from time to time.

I'm using original ublock, i shall switch forthwith then

 

[animal007uk]

Ublock origin is what i have used for a long time now and i like how i can allow stuff on sites i trust and block crap from other sites i don't trust just by clicking a button.

Also like how i can block certain things of my choosing to hehe.

 

[xman2007]

I think I have ublock origin and ghostery I've been running both for probably a year or so now without any noticeable issues running 2 blockers, I think the reason was that some still kept getting through with ublock so I decided to double up

Kind of conflicted about the info in the OP as on one hand if a small dev then he likely wouldn't be getting much support for his work and if it was getting ever more popular it would have meant even more hours spent on developing it, so I can understand why he would choose to sell his ip, that said, if he is serious about security then he should have made sure it was being sold to a company who wanted to keep developing it and improve it and for it not to be using it nefarious reasons

 

[FreedomEclipse]

use to run both ublock origin and Nano defender at the same time with no issues. Just uninstalled nano but it had disabled itself anyway. Real shame.

 

[Deleted member 194470]

Happens all the time. It's sad. I use u block origin, privacy badger. A good extension too is privacy tweaks, its all in one. Also you can use clear url(url include tracking) and auto delete cookies. I usually keep it simple and use ublock and privacy badger.

I greatly have reduced the amount of ads, made sites faster and am "tracked" less but still I get content based ads that indicate I am being tracked(i.e you searched for abc or went to a website and then see an ad.) I can't figure out how they do it, I even adjust about about:config settings. I guess it must be some kind of tracking based on ip.

 

[Khonjel]

If uBlock Origin sells out one day I will be very sad.

But I think it's very unlikely. As per the about section the extension is not Raymond Hill (the creator)'s primary source of income. It's just his hobby. The extension is free and the guy won't take any donations because he doesn't want dependency of it. At best he'll stop updating it or rarely update the extension but I don't think he'll try to make a profit by selling it. It's very admirable.

 

[windwhirl]

I've stuck with uBlock Origin since Adblocker Plus started to allow whitelisted ads.

Same.

I should get around to setting up Pi-hole on the Raspberry Pi 3 I have.

Ah, I went with a bit of a less elegant and probably less effective solution: OpenDNS, which offers some web content filtering (mostly I use it for filtering out adware/web spam/malware sites, and the parental control filtering offered by Eset (this one allows me to block advertising too, so it was convenient).

Still, Pi-hole would give me an excuse to get a Raspberry Pi to play with, so I might just get one

 

[chrcoluk]

Just been reading up on all this, I know at one point I used to use nano defender but it seems I luckily at some point stopped using, I am not 100% sure though as I guess chrome may have auto removed the extension once it determined it was malware.

This issue I guess has served to highlight why google want to restrict extensions although I dont know if manifest-v3 would have mitigated this, but it does have me asking questions to myself about extensions in general as they get sold or passed on when author gets bored of it and when that happens this is always at risk of happening.

I think the solution is to only install a fixed version downloaded from github, as the benefit of this method is you dont get auto updates meaning you are protected from these type of events.

 

[lynx29]

Adblockers installed 300,000 times are malicious and should be removed now

If you have Chromium versions of Nano Adblocker or Nano Defender, pay attention.

arstechnica.com

[Announcement] Recent and upcoming changes to the Nano projects · Issue #362 · NanoAdblocker/NanoCore

Important updates and disclaimers: The WebStore listings are no longer under my control. I am not responsible for the actions of the new developer(s). If you feel concerned about the recent changes...

github.com

The short story is that the guy behind Nano Adblocker sold it and the new owners turned it into malware. It doesn't seem to do much beyond adding likes and stuff to instagram. Interesting nontheless, although not that uncommon.

Why the crap is anyone using anything other than ublock origin. sigh.

 

[Vya Domus]

I don't know I just use the built in adblocker Opera has, no idea which one it is or what it does.

 

[lynx29]

I don't know I just use the built in adblocker Opera has, no idea which one it is or what it does.

Opera is owned by China from what I know. I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. Better off with firefox if you don't want to use Chrome.

 

[Vya Domus]

Opera is owned by China from what I know. I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. Better off with firefox if you don't want to use Chrome.

Couldn't care less whether it's China or the US colleting my data.

I hope they like my taste in porn.

 

[lynx29]

Couldn't care less whether it's China or the US colleting my data.

I hope they like my taste in porn.

ublock origin is still better whichever you use. makes for a very streamlined browsing experience

 

[erpguy53]

ublock origin is still better whichever you use. makes for a very streamlined browsing experience

well I do have ublock origin installed on the Opera web browser I'm using and uBO works well with it
maybe even better than the built-in opera adblocker - also have ublock origin enabled in a private opera browser window (w/ the "allow in incognito" option checked for that addon)