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Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community. Pick a username [ ] Email Address [ ] Password [ ] [ ] Sign up for GitHub By clicking "Sign up for GitHub", you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We'll occasionally send you account related emails. Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account Jump to bottom SECURITY: New maintainer is probably malicious #1263 Open TheMageKing opened this issue Nov 3, 2020 * 34 comments Open SECURITY: New maintainer is probably malicious #1263 TheMageKing opened this issue Nov 3, 2020 * 34 comments Comments @TheMageKing Copy link Quote reply @TheMageKing TheMageKing commented Nov 3, 2020 * edited It occurred to me that our current discussion of this is hard to find. It is happening in #1175, the issue about the new maintainer. To summarize, the maintainer recently updated their chrome store package. The update raised red flags for some users, because the changelog was not modified and there was no tag created in GitHub. On investigation, it appeared that the extension was now connecting to various third-party servers, and executing code from them. This lead a few users to panic, however, on closer investigation, it appeared that the third-party servers were part of an alternative to Google Analytics: and the changes shipped along with a new (though unexplained, #1260) tracking deactivation. It appears that deactivation works. We would later discover that this was wrong: See below The discussion continued, however, because the new update also requested additional permissions, including the ability to manipulate all web requests. That lets the extension do what it pleases, including inserting ads, blocking sites, forcible redirects.... This change was supposedly in order to enable new screenshot functionality, but that was unclear. Furthermore, the extension diverged from its Github source. A minor change in the manifest was now being shipped on the chrome web store, which was not included in Github. This is a major concern: though again, it has a possible innocent explanation. It is, however, illegal under the license on the code. As a final red flag, no part of the web store posting has been updated to account for this. @deanoemcke remains listed as the maintainer, and the privacy policy makes no mention of the new tracking or maintainer. It has been several months since the transfer: we are getting concerned. @deanoemcke did respond to the thread, after a significant delay. He confirmed much of what is above, including that the secret changes are limited to analytics and are disabled by the flag. However, he hasn't yet clarified what his relationship or basis of trust with the new maintainer is, nor has he explained why the initial post mentions a 'purchase'. On November 6th, @lucasdf discovered a smoking gun that the new maintainer is malicious. Although OpenWebAnalytics is a real software, it does not provide the files executed by the extension. Those are hosted on the unrelated site owebanalytics.com, which turns out to be immensely suspicious. That site is one month old, and is clearly designed to appear innocent, being hosted on a public webhost, and being given a seemingly innocent homepage from the CentOS project. However, the site contains no real information other than the tracking scripts, and is only found in the context of this extension. Most importantly, the minified javascript differs significantly from that distributed by the OWA project. While there does exist an innocent explanation for this, I can no longer say that it is the most likely. Using the chrome web store version of this extension, without disabling tracking, will execute code from an untrusted third-party on your computer, with the power to modify any and all websites that you see. The fact that disabling tracking still works is irrelevant given the fact that most of the 2 million users of this extension have no idea that that option even exists. The fact that the code is not obvious malware is meaningless in light of the fact that it can be changed without notice, and that it is minified (human-unreadable). Many users are worried enough about the changes that they completely uninstalled the extension, preferring AutoTabDiscard instead. That extension has much fewer features, but is slightly better for performance. Others have begun building it from source, and installing it manually. If a person were to try to create a new web store release, they would need to change it significantly enough that Google wouldn't reject it as spam. Throughout the above, the new maintainer has never posted on the thread, or interacted in any way with the repository. Despite an ongoing discussion about how they are possibly plotting to destroy us all, they haven't done anything to assuage our concerns. Only a small amount of communication is required: an explanation of the new permissions, and the new tracking. The new maintainer might well be a literal cat with a mouse, for the amount of interaction they have made with the community. For those who don't want to continue using the extension, alternatives include Tabs Outliner, which lets you place tabs in an outline. Auto Tab Discard is very similar to TGS, however it always reloads the tab when it is focused. OneTab compresses tabs into a single list, removing them from the normal view. If you enjoy using the extension, and wish to continue using it as it was, download the source code from the Github repository (version 7.1.6) enable developer mode, select "Load unpacked extension", and point it at the /src directory. Bam! You are now running The Great Suspender as @deanoemcke created it. That concludes my summary. For more information, please do look at that thread (#1175), or further down on this thread. Edit 1: add details from this discussion Edit 2: Update to reflect the newly discovered evidence for malice Edit 3: Note technique to continue using TGS The text was updated successfully, but these errors were encountered: 98 2 [?] 18 7 @TheMageKing TheMageKing mentioned this issue Nov 3, 2020 Upcoming changes to the management of The Great Suspender #1175 Open This was referenced Nov 4, 2020 What is tracking deactivation ? #1260 Open [Feature Request] Have a clickable area that doesn't reload the suspended tab #1262 Open [Feature Request] Option to show full URL in suspended tab #1261 Open Extension update unsuspended active tabs in all windows #1259 Open Suspender put up an annoying notification tab while we were watching a movie #1258 Open Screen capturing don't work on v7.1.8 on Chrome Version 86.0.4240.111 (Build oficial) (64 bits) #1257 Open Group Tab #1256 Open "Resources must be listed in the web_accessible_resources manifest key..." in syslog #1255 Open Customisable suspended page (one line of text) and maybe tab title # 1254 Open Keeps opening a tab for an update that doesn't exist #1252 Open Tab unsuspends immediately after suspending #1246 Open update check causes youtube tabs to unsuspend/resume playing #1247 Open "The Great Suspender is about to get greater" Popups #1248 Open klbibkeccnjlkjkiokjodocebajanakg is blocked #1249 Open After update, lost several windows, or after opening a window, lost all other tabs in that window #1250 Open Lost chrome tab groups in todays update #1243 Open Suspended tabs were reopened in reverse order after update #1244 Open @XxX-Force Copy link @XxX-Force XxX-Force commented Nov 4, 2020 ... This lead a few users to panic, however, on closer investigation, it appeared that the third-party servers were part of an alternative to Google Analytics: and the changes shipped along with a new (though unexplained, #1260) tracking deactivation. It appears that deactivation works. ... @deanoemcke did respond to the thread, after a significant delay. He confirmed much of what is above, including that the secret changes are limited to analytics and are disabled by the flag. However, he hasn't yet clarified what his relationship or basis of trust with the new maintainer is, nor has he explained why the initial post mentions a 'purchase'. ... Are trckingbyte.com and trckpath.com part of Open Web Analytics? Because what I am seeing in @deanoemcke's post is him saying that he can't guarantee if the changes made are legitimate analytics or if they're malware: I'm not an expert on what is legitimate analytics gathering ... and what is deemed malware. I apologize for possibly exacerbating the "panic", but I am just asking, and trying to put a little extra emphasis on this, because when you say: ...on closer investigation, it appeared that _the third-party servers were part of an alternative to Google Analytics... It just strikes me as sounding a little too forgiving / innocent, though I'm sure that's not your intent. I also want to emphasize, @deanoemcke goes on to say in that post. Giving the publisher the benefit of doubt, I would say that they have the right to collect extra analytics so long as it is within Google's policies, and is communicated to the user. There is a privacy policy linked on the chrome webstore (which I set up a while ago): https://greatsuspender.github.io/privacy Of course, this assumes that Google are aware of these changes, and also that the linked privacy policy is still accurate. We know that these new "analytics" were not communicated to the user. They do violate the established privacy policy. They violate Google's policies, as the information provided all over the extension's page at the Web Store is now inaccurate (owner, contact, saying the project is open source, etc) and the privacy policy itself is no longer accurate. and @deanoemcke had previously assured us when this sale was announced: ...the project will remain open source and the code here on GitHub will continue to reflect the code published to the chrome webstore. Although, apparently he cannot be held responsible for the actions of the current owner of the extension. But, this is why mom said you shouldn't make promises that you can't keep. I appreciate you making this issue @TheMageKing, and I thank you for creating a more centralized location for discussion about this topic, which will hopefully reach more users and give them the information they need in order to make decisions about what to do. I apologize, because I realize much of what I said here is simply repeating what you already provided. I just felt the need to emphasize a couple of things. Personally, I reported this extension at the Chrome Web Store on October 29, with the following: "The extension was sold to an unknown party. This entity has "updated" the extension to v7.18 w/o publishing changes to Github. It is calling remote scripts and using remote tracking analytics, sending user information somewhere w/o user knowledge. PLEASE SEE: #1175 (comment) AND ALSO: #1175 (comment) .. Owner refuses to communicate or respond to anyone. Can only be considered as malicious/malware at this point. We have no idea what the full changes are to the code, or the ramifications of said changes." I also reported the user @greatsuspender and the main repository to GitHub on October 29 with the following: "This person/entity purchased the Chrome web browser extension "The Great Suspender" : https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-great-suspender/ klbibkeccnjlkjkiokjodocebajanakg which has over 2 million users. The project is supposed to be open source, and the master repository for it is located here: https://github.com/greatsuspender/thegreatsuspender The announcement and information regarding the purchase/transfer is located here: #1175 The new owner of the extension has made changes to the code, and pushed an update to the Chrome Web Store, bringing the version up to 7.18. However, they have NOT published the code changes to GitHub, and the latest release here is 7.16: https://github.com/greatsuspender/thegreatsuspender/releases Obviously, after the Nano fiasco, this has brought a great deal of warranted concern to the community. Despite many attempts from many people, they refuse to respond or communicate in any way with anyone. Neither does the former/original author. It has been discovered that the extension is now calling remote scripts. Please see: #1175 (comment) and also: #1175 (comment) The extension is now injecting a tracker which violates the Privacy Policy (also linked to from the Chrome Web Store) stated here: https://greatsuspender.github.io/privacy This privacy policy also has not been updated to reflect that the old owner no longer owns it, who the new owner is, or what their contact information might be. It states that the extension only uses Google Analytics, which is a lie. The project can no longer be considered as open source, since the owner refuses to make the source open and available for review. It's my belief that this person/entity is acting in bad faith, and poses a danger to the community and to every Chrome user that installs this extension. This person has had every opportunity to clarify what is going on here, but apparently has no interest in transparency or communication.. leaving any reasonable person to wonder, why did they PURCHASE this Chrome extension? Remote code execution w/o the user's knowledge. Code changes unpublished to GitHub, yet pushed to the Chrome Web Store. New trackers injected. Violating their own privacy policy. 10 @TheMageKing Copy link Author @TheMageKing TheMageKing commented Nov 4, 2020 Are trckingbyte.com and trckpath.com part of Open Web Analytics? Because what I am seeing in @deanoemcke's post is him saying that he can't guarantee if the changes made are legitimate analytics or if they're malware AFAIK, Dean's intention there is to comment that he doesn't know where each user draws the line between analytics and malware. Some people might think any sort of analytics is malware: others might disagree. As for the trckingbyte.com and trckpath.com paths, they are not involved. They were found in other extensions, but do not appear in the distributed Great Suspender. My comment on the other thread explains what they are, and how they are not related to open web analytics (Okay, they are, but related as "Hackers rewriting open-source software for malicious purposes", not "Official part of system") I apologize for possibly exacerbating the "panic", but I am just asking, and trying to put a little extra emphasis on this, because when you say: ...on closer investigation, it appeared that _the third-party servers were part of an alternative to Google Analytics... It just strikes me as sounding a little too forgiving / innocent, though I'm sure that's not your intent. Actually, it was. The open web analytics system, host of owebanalytics.com, really is a google analytics alternative. The code is hosted on a github repo with 1.3k stars, and there are people elsewhere who like it. The only reason I said "appears to be" is because I am quite busy, and I didn't have time to try and conduct any sort of detailed probe beyond that the website existed and wasn't written by a poor English speaker. I also want to emphasize, @deanoemcke goes on to say in that post. Giving the publisher the benefit of doubt, I would say that they have the right to collect extra analytics so long as it is within Google's policies, and is communicated to the user. There is a privacy policy linked on the chrome webstore (which I set up a while ago): https:// greatsuspender.github.io/privacy Of course, this assumes that Google are aware of these changes, and also that the linked privacy policy is still accurate. We know that these new "analytics" were not communicated to the user. They do violate the established privacy policy. They violate Google's policies, as the information provided all over the extension's page at the Web Store is now inaccurate (owner, contact, saying the project is open source, etc) and the privacy policy itself is no longer accurate. Indeed. This is the biggest reason why I am saying that they "appear malicious": those actions are major red flags, and it is sufficiently suspicious to justify a lot more scrutiny and skepticism than simple mistakes. But there is not yet evidence that they are actually malicious: everything can still be well explained by stupidity. I'm not saying everything is rosy; there are major problems, right now. But it doesn't appear that we should start fearing for the safety of our passwords. and @deanoemcke had previously assured us when this sale was announced: ...the project will remain open source and the code here on GitHub will continue to reflect the code published to the chrome webstore. Although, apparently he cannot be held responsible for the actions of the current owner of the extension. But, this is why mom said you shouldn't make promises that you can't keep. Yeah, mom seems to be right about a lot. I appreciate you making this issue @TheMageKing, and I thank you for creating a more centralized location for discussion about this topic, which will hopefully reach more users and give them the information they need in order to make decisions about what to do. I apologize, because I realize much of what I said here is simply repeating what you already provided. I just felt the need to emphasize a couple of things. Fair enough. I think I will edit that top post, to reflect some of this. Personally, I reported this extension at the Chrome Web Store on October 29, with the following: I, too have reported this on the web store. As a general rule, Google has more powers to remediate than Github: given that the source on Github is innocent, I doubt they will do much I'll also respond to your comment in the other thread here, to condense this discussion more. @TheMageKing, my comment was in reply to @ossilator's comment here, not to you. Regardless: Oh, I know. I wanted to clear up some of your confusion. ... The extension is not directly connecting to the trck.... domains. It lacks the permissions to do so, -=-=-= AFAIK =-=- =-. Those sites are definitely malicious: they are hosted via a bitcoin hosting company, and were found in malicious extensions. >... Honestly, it's nothing personal, but this is exactly the problem. You DO NOT KNOW. You might not be able to tell, but I hedge what I say quite a bit. I am not a Javascript developer, though I do comprehend it perfectly well. Nor do I design manifests for chrome applications. By my understanding, based on a reading of the documentation on the subject, Google requires that all websites which the extension can connect to be independently specified in the manifest.json. In the section that I understand to control that, many sites are listed, including google-analytics.com, stats.g.doubleclick.net (the google analytics sites), and cdn.owebanalytics.com. The trck paths are not there, nor does the word 'trck' even appear anywhere in the distributed code. So while I don't know, I can say that I am as certain as I can be, short of a Google developer stating otherwise. -=-=-=-=- On a completely unrelated note, I received an email notification at 7:51 Eastern Time that @danupo had commented : "It looks like there is a "keypressEventHandler" defined that tries to steal the password with external javascript. In addition, the "getPassword" function and other functions are defined. As Japanese law prohibits putting any part of the malware code on it, could someone please check this?" But, for some reason, I cannot find that comment here. @danupo, what's up? I got that same notification: however, I found no evidence of those functions when I checked. It was very weird. I'm not certain of how to check on the event handler, but I did verify that no "getPassword" function was defined. @XxX-Force Copy link @XxX-Force XxX-Force commented Nov 4, 2020 Thanks @TheMageKing. I'm just going to stfu and stop commenting about this entire situation because I'm obviously pissed off about the whole thing and my incivility isn't deserved or beneficial to anyone. Genuinely apologize to you and anyone else I may have been rude to. Good luck to all. 4 @TheMageKing Copy link Author @TheMageKing TheMageKing commented Nov 4, 2020 You were fine: this is a pretty scary thing going on here. 3 @skycafemix Copy link @skycafemix skycafemix commented Nov 4, 2020 I would like to share my own decision and how it worked for me. THe answer is quite well without TheGreatSuspender so far! After hearing what has happened, I feel very uncomfortable about TheGreatSuspender even though I really enjoyed it up to now. A quick check shows domains with bitcoin in the name and there is a strong attempt to remain anonymous. There is no way I can trust it. I have used TheGreatSuspender along with Tabs Outliner which I also love. I decided to buy a Pro license from the author, Vladyslav Volovyk who I found is in the Ukraine. Even though there have been rumors and posts on the extension site, even quite recently about the it being abandonware due to lack of responses, I have found posts by the author elsewhere and he strikes me as being an okay and honest programmer. I cannot hold it against someone if they do not want to dedicate their life to something, and I think it is not abandonware. I decided I trust him far more than TheGreatSuspender, it works offline, and I want the automatic downloads and extra functionality of the non-free version. I bought Tabs Outliner pro version for about US$14 with a VISA card and it was instant gratification (even though a week ago someone said they could not purchase.) Chrome on a 2019 Macbook Pro. It works great and has automatic backup both local and to Google Drive. I just wanted to post here and let you know I have just converted over 1000 tabs, which means going to each window and unsuspending them, then in Tabs Outliner just click the X to close the entire window. And maybe type a note to name the window, or not. Poof! All those minimized windows from TGS are gone. I started feeling lighter. But the pages can be reopened from the Internet obviously. I think you can even save a downloaded page to it, and you can write notes in the tab bookmark tree and so on. I had seen Chrome slowing everything down (surprising on a new Mac) to the point I had started using Safari in parallel. Well, I saved over 1.5GB according to the Chrome task manager and I feel a lot safer. I noticed that actually Tabs Outliner even saves windows that had crashed a long, long time ago. But they also were TheGreatSuspender links. So now I am going to each ghost of a crashed window, restoring it from the net or not, and clearing it all out. When done I will fully deactivate and uninstall TheGreatSuspender. Hope my experience helps. Tabs Outliner works fine in free mode and I have never lost data with it, though somewhere I saw written that Chrome's storage is not bulletproof. At any rate I feel quite happy with my decision and I think TGS anyway was getting unwieldy at 1000 tabs. This was a good opportunity to lose some weight. [?] 3 @skycafemix Copy link @skycafemix skycafemix commented Nov 4, 2020 p.s. as far as storage not being bulletproof I can confirm that some windows that had been suspended with The Great Suspender recently did not survive a chrome crash - TGS was unable to restore them. So frankly, I think the idea of Tabs Outliner is superior to TGS even though it doesn't have the cute anime eyes. Good luck everyone, I do hope some resolution is found and the new pruchaser just turns out to be clueless, but I doubt it. Injecting anything into my data along with the other scary stuff mentioned by others is just not acceptable when I use this computer for work. I feel better without TGS. @dmuth Copy link @dmuth dmuth commented Nov 5, 2020 This is concerning, so I too have migrated away from The Great Suspender. I can recommend Tabs Outliner as a good replacement. @maxxyme Copy link @maxxyme maxxyme commented Nov 5, 2020 Thanks guys!!! I think that's definitely the kind of extension I was looking for due to my heavy use of tabs and "contexts" (i.e. links open from the same page). Will try & adopt for sure!!! 1 @evg-zhabotinsky Copy link @evg-zhabotinsky evg-zhabotinsky commented Nov 6, 2020 For anyone who is concerned by the "stealth tracking" (i.e. it not being mirrored on Github for some reason), you can always install from source. It is easy: go to chrome://extensions, enable developer mode, click "Load unpacked extension" and point it to the src folder from this repo. Done! HOWEVER, I DON'T SEE THE CURRENT ISSUE (in itself) AS A REASON TO FREAK OUT: 1. The third-party JS is loaded from OpenWebAnalytics CDN, so it should not be able to do anything bad? I'm not 100% sure, but: 2. It does not even get loaded if you tick that "Automatic deactivation of any kind of tracking" checkbox in settings: var owa_baseUrl = 'https://cdn.owebanalytics.com/'; var owa_cmds = owa_cmds || []; function loadOpenWebAnalytics(version) { owa_cmds.push(['trackPageView']); (function () { var _owa = document.createElement('script'); _owa.type = 'text/javascript'; _owa.async = true; _owa.src = owa_baseUrl + 'owa/modules/base/js/owa.tracker-combined-latest.minified.js?siteId=klbibkeccnjlkjkiokjodocebajanakg&apikey=2cf3d852ab70d359456ce3a0aac237a3&v=' + version; var _owa_s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; _owa_s.parentNode.insertBefore(_owa, _owa_s); })(); } function init() { if (!gsStorage.getOption('trackingOptOut')) { loadGoogleAnalytics( window, document, 'script', 'https://www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js', 'ga' ); let details = chrome.runtime.getManifest(); loadOpenWebAnalytics(details.version); } gsAnalytics = gsAnalytics(); } This is from the actual extension installed from the chrome store, 'trackingOptOut' option is set by that checkbox, and loadOpenWebAnalytics() isn't referenced anywhere else. Yes, this is weird that they "hid" it like that. Might have to do with the hardcoded siteId and apikey, or maybe they "just wanted to experiment with it" (on users' machines, yes, but how else do you experiment with tracking?) Yes, they handled their PR horrendously, but that doesn't mean they are automatically malicious! (And actually, "any PR is good PR". If it spreads and then it gets proven they did nothing malicious, then more people might use the extension and more would donate to them.) Personally, I'm going to use the "developer mode install" option, but not to avoid that tracking. Mostly because of #1259 and other autoupdate-related issues, as developer-mode extensions don't get autoupdated. @evg-zhabotinsky Copy link @evg-zhabotinsky evg-zhabotinsky commented Nov 6, 2020 Okay, as was mentioned on the other issue, the CDN isn't affiliated with OpenWebAnalytics so it can, in theory, serve anything. However, it can still be disabled with that checkbox. And, technically, I don't think they are violating GPL: The extension literally is the src folder in case of this repo, you can't run it without having the sources, and it also functions substantially without the thirdparty JS library. 3 @TheMageKing TheMageKing changed the title [DEL:SECURITY: New maintainer appears malicious:DEL] [INS:SECURITY: New maintainer is probably malicious:INS] Nov 7, 2020 @TheMageKing Copy link Author @TheMageKing TheMageKing commented Nov 7, 2020 @evg-zhabotinsky The GPL violation was a stretch, only important we needed a way to poke the maintainer. Further, the extension on the web store is not just the src folder of this repo: there is a significant difference in the manifest.json. 1 hidden item Load more... @ossilator Copy link @ossilator ossilator commented Nov 7, 2020 to fulfill the license terms, the sources must be complete and in the preferred form. it is not sufficient for satisfying the license that the code can be easily inspected or the complete source pieced together from different sources. this is very much a license violation that any copyright holder on the source can use as leverage, be it to get the extension out of the store, or to kill the (shell) company @deanoemcke has clearly signed an NDA with (i'm assuming that he at least checked that it is a real company). a relevant association like the software freedom conservancy might help with the legalese. on the technical side, Somebody (TM) should have a look at the jQuery code loaded by the downloaded OWA code - according to https:// adguard.com/en/blog/ over-20-000-000-of-chrome-users-are-victims-of-fake-ad-blockers.html that's where the malice was hidden in the previous incidents. 2 2 @Spidify Copy link @Spidify Spidify commented Nov 10, 2020 Hi, I am an user of "The Great Suspender" extension for the Google Chrome browser. My system currently has version 7.1.6 installed of the TGS. And I'm getting the pop-up tabs telling me to upgrade TGS. I do not want to upgrade TGS, much less after reading this thread here. I have several questions: 1. Can I keep using version 7.1.6 of TGS? How do I stop it from requesting to be updated, as it is doing now in my system? 2. A general question about Google Chrome: Is it true that if I enable "developer mode" inside Google Chrome extensions settings, then no extension will be automatically updated without my manual intervention? @Poopooracoocoo Copy link @Poopooracoocoo Poopooracoocoo commented Nov 10, 2020 2. A general question about Google Chrome: Is it true that if I enable "developer mode" inside Google Chrome extensions settings, then no extension will be automatically updated without my manual intervention? Unfortunately you can't disable automatic updates for Chrome or its extensions. 1 @evg-zhabotinsky Copy link @evg-zhabotinsky evg-zhabotinsky commented Nov 10, 2020 * edited 1. Can I keep using version 7.1.6 of TGS? How do I stop it from requesting to be updated, as it is doing now in my system? It seems the only "sane" way to stop updates to an extension is to install it from source. And it is easy: Download this repository, go to chrome://extensions, enable developer mode, click "Load unpacked extension" and point it to the src directory. Done! To switch from one instance of extension to the other, I clicked "unsuspend all tabs in all windows" (took a while for over 100 of them), manually copied extension settings, and finally deleted the one from chrome store. 2 @Spidify Copy link @Spidify Spidify commented Nov 10, 2020 * edited 1. Can I keep using version 7.1.6 of TGS? How do I stop it from requesting to be updated, as it is doing now in my system? It seems the only "sane" way to stop updates to an extension is to install it from source. And it is easy: Download this repository, go to chrome://extensions, enable developer mode, click "Load unpacked extension" and point it to the src directory. Done! To switch from one instance of extension to the other, I clicked "unsuspend all tabs in all windows" (took a while for over 100 of them), manually copied extension settings, and finally deleted the one from chrome store. Thanks. I'm doing as you say, and indeed it is easy to install the extension from source once you get the gist of it. This way, I will keep using The Great Suspender version 7.1.6 installed from source, and let it be at that version. If it works, it needs no fixing nor upgrading! :-) 1 @stamstamNitzan Copy link @stamstamNitzan stamstamNitzan commented Nov 21, 2020 If you want to report the extension you can simply write this: @TheMageKing The extension was sold to an unknown party. This entity has "updated" the extension to v7.18 w/o publishing changes to Github. It is calling remote scripts and using remote tracking analytics, sending user information somewhere w/o user knowledge. PLEASE SEE: #1175 (comment) AND ALSO: #1175 (comment) .. Owner refuses to communicate or respond to anyone. Can only be considered as malicious/malware at this point. We have no idea what the full changes are to the code, or the ramifications of said changes. github.com//issues/1175#issuecomment-717656189 github.com//issues/1175#issuecomment-717656189 @ossilator ossilator mentioned this issue Nov 21, 2020 Microsoft Edge malicious code. #1269 Closed @XxX-Force XxX-Force mentioned this issue Nov 22, 2020 Screen capture always half sized on the left of the window #1268 Open @duoi Copy link @duoi duoi commented Nov 23, 2020 Any alternative packages recommended? @stamstamNitzan Copy link @stamstamNitzan stamstamNitzan commented Nov 23, 2020 My understanding is that 7.1.6 is the last stable one, but I am not an expert. 1 @duoi Copy link @duoi duoi commented Nov 23, 2020 I kind of just want to hop off this train altogether at this point, to be honest. 2 @ossilator ossilator mentioned this issue Nov 23, 2020 Vestigial No Nag Code #1270 Open @wylie39 wylie39 mentioned this issue Nov 24, 2020 Tabs in Chrome 'Tab Groups' Sleep When Pinned #1271 Closed @ossilator ossilator mentioned this issue Nov 25, 2020 GPO configuration and OK register except for trackingOptOut #1272 Open @dmuth Copy link @dmuth dmuth commented Nov 25, 2020 Any alternative packages recommended? I've been using Tabs Outliner for a couple of weeks now, and I'm really happy with it. I even bought the paid version! @skycafemix Copy link @skycafemix skycafemix commented Nov 26, 2020 Same here, I have not actually deinstalled GSP yet but have told it to never sleep tabs. I will deinstall it after making sure no past history is desired (since Tabs Outliner knows about long ago slept and crashed tabs too.) Tabs Outliner is working wonderfully well (paid version) and actually has made my work faster since I need to do a lot of research online while working. With the automatic backup both local and to google (not sure where it saves though), and being able to organize pages into folders, closing windows and just opening them from the outliner window when needed it is much better organized and I no longer constantly trend back to 1000 tabs. I can close the window/tabs from Tabs Outliner and it will remember them for later. @ossilator ossilator mentioned this issue Nov 29, 2020 MS Edge Update #1273 Open @ossilator Copy link @ossilator ossilator commented Nov 29, 2020 the new web store release 7.1.9 does not contain the presumably malicious code any more. that might be a reaction to the fact that MS Edge started blocking the extension. but note that the permissions in the manifest have not been revoked. 5 @ossilator ossilator mentioned this issue Nov 29, 2020 Trojan/spyware activity. #1274 Closed @TheMageKing Copy link Author @TheMageKing TheMageKing commented Dec 4, 2020 I can confirm what @ossilator says, but my system has yet to automatically update (though the new version is listed on the chrome web store). The new version no longer loads code from owebanalytics.com, as far as I can see, but I still don't trust it. @stamstamNitzan Copy link @stamstamNitzan stamstamNitzan commented Dec 6, 2020 Why not simply sticking with the version that was before the change? It was great as far as I saw. @Luckz Copy link @Luckz Luckz commented Dec 7, 2020 * edited Tabs Outliner is working wonderfully well (paid version) and actually has made my work faster since I need to do a lot of research online while working. With the automatic backup both local and to google (not sure where it saves though), and being able to organize pages into folders, closing windows and just opening them from the outliner window when needed it is much better organized and I no longer constantly trend back to 1000 tabs. I can close the window/tabs from Tabs Outliner and it will remember them for later. Unfortunately since Chromium-like browsers don't allow extensions to persist tabs, Tabs Outliner too only can offer bookmarks: no scroll position, no back/forwards history. I didn't have the best time with https://chrome.google.com/webstore/ detail/scrollmark-autosave-scrol/gekidlkidjohjompjafiphdpgejjgklo?hl= en ; I didn't try https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ scrollmarks/dhgphpilnllknnoaafmgobkmnialglad?hl=en . Also, I recently removed Tabs Outliner because of how much it was slowing down my Chrome. Perhaps a non-issue if you don't actually open all that many tabs at the same time. (And there's the annoying duplication bug if you don't close all windows and rather make Chrome restore the session on startup) @aciidic Copy link @aciidic aciidic commented Dec 16, 2020 * edited My attempt to remove tracking, notifications & permissions from the latest v7.1.8, for those interested in testing a privacy-preserving version of this plugin. https://github.com/aciidic/thegreatsuspender-notrack 4 2 @cagdas001 Copy link @cagdas001 cagdas001 commented Dec 18, 2020 * edited I've also removed The Great Suspender and installed Auto Tab Discard instead. But looks like Auto Tab Discard lacks of session management feature, which was very helpful with The Great Suspender when Chrome fails to restore lost tabs after an unexpected crash/shutdown etc. Are any of you aware of a good alternative that has this feature? If we have no alternative that has this feature, maybe we, as migraters from The Great Suspender, can create a feature request at Auto Tab Discard repo. @Poopooracoocoo Copy link @Poopooracoocoo Poopooracoocoo commented Dec 18, 2020 Session Buddy is one alternative. Extensions to replace the session management features were discussed in the other issue @cagdas001 :) @XxX-Force Copy link @XxX-Force XxX-Force commented Dec 18, 2020 ... Are any of you aware of a good alternative that has this feature? ... You can always just install version 7.16 of The Great Suspender directly from the source. Works fine. Because I know absolutely nothing about programming, but still didn't want the (fairly innocuous imo) Google Analytics, which was always present in TGS, and the option to disable it is not present in v7.16, I opened the gsAnalytics.js file located in \src\js with NotePad++ and changed line 146 from: 'https://www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js', To: 'https://0.0.0.0/', Which threw some error when I then installed TGS, but everything works completely as expected. All of the experienced people here, please don't be too brutal with me lmao, as I'm sure this was a very stupid way of doing things, but again.. zero knowledge of programming anything. Version 7.16 can be obtained here: https://github.com/greatsuspender/thegreatsuspender/releases/tag/ v7.1.6 Instructions for installing it directly from the source code (very easy!) are in the README for the extension, located here: https://github.com/greatsuspender/thegreatsuspender# install-as-an-extension-from-source If you choose to install 7.16, make sure that you unsuspend all suspended tabs before disabling / removing the current version. You may also/alternatively want to consider @aciidic 's fork of the extension, with analytics properly (lol) and other annoyances removed, located here: https://github.com/aciidic/thegreatsuspender-notrack I haven't tried it yet, but definitely want to thank @aciidic for it! Good luck. 1 @ppp-one Copy link @ppp-one ppp-one commented Jan 3, 2021 Perhaps unrelated, but will put here anyway. One of my friends had their email compromised in early Dec 2020 with having this extension (amongst others) installed on Chrome. 11 @dhaavi dhaavi mentioned this issue Jan 3, 2021 Add malicious domains by the new maintainer of The Great Suspender safing/intel-data#14 Open @NightMachinary Copy link @NightMachinary NightMachinary commented Jan 3, 2021 I vaguely remember that newer Chrome versions automatically "suspend" tabs from RAM? So if all I care about is performance (not tab organization), why do I need an extension? @TheMageKing Copy link Author @TheMageKing TheMageKing commented Jan 3, 2021 I vaguely remember that newer Chrome versions automatically "suspend" tabs from RAM? So if all I care about is performance (not tab organization), why do I need an extension? Because Chrome's suspension isn't terribly aggressive, isn't as efficient, and will reload a tab if you accidentally open it momentarily. Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment Assignees No one assigned Labels None yet Projects None yet Milestone No milestone Linked pull requests Successfully merging a pull request may close this issue. None yet 16 participants @maxxyme @Luckz @dmuth @ossilator @aciidic @evg-zhabotinsky @skycafemix @duoi @TheMageKing @ppp-one @cagdas001 @NightMachinary @XxX-Force @Poopooracoocoo @Spidify @stamstamNitzan * (c) 2021 GitHub, Inc. * Terms * Privacy * Security * Status * Help * Contact GitHub * Pricing * API * Training * Blog * About You can't perform that action at this time. You signed in with another tab or window. Reload to refresh your session. You signed out in another tab or window. Reload to refresh your session.