LinkedIn runs an extension scan against a hardcoded list of 6,278 Chrome extensions on every visit. Detected results are packaged into encrypted telemetry and injected as an HTTP header into every subsequent API request during your session. This data can be used to identify your religious affiliations, tax-bracket, job search intent, and more.
I verified this myself and traced the implementation. Details and the technical breakdown in the article.
I guess that's what they're hoping for. With my admittedly biased opinion of the average linkedin user, about 99% will have the default set of extensions installed and so will not be very useful. Those users might have other identifiers of course, so who knows.
i just don't open the main page with the feed. i practically don't notice it's there. i have the messages view open, and i check notifications. i also don't follow anyone (except my contacts)
It's tough to generate revenue that isn't through ads.
That said, if the users could organize into special interest groups and create a walled-garden with default no ads, and then gate-keep advertisers to a permitted white-list.
"What is not a question is that a criminal investigation is now open."
Good. These companies deserve each and every stone thrown at them, and much more.
It isn’t exactly. They created a list of known extensions by their id and a file which is known to exist in that extension. The site iterates over each pair and tries to load that file, if it doesn’t error it knows the extension is installed. It’s a clever and difficult manual process, but it does bypass the security trying to prevent this kind of thing.
I read that their reasoning is it exists to block users that use known scraper extensions which bypass their terms of use. But don’t entirely buy that.
This is how I interpreted the original question and indeed it makes no sense, JavaScript from a website should not be allowed to interact with extensions like this.
Is that information available to websites? I figured they were doing some kind of novel hackery to self-detect extensions based on behaviour that would only happen if X extension was installed.
But that would be a lot of work for 6,300 extensions. Unless someone offers that as a service?
Is this a hallucination? I can't find this quote anywhere else.
> According to browsergate, Milinda Lakkam confirmed this under oath, saying, "LinkedIn took action against users who had specific extensions installed."
friends, WHEN you are asked to implement something like this at your job, which will you choose: object (& hold ground, loose job) OR comply (& keep job)
as practitioners, where do we hold the line between telemetry and surveillance?
I choose not to work at places like linked in, meta, or any place that accepts Saudi or Israeli funding. It makes it a little harder to find a job, but i sleep better at night.
Anyway, for those in this situation, an anecdote. I've outright refused to do questionable things and kept my job. In 'Right to Work' states, even; I should be easy to drop! I've also played incompetent so the sharks look elsewhere. Point being... options exist, don't negotiate [only] with yourself.
I wonder the same. Maybe it's made by people who feel like they wouldn't easily find another job and need the job for healthcare or financial reasons (living paycheck to paycheck)? And it's ordered by managers in similar situations, whose managers want to see increased revenue and don't care how? Somewhere in the chain it feels like there should be someone who says 'wtf are we doing'. It's strange
To answer your question though: I'd object of course, I'm very lucky to be well enough off that I can currently make that choice without serious repercussions. Do you think someone would come out on HN and say "oh sure yeah I have no morals!", at least without it being a throwaway where you'd have no idea if it's real?
DDG searches say this is something for linkedin. - I had two tabs for linkedin open but left behind as I opened other tabs to research.
So I had not reopened these tabs in over 9 hours and they are still just humming along sucking down almost 10% of cpu and a couple gigs of ram for what?
This is firefox with ublock origin - quick searches saw malwarebytes browser guard considered it (protechts.net) malware for a bit and then took it off the list of things it blocked / warned about.
Not sure this is related to the scan mentioned, but it may be related to the overall concerns about data and unknown usage of resources.
I'm considering blocking this at the dns hosts level at this point.
Interesting, so would Safari prevent this? I tried moving to Safari and honestly loved everything except I use my google accounts now for authenticating with to many services and that was a pain compared to chrome.
I honestly kind of forget the exact annoyances because it has been some time. I want to say I had to reauth every time I wanted to SSO with my google account because it doesn't allow/deletes third party cookies.
> Update to our terms and data use As of November 3, 2025, we are using some of your Linkedin data to improve the content-generating Al that enhances your experience, unless you opt out in your settings. We also updated our terms. See what's new and how to manage your data.
Frankly, it is unacceptable to tell a user "oh we have been using your personal data for 5 months already and will continue to do so unless you explicitly opt out". Are there any transparent alternatives to LinkedIn (not the trust me bro variant)?
Wasn't this specifically some lame-ass attempt to combat some click fraud or something these extensions were doing? And aren't these articles specifically coming from the person doing the fraud (which is why they know about the extension scanning)?
To be clear, LinkedIn shouldn't be scanning your browser extensions, but still. The ultimate problem is that browser extensions are a powerful malware vector and there's a huge market of people buying little utilities off of solo developers to enshittify them.
> Wasn't this specifically some lame-ass attempt to combat some click fraud or something these extensions were doing?
No. That you believed that was just an unfortunate consequence of HN's kneejerk tendency to upvote middlebrow dismissals to the top comment, which resulted in people rushing to craft apologetics for what is in reality bonafide scumminess on LinkedIn's part, which itself resulted in confabulations like the claim that, "It was all extensions related to spamming and scraping LinkedIn last time this was posted"—which is simply untrue.
LinkedIn runs an extension scan against a hardcoded list of 6,278 Chrome extensions on every visit. Detected results are packaged into encrypted telemetry and injected as an HTTP header into every subsequent API request during your session. This data can be used to identify your religious affiliations, tax-bracket, job search intent, and more.
I verified this myself and traced the implementation. Details and the technical breakdown in the article.
Can you confirm that the title is correct and that it encrypts rather than hashes?
Both are concerns, but sending interpretable data is a more serious concern.
I scanned through the article and did not see an example of the header it added.
It says RSA public key encryption in the article, so I’m going to assume that it’s not a typo.
And certainly fingerprint you right?
I guess that's what they're hoping for. With my admittedly biased opinion of the average linkedin user, about 99% will have the default set of extensions installed and so will not be very useful. Those users might have other identifiers of course, so who knows.
Oh man time to see if there is a chrome Bonzai Buddy extension
I’m pretty sure it’s not 99% you would wonder how many differences there are along with user-agent resolution and ip range...
I think 99% are identifiable
LinkedIn without the news/post feed would be fine
i just don't open the main page with the feed. i practically don't notice it's there. i have the messages view open, and i check notifications. i also don't follow anyone (except my contacts)
There’s an extension called News Feed Eradicator that does that for you.
Wonder if it’s on their list of extensions to spy on!
Can someone here please create a LinkedIn replacement for developers that
1. Doesn't have the spam
2. That doesn't look like it's from 2008
3. That only developers / engineers / tech folks can join
4. Doesn't try to log into your email to steal your contact list
5. That doesn't track you or your extensions / browser fingerprint
6. That doesn't have a bunch of fake "linkedinmaxxing" garbage content
7. that doesn't have marketers and recruiters, etc.
8. ...
How much would you pay for this?
Just type about:blank in your browser, and you'll get what you're asking for ;)
IRC has existed for decades.
And it's a ghost town.
I suppose that depends on where you go and what you expect. Older communities are better populated than younger ones. (Not age-wise but topic-wise).
I feel like Github became this in the last 10-15 years.
Seriously. We need some kind of federated replacement. Who is building this?
Be the change you want to see mate.
It's odd, yeah?
We have the ability to vibe these things over a weekend, yet getting to the critical mass/tipping point of adoption is something else.
Whatever happened to: if you build it, they will come?
Works for baseball fields, not websites
If you want it to happen, we should talk requirements - what would you want from a LinkedIn NextGen?
- A professional profile page
- Contacts
- Introductions/referrals
- Ask my (sub-)network?
Anything else?
A way for you to make money that isn’t ads / harvesting my data.
Exportable format so I can leave if needed.
It's tough to generate revenue that isn't through ads.
That said, if the users could organize into special interest groups and create a walled-garden with default no ads, and then gate-keep advertisers to a permitted white-list.
I dunno, I'm just spit-ballin
Except for #2 I think you're looking for Hacker News.
LinkedIn is a cesspool, but it’s almost worthless to me without the recruiters.
They’re basically the only reason I’m there.
Maybe that's what the new Friendster should be
Can you create it?
You’re already looking at it, buddy.
This looks like it's from 2008
and thank god too. Modern design is bloated crap.
"What is not a question is that a criminal investigation is now open." Good. These companies deserve each and every stone thrown at them, and much more.
Why is my Chrome telling random websites which extensions I have installed?
It isn’t exactly. They created a list of known extensions by their id and a file which is known to exist in that extension. The site iterates over each pair and tries to load that file, if it doesn’t error it knows the extension is installed. It’s a clever and difficult manual process, but it does bypass the security trying to prevent this kind of thing.
I read that their reasoning is it exists to block users that use known scraper extensions which bypass their terms of use. But don’t entirely buy that.
So the follow up question, is why is a random website, allowed to try and load arbitrary files?
This is how I interpreted the original question and indeed it makes no sense, JavaScript from a website should not be allowed to interact with extensions like this.
Does the same scan is happening on firefox? Random websites invoking extensions do seem to be a security hole to me.
Can ask the same question about so many horrible security blunders web browsers have made over the decades.
They are only blunders if they aren't being used as features by someone
Is that information available to websites? I figured they were doing some kind of novel hackery to self-detect extensions based on behaviour that would only happen if X extension was installed.
But that would be a lot of work for 6,300 extensions. Unless someone offers that as a service?
Brave explicitly blocks this
Chrome is a browser produced by an advertising company. Its reason for existence is to track you.
Not that I disagree but Google's tracking motivation in making the browser seems irrelevant to why it lets competitors do this fingerprinting
They want fingerprinting to work for everyone because the more effective it is, the higher the value of the ad inventory they sell.
Is this a hallucination? I can't find this quote anywhere else.
> According to browsergate, Milinda Lakkam confirmed this under oath, saying, "LinkedIn took action against users who had specific extensions installed."
Huh, kind of. That's not the actual quote. Note I haven't followed the chain further back than this:
https://browsergate.eu/the-evidence-pack/
Edit: nice! I just notice indent-formatted text is now wrapping on mobile browsers. (Or at least ffm.) I wonder how long that's been fixed...Saying 'I may have taken a shower' instead of 'I took a shower' makes my wife use her disapproving look.
Source: https://browsergate.eu/downloads/Lakam-affidavit-redacted.pd...
Paragraph 4 Document: Eidesstattliche Versicherung / Affidavit. Declarant: Milinda Lakkam, Senior Manager, Software Engineering and Machine Learning, LinkedIn Corporation Filed: February 6, 2026, Mountain View, California Court reference: Anlage AG 4
friends, WHEN you are asked to implement something like this at your job, which will you choose: object (& hold ground, loose job) OR comply (& keep job)
as practitioners, where do we hold the line between telemetry and surveillance?
There's a third choice. Say you'll do it but do it poorly, or drag your feet forever. Hard to prove you intentionally did a bad job.
If that's the game you're playing tho, maybe time to find another job too ;)
I choose not to work at places like linked in, meta, or any place that accepts Saudi or Israeli funding. It makes it a little harder to find a job, but i sleep better at night.
I wouldn’t lump in Israel in, but good for you.
I got you covered, boo. I will!
Anyway, for those in this situation, an anecdote. I've outright refused to do questionable things and kept my job. In 'Right to Work' states, even; I should be easy to drop! I've also played incompetent so the sharks look elsewhere. Point being... options exist, don't negotiate [only] with yourself.
In years to come you will be so thankful that you took that path.
As they say, better to be a poor master than a rich slave.
I wonder the same. Maybe it's made by people who feel like they wouldn't easily find another job and need the job for healthcare or financial reasons (living paycheck to paycheck)? And it's ordered by managers in similar situations, whose managers want to see increased revenue and don't care how? Somewhere in the chain it feels like there should be someone who says 'wtf are we doing'. It's strange
To answer your question though: I'd object of course, I'm very lucky to be well enough off that I can currently make that choice without serious repercussions. Do you think someone would come out on HN and say "oh sure yeah I have no morals!", at least without it being a throwaway where you'd have no idea if it's real?
and,
recently while trying to decipher why computer was at 98% memory and 65% cpu
one of the culprits is https://li.protechts.net taking 2GB ram and 8% cpu.
DDG searches say this is something for linkedin. - I had two tabs for linkedin open but left behind as I opened other tabs to research.
So I had not reopened these tabs in over 9 hours and they are still just humming along sucking down almost 10% of cpu and a couple gigs of ram for what?
This is firefox with ublock origin - quick searches saw malwarebytes browser guard considered it (protechts.net) malware for a bit and then took it off the list of things it blocked / warned about.
Not sure this is related to the scan mentioned, but it may be related to the overall concerns about data and unknown usage of resources.
I'm considering blocking this at the dns hosts level at this point.
repost of my comment 28 days ago
Well, I deleted my Linkedin account and life is better now.
That's big talk coming from someone who currently has a job. getting a job without a linkedin account isn't that straightforward.
Seems to do this in Microsoft Edge, too.*
* I use Edge bcs of the vertical tabs — Safari's equivalent is a poor substitute. Firefox didn't seem to have vertical tabs last time I checked.
They do now - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/use-sidebar-access-tool...
https://www.firefox.com/en-US/features/vertical-tabs/
Fun to have to spin up a whole VM just to use a particular website!
Interesting, so would Safari prevent this? I tried moving to Safari and honestly loved everything except I use my google accounts now for authenticating with to many services and that was a pain compared to chrome.
Even better! Moving to firefox fixes this.
Chrome for some reason (still!) gives extensions static ids. Firefox has the id change per firefox instance.
Seems to only happen Chrome per the dev of Wipr (a great safari privacy extension) https://mas.to/@mipstian/116341745221356805
I would imagine using any non-Chromium browser would cause it to fail to find any Chrome extensions, yes.
Sure, but Safari may or may not leak Safari extension signals in a similar fashion. I haven't actually investigated.
Well if you’re a logged in to Google don’t you just SSO everywhere?
I honestly kind of forget the exact annoyances because it has been some time. I want to say I had to reauth every time I wanted to SSO with my google account because it doesn't allow/deletes third party cookies.
See also "LinkedIn is searching your browser extensions" (812 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47613981
Now the 1000s of spammy chrome web extension requests when I opened LinkedIn makes sense
[dupe]
Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47613981
28 days ago, 1897 points, 812 comments
now it makes sense with the 1000s of spammy not found requests to chrome extensions i was seeing on linkedin and had claude code debug.
I did that and got logged out of LinkedIn.
I saw the following from linkedIn this morning
> Update to our terms and data use As of November 3, 2025, we are using some of your Linkedin data to improve the content-generating Al that enhances your experience, unless you opt out in your settings. We also updated our terms. See what's new and how to manage your data.
Frankly, it is unacceptable to tell a user "oh we have been using your personal data for 5 months already and will continue to do so unless you explicitly opt out". Are there any transparent alternatives to LinkedIn (not the trust me bro variant)?
Wasn't this specifically some lame-ass attempt to combat some click fraud or something these extensions were doing? And aren't these articles specifically coming from the person doing the fraud (which is why they know about the extension scanning)?
To be clear, LinkedIn shouldn't be scanning your browser extensions, but still. The ultimate problem is that browser extensions are a powerful malware vector and there's a huge market of people buying little utilities off of solo developers to enshittify them.
> LinkedIn shouldn't be scanning your browser extensions.
Correct
Yes there are other problems in the world and we can JAQ the messanger too.
> Wasn't this specifically some lame-ass attempt to combat some click fraud or something these extensions were doing?
No. That you believed that was just an unfortunate consequence of HN's kneejerk tendency to upvote middlebrow dismissals to the top comment, which resulted in people rushing to craft apologetics for what is in reality bonafide scumminess on LinkedIn's part, which itself resulted in confabulations like the claim that, "It was all extensions related to spamming and scraping LinkedIn last time this was posted"—which is simply untrue.
This is pure speculation. It is a million times more likely that this data is strictly used to combat scraping and fraud.