Alert! Awesome Screenshot Users
If you use the browser add-on Awesome Screenshots, you need to pay attention and uninstall it right away. At time of writing, it is leaking a lot of stuff – well basically every single website you’ve visited, private or otherwise.
Admittedly, months ago, I had this very extension installed because sometimes, I’m too lazy to launch my screenshot program (Clarify & Skitch for different tasks).
One day, while working on a plugin, I discovered a very interesting error. You see, when I develop plugins, I have all the error notices turned ON and I check for issues as it loads in the browser to make sure we’re using good, modern programming methods. So if an item doesn’t load properly, be it in my plugin or otherwise, I know it.
As I was working, this one resource kept coming up with a 404 error. It was a URL to a page that I was 100% certain isn’t in my plugin. I had no other WordPress plugins installed and the theme was default so it had to be something else. I finally traced it to Awesome Screenshots. Each page I loaded, this page loaded too.
What shocked me into uninstalling – it was some kind of tracker. That in itself is no surprise because ad trackers are all over the Internet on all sorts of legit pages. However, this tracker doesn’t look like a normal ad tracker and I checked the extension’s pages. It said nothing about adware. To me, it’s a betrayal of my trust and so it was gone.
Glad I did because now, I’m reading about how it’s leaking information to whoever is tracking these URLs. Even if you don’t use this extension, take time to read it, then audit the extensions on your browser (I did). It is a bit lengthy and may get a bit geeky here and there but do at least try to understand this because the implications are very serious.
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I uninstalled it immediately. Thanks for letting me know about this.
Lately, I haven’t used it. I’ve been hitting the “prt sc” button and everything goes to a file in my dropbox. That’s really all I was using it for anyway.
I also use Scritch (oops, that the little guy on Ice Age movies LOL), I mean Skitch. I’ll have to check out Clarify. Not heard of that one.
Take care,
Donna 🙂
No problem Donna. This is kinda scary isn’t it? I’m now super wary of my extensions. Even though there aren’t many (try to keep it light) but it’s very difficult to know who to trust these days. LOL Scritch. I love that guy.
Thanks for the tip. Here’s one for you:
When I clicked on the “PoponScroll” popup, it sent me to the page where I could purchase it, however, I noticed that it would be really handy if there was also a way for people to comment on why they didn’t buy the product.
For example, I thought that the $37 price tag for this plugin was too much. Why? Because I may want to buy more than one plugin, and if I have to spend this amount, I’ll be limited as to what plugins I can purchase, hence my hesitation, because now I have to decide which plugins I really want.
But, the owner of the promotional page will not know that, and be left wondering why people come, look, and leave.
Thanks for the input. We’ll look into that.
Hey Lynette – great article
I am curious though how you monitor your browser error notices? Is that special software, or a setting in Google Chrome?
Thanks
Hey Nancy, thank you!
Nope, nothing fancy at all and it comes default with Chrome. All you do when viewing a page is to right click on the page and hit Inspect Element. You can also do the same on Firefox I *think* it’s called Inspect Element too. If you hit the Network tab it will tell you want item on the page is loading/not loading. If there are any Javascript errors, the Console tab is where to look. Just tons of stuff there.