In a blog post from their Chrome news site, Google has announced that it will be banning extensions for cryptomining on its Chrome Web Store.
The company said they had previously allowed single-purpose mining extensions but as it turns out, around 90% of these uploaded extensions did not comply with the policy and have since been either removed or rejected from the Web Store. The blog post also cites mining scripts to be a heavy load on CPU resources and can affect performance and power consumption.
The blog post states, “The extensions platform provides powerful capabilities that have enabled our developer community to build a vibrant catalog of extensions that help users get the most out of Chrome. Unfortunately, these same capabilities have attracted malicious software developers who attempt to abuse the platform at the expense of users. This policy is another step forward in ensuring that Chrome users can enjoy the benefits of extensions without exposing themselves to hidden risks.”
Google will no longer allow “any extension that mines cryptocurrency” to be uploaded into the Web Store, and will proceed to remove all remaining cryptomining extensions from it this June.
