illegally searching the browser extensions and anything it can find from the browser sandbox. Very different than 'Searching your Computer'
this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2026
76 points (100.0% liked)
technology
24315 readers
339 users here now
On the road to fully automated luxury gay space communism.
Spreading Linux propaganda since 2020
- Ways to run Microsoft/Adobe and more on Linux
- The Ultimate FOSS Guide For Android
- Great libre software on Windows
- Hey you, the lib still using Chrome. Read this post!
Rules:
- 1. Obviously abide by the sitewide code of conduct. Bigotry will be met with an immediate ban
- 2. This community is about technology. Offtopic is permitted as long as it is kept in the comment sections
- 3. Although this is not /c/libre, FOSS related posting is tolerated, and even welcome in the case of effort posts
- 4. We believe technology should be liberating. As such, avoid promoting proprietary and/or bourgeois technology
- 5. Explanatory posts to correct the potential mistakes a comrade made in a post of their own are allowed, as long as they remain respectful
- 6. No crypto (Bitcoin, NFT, etc.) speculation, unless it is purely informative and not too cringe
- 7. Absolutely no tech bro shit. If you have a good opinion of Silicon Valley billionaires please manifest yourself so we can ban you.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
This is definitely still bad though. Do we know they aren't using zero-days and such to attempt gaining access to more?
I hope they do. Hard to imagine a more ethical use for browser 0days than messing with LinkedIn users.
hey i resent that.
I need it coz i'm passionate about not starving and it's the de facto job board in my field
But you run an ad blocker I'm sure
i mean wouldn't it just block the whole thing?
no it doesn't. you should run an ad blocker.
Yeah for I moment I thought LinkedIn was burning some browser sandbox 0day on this.
Extensions exist on my computer and this is searching my computer for them. The title is technically correct by definition.
Title is blantently misleading.
If it's:
- On my computer, and
- You're trying to discover it, and
- I didn't grant permission
It's an illegal search of my computer. The title is correct. That you don't feel as strongly about software liberty and allow definitions to erode over time is your problem.
Sorry, I didn't realize that misleading clickbait post titles was a key cornerstone of software liberty.
Enforcing definitions is part of software liberty. Look at free software vs open source as a very real, very widely impacting example. There’s nothing misleading about the title on a factual basis. If you can’t see that yet I hope one day you will and look back on this comment in a different light.
You honestly think one day I'm going to wake up and think "LinkedIn's website is searching chrome for extensions" is too precise and factual, the right thing to do was to use a headline that would obviously imply to the average person (including average tech user and average free software advocate) that LinkedIn (the website? App? Windows 11 component? Who knows?) was scanning your whole hard drive!
uhhh i mean yeah its on your computer but its within the browser sandbox
Your computer is technically inside your house. Would you title this “Linkedin Is Illegally Searching Your House”?
Not worried about LinkedIn because you don't have one? Try pressing shift-control-alt-windows-L on Windows.
the fuck
Opens M$365 copilot and kinked in tried to assault my work ID. 
used to be a microsoft easter egg would be like a cool flight simulator hidden inside a spreadsheet program.
- Create LinkedIn acct in a privacy-oriented browser on Linux with a VPN up.
- Submit your best times to the "LinkedIn Account Ban Any%" category leaderboards.
I got banned from Linkedin for trolling my wife's old boss.
Lmao 😭
I've been accused of not being a real person by freelance clients because I didn't have a LinkedIn or social media presence. I hate that I have it now, and the number one reason I want a job is so I can not be on it anymore.
Am I correct in reading this as a problem only for Chrome users? If it's doing hard coded searches of IDs in the chrome extension store, it seems like it is easily defeated by simply using another browser.
Most browsers now are Chromium based, which can use the same extensions (and often do by default) as are in the chrome web store. But, yes, something webkit based or a firefox derivative should avoid that portion of the awful things happening here.
But the fact that you basically can't do anything on linkedin without logging into an account, and they really push for your account to have all of your real life information in it, and they have 3 distinct fingerprinting and tracking systems running to monitor anything your account does on the website (and allows your boss to see)... It's not great.
Is this different from browser fingerprinting?