Google Removes more than 200 Apps from the Chrome Web Store

It appears that Google is getting serious about their Chrome Web Store. Google recently removed more than 200 apps from the store that were “dodgy”. These apps or extensions were removed in response to a report that claims about 5% of their users fall victim to every day. Chrome has been the subject of a joint study by security experts and Google itself which identified nasty extensions and apps based on 100 million visits to the company’s sites. The most of these that were removed were just irritating and annoying. Offering a ton of advertisements that you didn’t ask for, and are just there. The study also revealed that 5% of people surveyed had four or more dodgy add-ons installed in Chrome.

A security expert at ESET stated: “The application itself is designed to enable you to take screenshots and store them in the cloud. The downside to this type of technology is that it can be easily misused, and it appears that’s exactly what’s happening here.”

There really are a whole lot of extensions and apps out there that shouldn’t exist in the Chrome Web Store. Between not being updated regularly, and those that inject ads or even malware into users computers, something needs to be done. Recently, Google has switched up how apps get into the Play Store. Now the search giant is manually reviewing everything that gets submitted to the Play Store. They may have to do the same thing with Chrome to be sure that nothing dodgy is going on, and to protect their users.

This doesn’t just affect their browser either as they do have an OS that runs on Chrome. Even though they are basically the same thing. Best thing to do, is if you see extra ads, or your browser starts acting weird. Start removing some of your extensions of apps. They are most likely the reason why. In fact, there are a few extensions that mess with Logitech’s mice. And hamper their performance in Chrome. So it’s always important to keep an eye on those extensions and apps. Also, the more extensions you have installed, the more RAM Chrome will use, and the worse the experience gets.