Nano Defender & Nano Adblocker removed by Google Chrome as malware

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Source: Time to remove Nano Adblocker and Defender from your browsers (except Firefox) - gHacks Tech News

When Nano Defender was launched in 2019, it quickly became a go-to extension to bypass anti-adblocking mechanisms on Internet sites. It used code from uBlock Origin, one of the most prominent content blocking extensions, and users started to install the new extension in Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers.

One of the main differentiating factors between Nano Defender and uBlock Origin was that the former supported a reporting option to let the developer know about issues encountered while using the extension. A port for Firefox was created by another developer to cover all major browsers on the Windows platform.

Nano Defender has more than 200,000 users that installed the extension from the Chrome Web Store alone.

The developer of the extension revealed on the official GitHub that he decided to sell the extension twelve days ago to two Turkish developers.

Community members and Raymond Hill, developer of uBlock Origin, shared their thoughts on the deal and the fact that little information was provided. Gorhill suspected that the new owners main intention was to monetize the extension in one form or another, or do worse with it.

*www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/ublock-origin-anti-adblocking.png

The new owners uploaded a new version to the Chrome store, and careful analysis of the code of the extension revealed that it contained a new connect.js file that did not come from the project's GitHub page.

Hill provided an analysis of the code and discovered that the new code allowed the developers to submit user activity and data to remote servers.

The extension is now designed to lookup specific information from your outgoing network requests according to an externally configurable heuristics and send it to *def.dev-nano.com/.

Click to expand...

Hill suggested that users uninstall Nano Defender / Nano Adblocker immediately to block data from being submitted to the new owners.

The Firefox fork of the extension was not part of the deal, and the maintainer of it expressed interest to rename it and continue maintaining it. All other versions of the extension, basically any for Chromium-based browsers, should be removed immediately. Users who want to be on the safe side should remove the Firefox extension as well.

@omega44-xt @SaiyanGoku @Desmond David @Vyom

Was using them yesterday when suddenly the extensions crashed with a chrome notification. Later when I tried to reload them I saw chrome labelled them as malware.

whitestar_999 said:
Source: Time to remove Nano Adblocker and Defender from your browsers (except Firefox) - gHacks Tech News

@omega44-xt @SaiyanGoku @Desmond David @Vyom

Was using them yesterday when suddenly the extensions crashed with a chrome notification. Later when I tried to reload them I saw chrome labelled them as malware.

I only use ublock origin. Haven't needed to search for another adblocker.

Honestly haven't even heard of this.

Desmond David said:
Honestly haven't even heard of this.

Haha I hear about this add-ons on some fringe subreddits. Personally I only use ublock origin

Sent from my vivo 1807 using Tapatalk

thetechfreak said:
Haha I hear about this add-ons on some fringe subreddits. Personally I only use ublock origin

Sent from my vivo 1807 using Tapatalk

SaiyanGoku said:
I only use ublock origin. Haven't needed to search for another adblocker.

Same

I use Adblock Ultimate in Firefox.

whitestar_999 said:
Source: Time to remove Nano Adblocker and Defender from your browsers (except Firefox) - gHacks Tech News

@omega44-xt @SaiyanGoku @Desmond David @Vyom

Was using them yesterday when suddenly the extensions crashed with a chrome notification. Later when I tried to reload them I saw chrome labelled them as malware.

Me too, shifted back to ublock origin.

SaiyanGoku said:
I only use ublock origin. Haven't needed to search for another adblocker.

I was using it years ago, but then some anti ad-blockers were detecting it, so found this being recommended on reddit.

Just use ublock origin If any website able to detect and block you from accessing it just post on their subreddit(*www.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/) with the screenshot of the website and they'll fix it within hours.

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It worked better than ublock origin(I also have that installed along with it) on some sites where for example it skipped the multiple redirections without needing you to click on "click here to continue" & get you to the final page. In ublock origin I need to click 2-3 times on "click here to continue" which opens a popup window ad which ublock origin immediately close.

whitestar_999 said:
It worked better than ublock origin(I also have that installed along with it) on some sites where for example it skipped the multiple redirections without needing you to click on "click here to continue" & get you to the final page. In ublock origin I need to click 2-3 times on "click here to continue" which opens a popup window ad which ublock origin immediately close.

Yup it was, not sure if ublock catched up now.

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omega44-xt said:
Yup it was, not sure if ublock catched up now.

On certain sites it hasn't.

Any idea of good alternatives? Ublock with unblock extra isn't as good as nano was.

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omega44-xt said:
Any idea of good alternatives? Ublock with unblock extra isn't as good as nano was.

I found out about this a long time ago when I was using both nano & ublock, on many sites ublock just cannot match silent continuous redirects of nano without any popup ad/link to click. Will update here if find something similar.

whitestar_999 said:
I found out about this a long time ago when I was using both nano & ublock, on many sites ublock just cannot match silent continuous redirects of nano without any popup ad/link to click. Will update here if find something similar.

Yeah me too, that's why I initially made the switch. Ublock works fine 95% of the time for me, but for some websites have those redirects or anti-adblockers that detect it.

Amestryyz said:
Time to remove Nano Adblocker currretly i dont have idea but you will get in detail on google.thankyou

Old news, almost a month ago it was declared malware by Google itself (in about 3 days of it becoming one).

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omega44-xt said:
Old news, almost a month ago it was declared malware by Google itself (in about 3 days of it becoming one).

Spammer trying to be smart, removed his another ID too.

whitestar_999 said:
It worked better than ublock origin(I also have that installed along with it) on some sites where for example it skipped the multiple redirections without needing you to click on "click here to continue" & get you to the final page. In ublock origin I need to click 2-3 times on "click here to continue" which opens a popup window ad which ublock origin immediately close.

I use universal bypass for the same, but any content bypasser essentially maps and stores access/endpoints, so it provides this map to any other user going to the same link. That IS a breach in privacy, its just how it works. Its open source atleast.

PS:
Why is Universal Bypass not on the Chrome Web Store?
Google took it down for apparently "circumventing paywalls." I have clarified that Universal Bypass is more of an adblocker and asked for details of where paywalls are circumvented, but it's Google, so of course I didn't get a response.

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Nerevarine said:
I use universal bypass for the same, but any content bypasser essentially maps and stores access/endpoints, so it provides this map to any other user going to the same link. That IS a breach in privacy, its just how it works. Its open source atleast.

PS:
Why is Universal Bypass not on the Chrome Web Store?
Google took it down for apparently "circumventing paywalls." I have clarified that Universal Bypass is more of an adblocker and asked for details of where paywalls are circumvented, but it's Google, so of course I didn't get a response.

Checked & it also doesn't work on some sites in the same way as nano defender+adblocker.