SafeBrowse Chrome Extension by Safebrowse.co

The SafeBrowse Chrome Extension by Safebrowse.co is a Web-browsing extension that provides advertisement-avoiding features. Recent updates of this program also add a non-consensual mining function to it that may cause the extension to use excessive hardware resources for generating cryptocurrency (not for the user). For now, malware experts are categorizing it as a Potentially Unwanted Program (PUP) and suggest having appropriate security software uninstall the SafeBrowse Chrome Extension by Safebrowse.co from your browser.

The Invisible Price of Safety in Browsing

Anti-adware programs can be useful products for protecting your computer from unwanted scripts and other elements of websites that malware experts often relate to breaches of security, such as the formerly prominent Blackhole Exploit Kit's drive-by-downloads. However, like any product delivering a valuable service, such software also is highly subject to abusing sufficiently inattentive customers who don't notice they're part of a tactic. More often than otherwise, such as with the SafeBrowse Chrome Extension by Safebrowse.co, the tactic' portion of the proceedings takes place completely invisibly.

The SafeBrowse Chrome Extension by Safebrowse.co is a Chrome-specific extension downloadable for free from the browser's Web store previously. Past versions of the SafeBrowse Chrome Extension by Safebrowse.co exhibit no unusual behavior, beyond providing their users with ways of avoiding advertising-related content, such as countdowns delaying the loading of Web content like articles. However, this extension updates automatically and malware experts noted the new addition of a cryptocurrency-mining feature to the latest builds immediately.

This function generates the Monero currency, instead of the more popular Bitcoin, by using the PC's hardware resources without their consent. Since the SafeBrowse Chrome Extension by Safebrowse.co displays no notifications of the change, any customers only may notice it by taking an active interest in monitoring their PC's Central Processing Unit (or CPU) percentages. Windows provides a default tool for monitoring the CPU and other hardware-related statistics via the Task Manager, which opens with the shortcut of Ctrl + Shift + Escape. All Monero coins generated are deposited in a third-party's wallet, under the ownership of the current admins of the SafeBrowse Chrome Extension by Safebrowse.co presumably.

Browsing Safe and Sound on Your Terms

Current evidence indicates that the SafeBrowse Chrome Extension by Safebrowse.co's update is more likely as being an intentional change, instead of the hijacking of an update by a third-party con artist. The extension is no longer available from Chrome's official resources and malware experts classify the SafeBrowse Chrome Extension by Safebrowse.co as a Potentially Unwanted Program (PUP) currently. Programs with miner-based features can cause a variety of performance problems associated with limited system resources and, over an extended time, may even damage hardware irrevocably, such as by burning out graphics cards.

Changes in temperature, CPU expenditure and memory usage all can provide signs of a cryptocurrency-miner like the SafeBrowse Chrome Extension by Safebrowse.co. Users interested in this product's anti-advertisements features should look at alternatives in the marketplace that can provide similar functionality without hijacking the PC's hardware needlessly. This extension includes components that operate in the background seamlessly, and most users should remove the SafeBrowse Chrome Extension by Safebrowse.co with the help of a dedicated security product, such as any anti-malware suite with threat databases encompassing mining Trojans.

The SafeBrowse Chrome Extension by Safebrowse.co is a minor tragedy of otherwise valuable and benign software being redesigned to serve anti-security interests. For now, the only price that its fans pay is in possible performance problems, but the future may hold additional safety concerns for anyone not willing to uninstall this extension.