Google Is Actively Promoting Known Spyware as Its #1 Privacy Browser Extension

Google Is Actively Promoting Known Spyware as Its #1 Privacy Browser Extension : degoogle jump to content my subreddits edit subscriptions popular - all - users | AskReddit - pics - funny - movies - worldnews - news - todayilearned - nottheonion - explainlikeimfive - mildlyinteresting - DIY - videos - OldSchoolCool - europe - TwoXChromosomes - tifu - Music - books - LifeProTips - dataisbeautiful - aww - science - space - Showerthoughts - askscience - Jokes - Art - IAmA - Futurology - sports - UpliftingNews - food - nosleep - creepy - history - gifs - InternetIsBeautiful - GetMotivated - gadgets - announcements - de_IAmA - WritingPrompts - philosophy - Documentaries - Austria - EarthPorn - photoshopbattles - listentothis - blog more » degoogle comments other discussions (5) Want to join? Log in or sign up in seconds. limit my search to r/degoogle use the following search parameters to narrow your results: subreddit: subreddit find submissions in "subreddit" author: username find submissions by "username" site: example.com find submissions from "example.com" url: text search for "text" in url selftext: text search for "text" in self post contents self:yes (or self:no) include (or exclude) self posts nsfw:yes (or nsfw:no) include (or exclude) results marked as NSFW e.g. subreddit:aww site:imgur.com dog see the search faq for details. advanced search: by author, subreddit... this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2026 831 points (99% upvoted) shortlink: Submit DeGoogled Link Submit Self-Post degoogle join leave Recommended alternatives for all the Google products, software and services NOTE: We're trying to recommend you alternatives which are FOSS (or mostly so) and privacy-respecting . This is by no means an exhaustive list of alternatives, if you're looking for one, then check out our community-sourced wiki page (if you'd like to become an approved wiki contributor for that page - contact us). Notable PrivacyGuides Reclaim The Net Eylenburg's Tech Website 'Google Search' alternatives: DuckDuckGo StartPage Brave Search Mojeek SearXNG . Find an instance here , or use any of these: priv.au search.minus27315.dev searxng.canine.tools Kagi Search (paid only) 'Google Chrome' alternatives: Based on Gecko (Firefox): Firefox (hardening with arkenfox possible) LibreWolf Waterfox Fennec F-Droid IronFox Based on Blink (Chromium): Brave Browser Ungoogled Chromium Cromite 'Gmail' alternatives: Proton Mail Tuta Mail Mailbox (paid only) Posteo (paid only) Disroot 'YouTube' alternatives: Alternative platforms: Odysee PeerTube . Find an instance here , or use any of these: diode.zone video.liberta.vip Ad-free YouTube apps / clients: NewPipe (Android) Tubular (Android) PipePipe (Android) Grayjay (Android / Windows / macOS / Linux) FreeTube (Android / Windows / macOS / Linux) SmartTube (Android TV / Google TV / Android-based Amazon Fire TV) Ad-free YouTube web frontend: Invidious . Find an instance here , or use any of these: inv.nadeko.net yewtu.be invidious.nerdvpn.de 'YouTube Music' alternatives: Alternative platforms: Qobuz 'Google Maps' and 'Waze' alternatives: HERE WeGo Magic Earth TomTom Sygic Mapy.com Organic Maps CoMaps OpenStreetMap OsmAnd 'Google Drive' alternatives: Proton Drive Filen Nextcloud (self-hosted) 'Google Photos' alternatives: Ente Photos (optionally self-hosted) Immich (self-hosted) 'Google Password Manager' alternatives: Bitwarden (optionally self-hosted) Proton Pass KeePassDX 'Google Authenticator' alternatives: Ente Auth Proton Authenticator Aegis Authenticator (Android) Bitwarden Authenticator 'Gboard' alternatives: FUTO Keyboard HeliBoard FlorisBoard 'Google Home' alternatives: Home Assistant openHAB 'Google Play Store' alternatives: Aurora Store (Play Store client) F-Droid clients / apps: F-Droid (official) Droid-ify (unofficial) Neo Store (unofficial) Obtainium Accrescent 'Google Earth' alternatives: Marble WorldWind OSGeo GeoMapApp 'Chromebook' alternatives: MNT Reform Olimex DIY Laptop Vikings X200 - RYF (Respects Your Freedom) edition Purism Librem 14 System76's laptops Pinebook Pro KDE Slimbook 14 ThinkPenguin's laptops TUXEDO's laptops Star Labs' laptops Technoethical's laptops 'Chrome OS' alternatives: GNU/Linux . Find a GNU/Linux distro here , or use any of these: Linux Mint Manjaro Linux Zorin OS Solus KDE Neon openSuse MX Linux BSD . Find a BSD OS here , or use any of these: GhostBSD MidnightBSD NomadBSD 'Android', 'Google Pixel' and 'Google Nexus' alternatives: Mainline Linux-capable Smartphones : Librem 5 Pinephone Dumbphones (feature phones) . There are a lot of them, some of the most notorious ones are: Mudita Pure WiPhone (4G will be available via add-ons ) Punkt MP02 Nokia 3310 Nokia 220 4G FOSS-oriented Smartphones : Fairphone (you'll have to remove the Android OS and install a FOSS one) Volla Phone XDA & F(x)tec's Pro1-X Regular Smartphones on which you can install a privacy-respecting OS: Any of these which can run LineageOS Any of these which can run /e/ Any of these which can run Ubuntu Touch 'Google Analytics' alternatives Matomo Plausible Ackee Fathom The Mod Team has not vetted any of the above services, these are only recommendations based on user feedback. It is recommended you properly and thoroughly research any product or service you are interested in using. a community for 8 years MODERATORS message the mods 206 · 498 comments Does my phone have a DeGoogled rom? Megathread 3115 · 40 comments "Hey Google! Delete my account." 625 · 46 comments Instagram to drop encrypted chats from May 8, your messages will not be private anymore 1535 · 82 comments TGIF 829 · 27 comments Google Is Actively Promoting Known Spyware as Its #1 Privacy Browser Extension 34 · 33 comments Protonify 1476 · 200 comments PSA to everyone who keeps putting off switching OS / degoogling (from a non-techie who finally did it) 23 · 5 comments (for creatives of all kinds) AI slop is ruining online creative spaces - so I built a human only one. · 1 comment Instagram gives us another reason to boycott it 12 · 2 comments Too much Proton services after degoogle Welcome to Reddit, the front page of the internet. Become a Redditor and join one of thousands of communities. × 830 831 832 Discussion Google Is Actively Promoting Known Spyware as Its #1 Privacy Browser Extension ( old.reddit.com ) submitted 21 hours ago by hello_future_life 27 comments share save hide report Previous Next Back to Grid View Previous Next Back to Grid View Researchers found Urban VPN’s Chrome extension was secretly collecting people’s private AI chats and sending them to company servers to sell. Google removed it after the reports, then quietly let it back on the store, and now it shows up as one of top result for “VPN” and the top 'Privacy & Security' extension. This is crazy, why would Google do this? They are literally tricking millions of users into installing spyware. https://www.koi.ai/blog/urban-vpn-browser-extension-ai-conversations-data-collection https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2025/12/chrome-extension-slurps-up-ai-chats-after-users-installed-it-for-privacy https://www.csoonline.com/article/4106949/featured-urban-vpn-caught-stealing-private-ai-chats.html (Posted yesterday on r/malware and crossposted here, but r/malware mods removed it so reposting) all 27 comments sorted by: best top new controversial old random q&a live (beta) Want to add to the discussion? Post a comment! Create an account [–] Conscious-Item-1633 227 points 228 points 229 points 20 hours ago (1 child) Because Google is also malware permalink embed save report reply [–] Kurgan_IT 2 points 3 points 4 points 2 hours ago (0 children) Money permalink embed save parent report reply [–] Gordon_freeman_real 101 points 102 points 103 points 20 hours ago (6 children) Yeah Urban sucks, honestly an evil company that needs to be shut down permalink embed save report reply [–] _Age_Sex_Location_ 29 points 30 points 31 points 18 hours ago (5 children) Bulldoze it along with Elon's Twitter and I'll volunteer to help. permalink embed save parent report reply [+] [deleted] 18 hours ago (4 children) [deleted] [–] TotalStatisticNoob 14 points 15 points 16 points 16 hours ago (0 children) Lmaooooo, did Grok write this permalink embed save report reply [–] _Age_Sex_Location_ 26 points 27 points 28 points 17 hours ago (0 children) Elon Musk does not promote free speech. He'd have you believe that, but he routinely uses his platform to censor speech and inflate misinformation and bad-faith talking points. He's a traitorous, culture-war ghoul and his platform is explicitly designed to promote malicious right-wing propaganda. That's why he bought it in the first place. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10098-2 permalink embed save report reply [–] OnDrugsTonight 11 points 12 points 13 points 14 hours ago (0 children) In which possible world does Elon Musk promote free speech? He's been known for personally manipulating the algorithm to boost his tweets and demonetising and deplatforming accounts that disagree with him, Twitter's currently under active investigation by France and the European Union for disseminating illegal and harmful content and there's been study after study showing that Twitter's algorithm amplifies right-wing and low-credibility content. When you go on Twitter, you see exactly what Elon Musk wants you to see. permalink embed save report reply [–] hello_future_life [ S ] 37 points 38 points 39 points 19 hours ago (0 children) Here are VirusTotal scans of their extension: https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/099aeeda14e46592461ca443a71f9a74870119204f1aba998ec517b76001058d?nocache=1 https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/08f39db7ae783bbbbb58d3544d11b6a9a0dc73d69f0cb52fb100d500d461bffc/detection permalink embed save report reply [–] deekamus 30 points 31 points 32 points 16 hours ago (3 children) Did Google lose a bet? Why so much brand self destruction? permalink embed save report reply [–] Sxualhrssmntpanda 12 points 13 points 14 points 8 hours ago (1 child) Why? Because money, and the fact that it's harder to not use Google than it is to use Google. This is what you get if you don't break up monopolies. permalink embed save parent report reply [–] deekamus 0 points 1 point 2 points 5 hours ago (0 children) LOL, I was on the net long before Google was a concept. They're not the only game in town. I'll be fine.🤣 permalink embed save parent report reply [–] rifena 1 point 2 points 3 points 7 hours ago (0 children) permalink embed save parent report reply [–] NoServiceMonk 7 points 8 points 9 points 18 hours ago (0 children) They are commercial partners whether in the collection and processing of data or in the purchase and sale. permalink embed save report reply [–] _twrecks_ 5 points 6 points 7 points 17 hours ago (2 children) Thought you were referring to Unlock origin lite at first, the image preview clipped the sides Is Google really promoting or is this just the popularity contest? permalink embed save report reply [–] hello_future_life [ S ] 6 points 7 points 8 points 16 hours ago (1 child) It is unclear exactly how the extensions are ranked. It is not based on popularity alone, as many smaller extensions rank above larger ones. Even if it is purely algorithmic ranking, Google is well aware that it is spyware and chooses to do nothing. At this point it is fair to say that Google is complicit in promoting and spreading spyware to millions of people. permalink embed save parent report reply [–] Ok-Lab-6389 2 points 3 points 4 points 5 hours ago (0 children) The problem with Google is they have their hands in Far To Many pies and when you have so many hands in the pie it's difficult to have QC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_products permalink embed save parent report reply [–] AdhesiveMadMan 4 points 5 points 6 points 18 hours ago (0 children) big buck go "exception granted" permalink embed save report reply [–] OldPollution6632 4 points 5 points 6 points 10 hours ago (0 children) Why would Google care about users' privacy? If anything, spyware helps them make more money. permalink embed save report reply [–] Holiday_Management60 3 points 4 points 5 points 6 hours ago (0 children) Spyware company distributes spyware. Imagine my fucking shock. permalink embed save report reply [–] Bird-Total 0 points 1 point 2 points 8 hours ago (0 children) urban might be only good for getting ur self unbanned in minecraft, or maybe not even that permalink embed save report reply [–] Freakk_I 1 point 2 points 3 points 5 hours ago (0 children) Yeah. Google has become a pile of shit in recent years. It's probably buying that stolen data from Urban VPN. permalink embed save report reply [–] Kubiac6666 1 point 2 points 3 points 4 hours ago (0 children) That's why I give a shit what a store or web site is promoting. permalink embed save report reply [–] Vijfsnippervijf FOSS Lover [ 🍰 ] 1 point 2 points 3 points 4 hours ago (0 children) Just block VPN spyware like this. No one deserves this shit. permalink embed save report reply [–] OSAO767 1 point 2 points 3 points 3 hours ago (0 children) They'll look you straight in the eye and tell you that it's dangerous to install things outside their stores permalink embed save report reply [–] Not_my_Name464 -5 points -4 points -3 points 9 hours ago (1 child) But it's because it's open source that it's unsafe 🤔 permalink embed save report reply [–] Freakk_I 2 points 3 points 4 points 5 hours ago (0 children) Are you serious? permalink embed save parent report reply about blog about advertising careers help site rules Reddit help center reddiquette mod guidelines contact us apps & tools Reddit for iPhone Reddit for Android mobile website <3 reddit premium Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy . © 2026 reddit inc. All rights reserved. REDDIT and the ALIEN Logo are registered trademarks of reddit inc. π Rendered by PID 83031 on reddit-service-r2-loggedout-59f74b7959-wd67x at 2026-03-14 18:10:06.651689+00:00 running f6e6e01 country code: AT.