Snoopware installed by 11 million+ iOS, Android, Chrome, and Firefox users

(credit: Ruth Suehle, opensource.com)

People often use ad blockers, disk-cleaners, and similar utilities to stop online trackers from monitoring their online activities. Now, researchers have uncovered a host of apps and browser extensions downloaded more than 11 million times that keep a list of every website ever visited and send it to servers operated by the developers.

The snooping wares affect both Android and iOS users, as well as those who installed Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox extensions, according to a blog post published Tuesday by AdGuard, a developer of ad blockers and privacy tools. AdGuard cofounder Andrey Meshkov said in the post that the extensions and apps make a list of every exact address of every page visited and combine it with a unique identifier he believes is generated when the extension or app is first installed.

"There are numerous ways of discovering your real identity from observing your browsing history," Meshkov wrote. "It can be straightforward, for instance, there is no ambiguity in who can visit this page: https://analytics.twitter.com/user/ay_meshkov/tweets. Even if you do not happen to visit such pages, there is still a high chance of exposing your real identity."

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