Suspicious extension clone

[HeCorr]

I was looking for this extension and ended up finding a basically identical one published by a different user, with a link to a weird website ("extenhub"): https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/redirector/jegbdohdgebjljoljfeinojeobdabpjo

I know there's a way to extract the source code from extensions but I haven't tried it yet, I wonder if they changed anything (other than porting it to v3 to get rid of the webstore warning). I find this really suspicious though.

For comparison, this is the original/official extension URL: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/redirector/ocgpenflpmgnfapjedencafcfakcekcd

[HeCorr]

I managed to find the repo: https://github.com/extenhive/Redirector - it supposedly utilizes parts of the original code (but also the name and logo. huh.)

I also found the source inspector tool: https://robwu.nl/crxviewer/?crx=https%3A%2F%2Fchromewebstore.google.com%2Fdetail%2Fredirector%2Fjegbdohdgebjljoljfeinojeobdabpjo

P.S. I feel incredibly stupid for completely missing the very obvious disclaimer at the extensions' webstore page. d'oh.

That's what I get for always jumping the gun and creating an issue/discussion BEFORE actually investigating things. facepalms

[Gitoffthelawn]

No problem. Thanks for mentioning it. There was an issue with that extension not respecting Redirector's copyright and license, but those issues are hopefully resolved. It's not ideal that the publisher of that extension used Redirector's name and icon, but to the best of my knowledge, that is technically permitted, notwithstanding that some consider it deceptive.

I personally haven't had time to look closely at the source code for that extension, so I can't say anything good or bad about the actual code.

[HeCorr]

I've inspected it fully using the CRX tool and didn't find anything
obviously suspicious, seems legit to me. It does however open their website
on install/update/uninstall which I'm particularly not a big fan of, but
nothing wrong with that.