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Google Removed From Its Play Store 13 Games That Were Installing Malware On Android Devices

A total of 13 games have been withdrawn from Google Play Store after Google detected that they are infecting the Android devices on which they were installed with malware. Hackers were using malicious programs within these mobile games to access Android-powered smartphones to obtain private information.

These games seemed harmless, and most of them were driving simulators, while some of them even had a great success regarding the number of downloads and were also placed in the trend section of the Android app store, Google Play Store.

This severe security problem was not detected by Google’s own protocols that filter content on Google Play but was revealed by ESET analyst Lukas Stefanko who, through a message on his Twitter profile, showed that 13 applications accumulating more than 560,000 downloads were infected with malware. The analyst’s cryptic message explains that these apps, which have already been removed by Google from the Play Store, installed an additional APK file unrelated to the purpose of the game and without a “legitimate function.”

Google Removed From Its Play Store 13 Games That Were Installing Malware On Android Devices

Apparently, the first alarm signals have come from the users themselves who have installed these applications and have made them clear in Google Play comments, reporting that the game itself does nothing, but they have detected a slowdown of the mobile.

All these applications had the authorship of the developer Luiz Pinto, and in some of the cases, users reported that they were unable to find the icon of the app once installed as, perhaps, the developer himself hid it.

Everything indicates that the malicious programs within these 13 games are adware, programs designed to display advertisements on the infected devices without the authorization of the owner and from which the developer makes money. Google has not made any further comments on this situation besides the announcement of the removal of those 13 infected apps.

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Google Employees Demand The Cancelation Of Google China Project, Known As “Dragonfly”

Several Google employees are opposed to the search engine project in China, which would help “oppress the most vulnerable.” A hundred Google employees publicly demanded on Tuesday that the Internet giant abandon the Google China project that respects the censorship rules imposed by Beijing on Chinese Internet users.

The project is known as “Dragonfly,” and the CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai, announced everyone about its existence in October and justified it by the fact that it was better to offer a powerful search engine but with restrictions than to leave the Chinese with less useful tools.

“Our opposition to Dragonfly has nothing to do with China: we are opposed to technologies that help the powerful oppress the most vulnerable, wherever they may be,” says a letter signed by 90 employees calling on their colleagues to join them. “Dragonfly [Google China project] would set a dangerous precedent at a time of political uncertainty, a precedent that would prevent Google from refusing similar concessions to other countries,” the letter added.

Google China Is Beneficial, Google CEO Sundar Pichai Thinks

Several organizations also denounce the project, including Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders and Amnesty International, which launched an online petition to demand its abandonment.

“This is a pivotal moment for Google,” says Joe Westby, technology and human rights researcher for Amnesty International, in an article published Tuesday on the organization’s website. “As the world’s leading search engine, it should fight for an Internet where information is freely accessible to all rather than support the Chinese government’s dark alternative,” he added.

Speaking at a conference last month in San Francisco, Sundar Pichai said Google should “think very seriously” about the Chinese market, despite criticism of the company’s potential cooperation with state censorship in China. “We always take into account a set of value. We must also follow the law that applies in each country,” said Pichai.

“It turns out that we could answer more than 99% of the research (…) There are very many cases where we would provide better quality information than what is currently available,” he added.

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Chrome Cleanup Tool Gets Force-Installed Extension Removal Feature

Google plans to release an update of its Chrome cleanup tool to help users with the force-installed extension removal. That change was found in the source code of Chrome, where is visible that an update of the Chrome Cleanup utilities will now allow users to delete the extensions that have been installed on the computer without the user’s consent.

In case you didn’t know, Google Chrome has a cleanup tool that is currently only available for Windows computers. You can find it in the Settings section, under the “Advanced Settings -> Reset and clean up -> Clean up computer” section. Alternatively, you can access Chrome Cleanup Tool by typing chrome://settings/cleanup in the address bar.

Currently, if you access this function, Chrome scans your computer for malware and malicious software, but in the future, Google will implement the new force-installed extension removal feature that will allow the browser to automatically detect and remove those extensions that have been installed by force on the computer, without the user’s consent.

Chrome Cleanup Tool Gets Force-Installed Extension Removal Feature

These force-installed extensions are those that Chrome automatically installs without consulting the user due to the policies configured by administrators in Windows. These guidelines are used by administrators to prepare the browser with the extensions that are commonly used in the organization, and, for this reason, they are installed without the user validating the respective operation.

However, cybercriminals can also make use of these policies to install and launch malicious Chrome extensions without the permission of the user. Also, these types of extensions have the added disadvantage that they cannot be easily removed, as it is necessary to modify the registry to remove them.

For all these reasons, Google’s idea of including force-installed extension removal in the Chrome Cleanup tool is a smart way to tackle those malicious Chrome extensions.

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Google Added “Zero Search Results” For Some Specific Queries

Google has introduced a single automatic result function, known as “zero search results,” for searches regarding different locations, mathematical calculations, or conversions of currencies or physical quantities, for which no additional link is shown in the search results. The company has confirmed for the first time this new function of its search engine and that its application is limited to its mobile version.

These type of search results, known as “zero search results,” show a unique response to the query, which is obtained through the search engine algorithm. Google has stated that they show unique results “for queries in which we have extremely high confidence that a user is looking for a calculation, unit conversion or local time.”

Also, Google shows all links by default in case the system considers that a user wants to obtain search results or if the query may give rise to ambiguities, as happens when searching for ‘New York time,’ for example, which can be interpreted as a query from the New York Times newspaper.

Google Added “Zero Search Results” For Some Specific Queries

This “zero search results” function will bring with them the option of displaying the rest of the entries by clicking on the “Show all results” tab, as confirmed by the company. In addition to that, Google has added that this function will be available on mobile devices but has not been yet implemented on the Google Chrome versions for computers.

With this change, the company aims to “help people quickly find the most relevant information” and achieve “improve loading times on the mobile” by showing a unique result. The first user to discover these search results was Search Engine Optimization (SEO) specialist Sergey Alakov. On his blog, Alakov has indicated that, in this type of query, the search engine does not display ads.

Google tested the”zero search results” feature in March and stopped displaying them after six days of user feedback. The company’s search link manager, Danny Sullivan, then published on his official Twitter that “the condensed view experiment had to stop for the moment” and that the team would assess how and when to implement it again.

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Google Chrome To Add Scrolling Tabs Feature Similar To What We Have In Firefox

Google is working on a new Chome update that will include the ability to scroll through the browser taskbar tabs. A handy feature that Firefox has had for a long time and which has served as an “inspiration” for Google engineers.

We usually tend to open a lot of tabs, depending on what we’re up to when working with Google Chrome. Having a more straightforward way to switch from one tab to another would be ideal. We already have that in Firefox, but, let’s be honest, Chrome is the most popular browser ever made, so millions of users around the world would be thankful for the new feature of scrolling tabs.

In a Chrome session, each tab you add reduces the size of the previous tabs on the taskbar. The more tabs we have open, the smaller they will be, and the more difficult would be to locate a specific tab. Mozilla has long provided a solution for its Firefox and is simple but effective. It added scroll arrows placed on the bar or the possibility to use the mouse wheel for scrolling between tabs.

Google Chrome To Add Scrolling Tabs Feature Similar To What We Have In Firefox

Google announced that it’s working on a similar solution that would come in a future Chrome update., as reported by TechDows. The idea is not to reduce the size of the tabs to the point where it would be challenging to locate specific ones, and, as a Google engineer explained on Reddit, this function is already in works. He did not reveal when this feature would come out in Chrome, but we presume it would be pretty soon.

“Scrollable tabs are on their way. In the meantime, you can click Shift and Ctrl to select several tabs at once and then drag them out to separate the windows and group them into another one,” the Google engineer said on Reddit.

The new Google Chrome feature is not yet available in the browser’s beta versions but could be added soon, so keep an eye on next Google Chrome Beta versions.

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