Google Eliminates All Nefarious Cryptocurrency Mining Chrome Extensions

Technology giants have made it perfectly clear that they want nothing to do with cryptocurrencies. Google, Twitter, and a few other companies ban cryptocurrency-related advertisements as of right now. Google is taking things one step further by officially banning cryptocurrency mining extensions altogether.

Another Strong Signal from Google

Mining has always played a critical role in the world of cryptocurrency. Without mining, it would be very difficult to protect and secure cryptocurrency networks. For Bitcoin, for example, mining is the proverbial lifeblood of the network right now. Miners help process network transactions as well as protect the entire ecosystem from outside attack.

Unfortunately, the mining aspect of cryptocurrency has also attracted a fair bit of negative attention. We have seen various attempts to maliciously mine cryptocurrency in the past. Whether that’s done by embedding code on a website or using Google Chrome plugins to do the dirty work, it is evident something will need to change sooner rather than later. As such, Google is taking matters into their own hands.

More specifically, the company has made it crystal clear that they are getting rid of all Chrome extensions which run malicious cryptocurrency miners. That is a positive development for the industry as a whole, even though most people may see it as a direct way of countering cryptocurrency once again. With the number of malicious Chrome mining extensions growing over the years, something had to give.

Google acknowledges the current dangers associated with nefarious cryptocurrency mining. With these miners using up a ton of CPU resources, system performance can be affected in many ways. Although Google has maintained a hands-off approach regarding cryptocurrency mining plugins for some time now, the situation simply forced the company to take action.

To be clear, the company will still allow cryptocurrency mining extensions to exist, but only if those plugins inform users about the mining activity. Unfortunately, close to 90% of all current Chrome mining extensions do not adhere to these guidelines, which prompted Google to put an end to these shenanigans.

It is evident Google wants to protect Chrome users from all kinds of harm. Getting rid of malicious cryptocurrency mining extensions is a good way of doing that, even though there are still a lot of other concerns to take into account as well. Whether or not the company will take similar action against other extensions violating its terms of service remains to be seen.