Simple Screen Reader
🔍 Security Report Available View on Chrome Web StoreChrome will indicate if you already have this installed.
Overview
Accessibility tool to help people listen to highlighted text on any tab in Google Chrome where they either cannot read the screen text or do not want to.
Tags
Privacy Practices
Security Analysis — Simple Screen Reader
Permissions
Package Contents 6 files · 47KB
What This Extension Does
The Simple Screen Reader extension, with 313 users, provides an accessibility feature for Chrome users. However, its functionality and data handling practices raise some concerns.
Permissions Explained
- activeTabcheck this: This permission allows the extension to access the currently active tab in your browser.
Technical: TheactiveTabpermission grants access to the current tab's URL, title, and content. This could potentially expose sensitive information if not handled properly. ⚠ 1 - ttsexpected: This permission enables text-to-speech functionality within the extension.
Technical: Thettspermission is related to speech synthesis, which may not pose a significant security risk on its own. However, it could be used in conjunction with other permissions to create a more comprehensive attack vector.
Your Data
The extension accesses the active tab's content and may send data to unknown destinations. However, no network activity was detected during analysis.
Technical Details
activeTab permission could potentially expose sensitive information. The tts permission does not seem to involve any data transmission.Code Findings
The extension's activeTab permission may be used for more than just accessibility features, potentially exposing sensitive information.
Technical: The activeTab permission grants access to the current tab's URL, title, and content. This could be used to collect sensitive data or inject malicious scripts.
💡 Legitimate extensions often require access to the active tab for functionality like this one.
The extension's code does not contain any obvious security vulnerabilities or malicious patterns.
Technical: Code analysis revealed no suspicious patterns, but this may be due to the limited scope of the analysis.
💡 Legitimate extensions often use standard coding practices and libraries.
The Simple Screen Reader extension has some concerning permission scopes and data handling practices. While it does not contain any obvious security vulnerabilities, users should exercise caution when installing this extension. We recommend reviewing the extension's code and permissions before installation.
