How to Review and Restrict Chrome Extension Permissions
Just as mobile operating systems have ways to limit the access each app enjoys, Google Chrome has a straightforward permission control menu to restrict extension access. Chrome features a menu for viewing and restricting the permissions for all your installed extensions in one place.
How Do Chrome Extension Permissions Work?
Each “permission” is a component in the Chrome API. Each permission only handles one aspect of how Chrome taps into your OS and the data on it. To gain access to all the API elements it needs to function, an extension must ask and receive approval for each permission individually. Extensions are also required to list all the permissions they need in the “manifest” file, which tells Chrome what to download and set up on installation, and provide a legitimate justification for each one. This lets Chrome easily keep track of all the points of access the extension uses. Not all of these permissions are visible to the user, since tweaking certain low-level permissions would break the extension completely. However, Chrome exposes many of the ones most pertinent to privacy considerations for users to review.
