How to detect and/or block browser extensions that mess up my website?

Question

More and more of our users (I manage a french blogging platform) are complaining about bugs on our interface. In 90% of cases, the problem comes from an extension that is installed on the user's browser. Users often don't even know that they have these extensions.

For example, there is Avast that removes sharing buttons (Twitter, FB), and some extensions like Pricepeep, Slick Saving, Deaply Shopping, VideoFileDownload or Pricora that totally mess up our interface.

The problem is that users believe that it is our fault and then quit without further investigation :-(

Do you have a miraculous solution to block or detect some or all of bad browser extensions? Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

I dont think you can block the extensions, however you could detect that your buttons are getting hidden and if so show a message explaining the user that they probably have such and such extension installed, with instructions on how to remove them. Will cover most cases.

Answer 2

If you think it is worth the trouble, you could implement your own extension (and offer the user to install it to get rid of UI-breaking).

In this extension you should use the chrome.management API to:

1. Get all installed and enabled extensions (using method getAll()).
2. Detect the ones you know are "harmful" to your UI (e.g. filter the installed and enabled extentions against a list of known-to-cause-trouble extension IDs or names).
3. Inform the user about the situation.
4. Offer to disable or even uninstall the problematic extensions.

_{(I haven't tested it but supposedly you could disable or uninstall an extension even without the user's intervention, but -even if doable- it is hardly a good practise.)}