Google Chrome finally gets a security feature which notifies user about extensions installed by third-party software on your Computer and Chrome disables them until user acknowledges it. Feature has been landed on Chromium build which may take few months to available for Chrome stable version. Antiviruses like AVG, Avast and other third-party programs install their extensions to browsers like Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer without user consent.
Mozilla has sorted out this for their users with Firefox 8 +release onwards which now automatically disables add-ons installed by programs outside browser, user can enable them if they want by visiting Add-ons Manager. Chrome left behind Firefox in this regard, recently lot of users started reporting an extension installed without their permission, malware can use this flaw.
Chrome to automatically disable external extensions that tend to installed by programs on users Computers
And guess what! this feature has been landed in Chromium which likely to notify users by showing puzzle piece icon (currently replaced by up-arrow icon) on Chrome menu that new extension added (extension name) which when clicked shows extension install dialog with options to “enable Extension” or “Remove from Chrome” at the bottom.
The dialog likely to show with message “another program on your computer added an extension that may change the way Chrome works .”
This may take sometime to get stable version of Chrome, meanwhile you can install Extensions Update Notifier for Chrome which also notifies about the same.
FYI Chrome already safeguarding their users by blocking third-party extension installations which can be malicious and at present only extensions in Chrome web store are allowed to be installed by default.