Google Chrome's RAM drain and hidden extension spy raise user concerns

Google Chrome is known to consume large amounts of RAM because its multi‑process architecture prioritises speed and security over resource efficiency. The built‑in Memory Saver feature can pause inactive tabs to free gigabytes of memory, and the Chrome Task Manager lets users identify which tabs or extensions are heavy users. Browsers based on the same Chromium engine, such as Brave and Microsoft Edge, offer more aggressive resource‑blocking tools as alternatives for low‑RAM systems.

Security researchers have uncovered a malicious Chrome extension called Prompt Optimizer – SecondBrain (version 2.3.1) that is installed on roughly 100,000 devices. Despite privacy statements claiming no data collection, the extension silently records full user conversations on major AI platforms—including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, Meta AI, DeepSeek, Perplexity, and Microsoft Copilot. It intercepts network traffic via Fetch API, XMLHttpRequest and WebSocket, and falls back to DOM‑level monitoring when needed. Collected data are encrypted with AES‑GCM using a key supplied by the extension’s server, allowing the authors to decrypt the information later. The extension’s behavior poses a significant privacy risk, especially for business users of Microsoft 365 Copilot.