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Ask HN: Chrome activating my microphone on OS X

45 points by aspyct 7y ago

Hi all, I have OverSight installed on my macbook (https://objective-see.com/products/oversight.html), which lets me see which apps activate the microphone. Up until now, everything was quiet and expected. As of today though, Chrome (Version 78.0.3904.70) tried on several occasions to activate the microphone. It crashed when I denied the request. I have not been on any website requiring microphone use and no website is allowed microphone access. This seems to happen in particular when I reopen the lid of my macbook and it is taken out of sleep. This is the log entry from OverSight: 2019-10-31 19:27:22 +0000: Audio Device became active (Built-in Microphone, process: Chrome Helper, /Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/Frameworks/Google Chrome Framework.framework/Versions/78.0.3904.70/Helpers/Google Chrome Helper.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome Helper) Any of you noticed a similar behavior?

smt88 7y ago
Chrome has become more and more intrusive for me, which makes sense because its parent company has a financial incentive to intrude. I wouldn't be surprised if this is intentional, surreptitious behavior. Regardless, Firefox is excellent and Chromium is an OK fallback when you (rarely) need it.
- marcos123 7y ago
  Brave browser
  - throwaway-9320 7y ago
    It is based on Chromium so it isn't much different.
    - joshmanders 7y ago
      It's very much different. Just like Chrome and Chromium are very much different. Just because it's built on Chromium which means Blink, V8, etc. Doesn't mean that it brings all the baggage that Chrome does with Google's intrusive nature.
    - marcos123 7y ago
      You know what they say about assuming things...
- fzil 7y ago
  For me personally, Firefox energy usage level is still in an unacceptable range [even after the new update]. The fans no longer spin but I still notice how quickly the battery goes down. Safari is pretty much a non-starter for me, feels like I am using a stunted mobile browser or something. Especially with the lack of uBlock origin.
gtirloni 7y ago
Do you have voice search enabled ("ok Google")? I don't know if web workers allow microphone access but, in case you've allowed a website to access your microphone recently, I'd check if it hasn't installed anything automatically they could be triggering this.
- dzhiurgis 7y ago
  Seems like operating systems should supply an API for trigger words and third party apps. Problem with Apple is 90% would instantly flock to Google just because how useless Siri is.
- gtirloni 7y ago
  It doesn't look like webworkers can access the microphone since the getUserMedia() function is not included in the API. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Workers_API/Functions_and_classes_available_to_workers https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Workers...
capableweb 7y ago
First feeling I get is that it's a extension that is doing it. Are you able to always reproduce now when you open Chrome? Can you reproduce it when uninstalling all extensions too? You can Chrome run with `--disable-extensions` to just disable them for one run.
srcmap 7y ago
Anyone on know if there is a windows or linux tool to monitor app access to Microphone?
- capableweb 7y ago
  These two commands gives you a list of programs using the sound devices: fuser -v /dev/snd/* && lsof /dev/snd/*
SiVal 7y ago
This is why I want a hardware switch on my microphone, camera, and radio (wifi, etc.) as a standard part of every product that includes them. No matter what features, "bugs" ("oops, did we accidentally bug your house?"), policies, etc., if the power switch says "no", no really means no.
- Trias11 7y ago
  Old style duct tape over my cam works much better than Zoom conference settings that, oops!, for some reasons always forgets that i want my camera always OFF.
unlinked_dll 7y ago
I'm away from a mac and too lazy to do this, but have you tried writing a little program to poll the audio configuration? Device name, number of channels, sample rate, etc. It could be Chrome is just checking the device configuration for input/output at the same time (it needs the latter for the audio APIs) and the service might be pinging that as "microphone activity" when really they're just checking the available devices and their settings.

45 points by aspyct 7y ago

smt88 7y ago

Chrome has become more and more intrusive for me, which makes sense because its parent company has a financial incentive to intrude. I wouldn't be surprised if this is intentional, surreptitious behavior. Regardless, Firefox is excellent and Chromium is an OK fallback when you (rarely) need it.

marcos123 7y ago
Brave browser
- throwaway-9320 7y ago
  It is based on Chromium so it isn't much different.
  - joshmanders 7y ago
    It's very much different. Just like Chrome and Chromium are very much different. Just because it's built on Chromium which means Blink, V8, etc. Doesn't mean that it brings all the baggage that Chrome does with Google's intrusive nature.
  - marcos123 7y ago
    You know what they say about assuming things...
fzil 7y ago
For me personally, Firefox energy usage level is still in an unacceptable range [even after the new update]. The fans no longer spin but I still notice how quickly the battery goes down. Safari is pretty much a non-starter for me, feels like I am using a stunted mobile browser or something. Especially with the lack of uBlock origin.

gtirloni 7y ago

Do you have voice search enabled ("ok Google")? I don't know if web workers allow microphone access but, in case you've allowed a website to access your microphone recently, I'd check if it hasn't installed anything automatically they could be triggering this.

dzhiurgis 7y ago
Seems like operating systems should supply an API for trigger words and third party apps. Problem with Apple is 90% would instantly flock to Google just because how useless Siri is.
gtirloni 7y ago
It doesn't look like webworkers can access the microphone since the getUserMedia() function is not included in the API. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Workers_API/Functions_and_classes_available_to_workers https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Workers...

capableweb 7y ago

First feeling I get is that it's a extension that is doing it. Are you able to always reproduce now when you open Chrome? Can you reproduce it when uninstalling all extensions too? You can Chrome run with `--disable-extensions` to just disable them for one run.

srcmap 7y ago

Anyone on know if there is a windows or linux tool to monitor app access to Microphone?

capableweb 7y ago
These two commands gives you a list of programs using the sound devices: fuser -v /dev/snd/* && lsof /dev/snd/*

SiVal 7y ago

This is why I want a hardware switch on my microphone, camera, and radio (wifi, etc.) as a standard part of every product that includes them. No matter what features, "bugs" ("oops, did we accidentally bug your house?"), policies, etc., if the power switch says "no", no really means no.

Trias11 7y ago
Old style duct tape over my cam works much better than Zoom conference settings that, oops!, for some reasons always forgets that i want my camera always OFF.

unlinked_dll 7y ago

I'm away from a mac and too lazy to do this, but have you tried writing a little program to poll the audio configuration? Device name, number of channels, sample rate, etc. It could be Chrome is just checking the device configuration for input/output at the same time (it needs the latter for the audio APIs) and the service might be pinging that as "microphone activity" when really they're just checking the available devices and their settings.