The problem of browser extensions having "too many" capabilities allegedly boils down to some small subset of users stupidly or unluckily installing dodgy exten

The problem of browser extensions having "too many" capabilities allegedly boils down to some small subset of users stupidly or unluckily installing dodgy extensions and Chrome wanting to prevent this. But people are always going to do dumb things; outside of browsers, they're going to smoke cigarettes, they're going to drink and drive, they're going to eat too much junk food. How far are we willing to restrict freedoms to prevent dumb behavior? How many corners are we going to round off to prevent misfortune? From the perspective of a typical HN reader, Google and Mozilla have turned into Internet nanny states with Fisher-Price browsers. How far can they go in the name of "safety" before it's too far? Not to mention the problem the article highlights: their motives aren't pure. The more control they give themselves, and the more inconvenient third parties they marginalize, the more money they stand to make. Also, it's not a perfect A or B between flexibility and security. They could require extensions to be more open and inspectable so users could catch bad behavior. They could better police the extension store to catch malware faster. They could add more layers of warnings and permissions dialogs to prevent accidental compromise. At any rate, whether due to incompetence or malice, the situation is not as one-sided as Google pretends it is.