Security News > 2021 > February > The Great Suspender Chrome extension's fall from grace
Google has forcibly uninstalled the immensely popular 'The Great Suspender' extension from Google Chrome and classified it as malware.
The Great Suspender is a Chrome extension that will suspend unused tabs and unload its resources to decrease the browser's memory usage.
With the abrupt removal of The Great Suspender extension, users who had suspended tabs were upset that they could not access them again.
In June 2020, the developer of The Great Suspender sold the extension to an unknown entity as he did not have the time to properly maintain the project.
As free extensions have been purchased in the past and then monetized with malicious changes, such as injecting ads or stealing information, users were concerned the same would happen with The Great Suspender.
For those who truly want to use The Great Suspender extension, the GitHub project page continues to offer version 7.1.6, which is the final release of the extension when owned by the original developer and does not contain malicious scripts.