Artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbots such as OpenAI ChatGPT, Anthropic Claude, Microsoft Copilot, DeepSeek, Google Gemini, xAI Grok, Meta AI, and Perplexity have been seen to silently collect every prompt entered by users into a Google Chrome extension with a “Featured” badge and six million users.
Urban VPN Proxy is the addon in question; it has a 4.7 rating on the Google Chrome Web Store. It is marketed as the most secure free VPN that unblocks content and allows access to any website. Urban Cyber Security Inc., a Delaware-based business, is its developer. It has 1.3 million installations on the Microsoft Edge Add-ons marketplace.
On July 9, 2025, version 5.5.0 was launched with AI data harvesting enabled by default using hard-coded parameters, despite claims that it enables users to conceal their IP, safeguard their online identity, and stay safe.
This is specifically accomplished by means of a customized executor JavaScript that is activated for every AI chatbot (such as chatgpt.js, claude.js, and gemini.js) in order to intercept and compile the conversations read more about Featured Chrome Browser Extension Caught Intercepting Millions of Users’ AI Chats.
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