Poper Blocker adblocker scrapes your AI chats: 2M+ users

A pop-up blocker with more than 2 million users is reading your team's AI conversations. Bay Area Labs reports that the Poper Blocker browser extension collects prompts and responses from ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Google's AI Mode, plus full browsing history, and uploads them to a server the vendor controls. SecurityWeek picked up the research on October 2. Think about what your staff paste into AI chats: customer emails, pricing, contracts, code. Now think about who else had a copy.

What actually happened

The findings, from the Bay Area Labs analysis published September 28:

• Reach: Poper Blocker is listed on Chrome, Edge and Safari. The Chrome listing shows 2M+ users, a 4.8-star rating, and Featured and Verified badges.
• What it collects: full URLs with query strings, AI chat prompts and responses (including code blocks and research reports), ad data from Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and X, and a browser fingerprint.
• How it hides: after install, the extension downloads 40+ small programs from api.pbapi.xyz, written in a custom encoded scripting language. The researchers say the collection logic changes on the server side, so the vendor can change what it takes and where it sends it without pushing an extension update.
• How it avoids review: the researchers report a 24-hour delay before the real programs arrive, plus checks for Selenium, Playwright and headless browsers. A store reviewer's sandbox sees a clean extension.
• Status: the researchers say concerns about AI chat scraping went to Google in May 2026. As of their write-up, the extension was still live and still Featured.

These are the researchers' findings. We did not find a response from the vendor or Google.

Why it matters for your business

A "Featured" badge is not a security review. This extension passed store review because the bad code was not in the package. Remote-loaded logic beats static review every time. Your trust in the store listing does not protect you.

AI chats are now your most sensitive browser tab. Staff use ChatGPT and Claude to draft replies to customers, summarize contracts and debug production code. An extension with "read and change all your data on all websites" permission sees all of that. Many teams lock down their CRM and then let one free adblocker read everything.

Do the audit this week. On every company browser, open chrome://extensions (or edge://extensions) and remove Poper Blocker if it is there. Then go through the rest of the list. For each extension, ask: who makes it, why do we need it, and does it need access to all sites? If you run Google Workspace or Microsoft Intune, set an extension allowlist so staff cannot install new ones without approval. We wrote about the same pattern with wallet drainers and Twitch OAuth tokens. It keeps coming back because it keeps working.

Keep secrets out of chat windows. Even with clean browsers, use your AI tools' business tiers and send sensitive work through an API integration with logs, not a consumer tab.

Sources: Bay Area Labs / Am I Being Pwned, SecurityWeek.