How to configure Chrome to stop websites from bugging you with your computer's microphone and camera
I just unplug my microphone and webcam when I’m not using them.
Item 349 of 1000 in a series of why real computers beat laptops.
Chrome?
Can’t help you with the microphone, if it’s built in to your laptop, but the way to configure lots of applications so they don’t bug you with your camera is to put a small BandAid™ over the camera. It’s got a nice gauze pad to keep the lens clean for the occasional times you do want it, and tape to keep the opaque bits in place.
Not sure there is any website I would let have access to my Microphone.
More evidence (if more was needed after EME) that “the right way for Chrome to behave” and “complies with the relevant W3C standard” are no longer necessarily the same thing.
Yeah, I honestly can’t think of any reason to give a website access. I suppose there’s probably some browser based Skype kind of things, or maybe online multiplayer games or something…
I go one step further: no default route is set on my desktops. (Irix machines don’t need internet access anyhow).
So is this just a problem with Chrome? Is Safari unaffected? (I don’t much use Chrome.)
It seems to be an issue only in Chrome, as it is due to how the application manages device access, and has nothing to do with the Webkit rendering engine. Ideally, no website should need access, though.
I personally suspect that access to the camera will become more of a mobile issue, with websites that interact with the real world: scanning codes or uploading photos, perhaps as part of a game where the camera and the geocoordinates are used, or a sound is analysed. Note that I am thinking of cases where the user would want to grant the browser access to the devices, and the caveats about trojan access still apply.
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