I have published an extension [1] that has 100k+ users and I've probably received hundreds of emails over the years asking me to sell out in one way or another. It's honestly relentless. For that reason I also only trust uBlock Origin, Bitwarden and my own extensions.
I'd also note that all this spam is via the public email address you're forced to add to your extension listing by Google. I don't think I've ever had a single legitimate email sent to it. So yeh, thanks Google.
Respect for not selling out. I have to admit though... If I had a browser extension and someone suddenly offered me a million dollars for it, I think I would take it.
This realization made me distrust any system where it is even possible to sell out. In order for a system to be trustworthy, it must be impossible for this sort of exploitation to ever occur, no matter how much money they put on the table.
I was just having a quick search and the only email I can find that offered a price range up front was for $0.1-0.4 per user, and that was from 2023. So I assume up to a dollar per user these days?
> The only extension I trust enough to install on any browser is uBlock Origin.
Note however that the origin of uBlock Origin is that the developer Raymond Hill transferred control of the original uBlock project to someone who turned out not to be trustworthy, and thus Hill had to fork it later.
I never transferred the extension in the Chrome store. The Chrome store extension has always been the one from the repository I control, and I've had full control of it since when I created it back in June 2014.
I often make the argument that uBlock Origin is so essential that it should be built into the browsers instead of being a separate extension. The restrictions imposed by manifest v3 are good, it's just that uBlock Origin is special enough that it should be able to bypass them.
Unfortunately, the huge conflicts of interest make this unrealistic. Can't trust developers funded by ad money to develop an ad blocker.
The only extension I trust enough to install on any browser is uBlock Origin.