Hunting for a Adam Smith quote, using the spotlight indexing system on my laptop, I uncovered a passwords.txt file, in the ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/ZxcvbnData/1 folder
This password file has 30,000 reasonably short passwords, included some quite random words such as ‘ghjnbdjcnjzybt’.
In the same folder are also lists of first names, male and female, surnames, us_film_and_tv and a english_wikipedia file.
Like passwords.txt, english_wikipedia.txt also is a list of 30,000 words.
Now it may be that these password lists are for a utility to advise the user, when creating new passwords, that they are easily crackable. What is more, the particular folder they’re located in might be indicative that these files are part of a plugin, or some other non-Chrome code. Either way, it is disconcerting.
Generally I use either Apple’s own Safari web browser, or the Brave browser, and I can recommend both. Chrome is there when I need to rarely check for browser compatibility when perhaps a website is playing up on me, probably due to filtering of trackers etc.
Irrespective of why these suspicious files are on my Mac;
F#@k you Google
Image Credit: https://www.snecsllc.com/dont-be-in-the-dark-when-it-comes-to-malware/