Friday: VPN fraud with Chrome plugins, comparison of brand new AI models

The IT security company Socks found over 500 fraudulent browser extensions in the Chrome Web Store, which are supposed to bypass internet blocks via VPN but could also leak data. According to Socks, 15 previously identified publishers still have 250 plugins listed in the Chrome Web Store, some using the same IP addresses. Google has only partially reacted and lets the publishers continue. In the AI sector, Google released Gemini 3.7 Flash, claimed to be its most powerful Flash model for coding and agent tasks, but benchmarks against Claude Sonnet 5, GPT-5.6 Terra, and Muse Spark 1.2 show mixed results. Cerebras and OpenAI introduced the new 'Ultrafast' service tier for GPT-5.6 Sol, offering up to 14 times faster responses through hardware acceleration. DeepSeek made V4-Pro generally available, promising more productive agents. As part of annual air defense exercises, Taiwan cut off mobile internet for half an hour to simulate network disruptions in case of attack, making mobile internet practically unusable from 14:30 to 15:00, with websites inaccessible and messaging services slow.