Im not aware its possible to put malware in a flac file and its still playable. There are a few examples from 2007-2008 but they were to do with flac media players. Microsoft showed you could corrupt the meta data but its then unplayable. I think BlueRingedOctopus comment has the right idea.

If I was I'd be earning a lot more than I do at the moment.

Fair enough. Thought that after I posted.

Its coordinated nudging from western governments across the world. Europe, Aus, NZ, Canada. Its the same messaging coming out of all of them, digital ID, currency etc. Tin foil hat moment, its a UN/WEF push to have global government. Nudge being a small step at a time so you hardly notice your being boiled. The saving grace is governments push for ever increasing control doesn't allow for human nature.

Cheers thanks for that.

I'm just across the ditch. You have to wonder how much Reddit is now just an AI trainer.

Many thanks for checking this. When I used the following setting in the extension I didn't see any further calls.

"check update opt-in Check for update of version (on startup and when opening options): check update enabled: NO"

Ok, it does look like it's checking for list updates, just more often.l than I expected. I went into the settings and disabled as below and the calls stop. So all good!

"check update opt-in Check for update of version (on startup and when opening options): check update enabled: NO"

I was doing some investigating of various browser telemetry using android pcap log. I noticed that on any browser I install bypass paywall plus there is a call to gitflic.ru when viewing a page even when it's not on the list of processed websites in the extension. I can't tell the contents as it's https. Considering this extension and developer have been around for a long time I've no reason to suspect the extension but I'm wondering why the connection? I doubt it's checking for updates as it does it often when viewing any page. Any thoughts from anyone? I'm not trying to run down the app at all, I think it's really good, just wondering why the connection.

As others are saying, rip anything you can't download from anywhere else otherwise just download. I've been through this too and ripping old VHS or DVD takes a lot more time and hassle than downloading it.

Genuine question, are Russian sites any worse or better than anywhere else these days?

In the professional world it's called "Distributed backups" and is recommended technique for archiving. I'm doing my bit daily at no charge to the media industry, just out of the goodness of my heart :)