Canvas detection guide

Does Canvas detect Chrome extensions?

Last verified: 2026-09-25

Short answer

No. Canvas is a web page, and a web page cannot read your installed extensions.

  • During a quiz, Canvas records when the quiz page loses focus and when it comes back, with timestamps.
  • Honorlock can disable extensions for the length of an exam.
  • Respondus LockDown Browser never loads them, because it is not Chrome.

Our pickCanvas Quiz Solver is a Chrome extension that puts the answer right below the question, inside the quiz page. No second tab and no window switch for the quiz log to record.

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Are Chrome extensions detectable?

Not by a normal website: a web page has no way to ask Chrome which extensions you have installed, and Canvas is a web page.

Chrome runs an extension's content script in an isolated world. There the script can read and change the page. The page cannot reach the script's variables, and it cannot ask the browser what is installed.

Chrome also closes the side door. An extension can choose to expose some of its files to web pages, but Chrome's manifest documentation says "By default no resources are web accessible, as this allows a malicious website to fingerprint extensions that a user has installed." A site can probe only for an extension that opted in to exposing files to it.

What a page can see is its own content. When an extension adds a button or a box to a page, that element is part of the page while it is on screen, and a script on the page could look for it. Instructure documents no such check in Canvas, and neither quiz log has an event for it.

Real detection needs software with more access than a web page. Two kinds have it: another extension that holds Chrome's management permission, which is how Honorlock looks up the extensions on a test taker's device, and the administrator of a managed Chrome browser or Chromebook. Both are covered below.

The same limit covers the rest of your machine. A page cannot read your other tabs, and it cannot record your screen with the Screen Capture API or your camera and microphone with getUserMedia() until you accept a browser permission prompt.

What any web page can see

  • Its own content, including elements an extension added to it.
  • Whether its own tab has focus, through the visibilitychange event.
  • Your IP address and your browser user agent string, because every request carries them.

Can extensions be seen on Canvas?

No. Canvas gives instructors no report of installed extensions, and none of its logs names one. An instructor can open the quiz log, the course access report and the activity times, and all three describe actions taken inside Canvas.

Instructure has said as much in public. In a 2025 Instructure Community thread where instructors asked what Canvas could do about Canvas Quiz Solver, an Instructure staff member replied: "While we can't take direct action on the extension itself, we did want to confirm [for you and others] that Canvas has not been compromised."

The same reply says the team "verified that the extension doesn't have access to Canvas quiz data; instead, it pulls visible content from the page". That is how any extension of this kind works. It reads the page you already see. Canvas receives the answers you submit, not the name of the tool you had open.

For every signal Canvas and the proctoring tools can record, not only extensions, see our full guide to what Canvas can detect.

What Canvas does record during a quiz

When Quiz Log Auditing is on for the course, each Classic Quiz attempt has a log. It holds four kinds of event with timestamps: viewed (and possibly read) a question, answered a question, stopped viewing the Canvas quiz-taking page, and resumed (Instructure quiz log guide).

Instructure's guide says "Stopped viewing" displays "when a student navigates away from the quiz (closes the browser tab, opens a new browser tab, or navigates to a different program)", and "Resumed" displays when the student returns. The entry does not say where you went: the Canvas quiz submission events API stores these events as page_blurred and page_focused with an empty event_data field. The guide gives no time threshold for them. Our guide on how Canvas logs tab switching covers that event in detail.

The same guide adds three limits. Quiz Log Auditing "is currently a course opt-in feature". Because of autosave, the log "does not include an accurate log for Fill-in-Multiple-Blanks, Matching, Multiple Answers, and Multiple Dropdown questions". And "Quiz logs are only retained for six months."

New Quizzes shows an attempt log on the Moderate page, with the start and finish, each event, the elapsed time and the "moments of stopping and resuming the quiz". When the instructor turns on the Detect Multiple Sessions setting, a student who tries to continue the quiz in a different session gets a notification, and Canvas records multi-session details: the client IP, browser session ID, browser and operating system. Those details "can only be viewed by admins". A separate New Quizzes view IP address permission lets a school give a role the IP address on the activity log.

Outside the quiz, the People page shows Last Activity and Total Activity, and the course access report shows each item you opened, times viewed, times participated and last viewed. Page views with the user agent and IP are an admin-level report; the Canvas users API returns remote_ip. Teachers do not get that by default.

What a professor sees in the quiz log

Read as a checklist for one attempt, the log looks like this. For a field-by-field walk-through, see what the Canvas quiz log shows a professor.

Signal In the quiz log?
Extensions installed in Chrome No
Which tab, site or app you opened No, only that the page lost focus
Moment the page lost focus and resumed Yes, with a timestamp
Question viewed and question answered Yes, with a timestamp
Screen, webcam or microphone No
Copy and paste No, there is no clipboard event
Your IP address Not in the Classic log; in the New Quizzes log for roles with the view IP address permission, and in multi-session details when Detect Multiple Sessions is on

Instructure adds its own caution: quiz logs "are not intended to validate academic integrity or identify cheating for a quiz". The New Quizzes guide repeats the same note for its log.

Canvas Quiz Solver puts the answer right below the question, inside the Canvas quiz page. You do not open a second tab, you do not copy the question into ChatGPT, and you do not switch windows, so there is no page switch for the quiz log to record. A web page cannot list the Chrome extensions you have installed. It works on Classic Quizzes and New Quizzes, and you can start free.

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Can Canvas block extensions?

No, Canvas itself does not block Chrome extensions. Instructure's staff said so in the Community thread above ("we can't take direct action on the extension itself"). The quiz settings an instructor controls in New Quizzes have no extension option either: they are Detect Multiple Sessions, access code, time limit, shuffle, backtracking, IP filter and calculator (New Quizzes settings).

Blocking comes from three places outside Canvas: a proctoring extension such as Honorlock, a proctoring browser such as Respondus LockDown Browser, or the school's management of the device or the Google account. Check the quiz instructions; they say when a course uses a proctor.

Does Honorlock detect or block extensions?

Yes. Honorlock's help center says it "can disable extensions after consent from the user for the duration of the exam", and that it does "not re-enable the extensions when the exam is completed and closed". You turn them back on yourself afterwards.

Unlike Canvas, Honorlock is itself a Chrome extension, so it can ask Chrome things a web page cannot. The same page lists the Chrome.management permission, "used to query extensions installed on the test taker's device, in addition to disabling unauthorized extensions after consent". That is how a proctoring tool, unlike Canvas, can know which extensions you have.

Honorlock also acts on tabs and windows. It can "close already open tabs or block new tabs if the BrowserGuard... toggle is enabled", it blocks copy and paste, and it can "detect window resizing". Its faculty and student FAQ adds that it can "require test takers to use only a single screen" and that it records "a webcam video recording that includes your desktop activity and audio recording".

Does LockDown Browser block Chrome extensions?

Yes, by design: Respondus LockDown Browser is a separate application rather than Chrome, so Chrome extensions never load in it. It does not need to detect them.

Respondus lists what else it locks. "Copying and pasting anything to or from an assessment is prevented." "Printing and screen capture functions are disabled." "Prevents access to other applications including messaging, screen-sharing, virtual machines, and remote desktops." "Right-click menu options, function keys, keyboard shortcuts and task switching are disabled" (Respondus LockDown Browser).

Respondus Monitor goes further. Respondus says "Students use a webcam to record themselves during an online exam", and that afterward "flagged events and proctoring results are available to the instructor for further review".

What can a school-managed Chromebook do with extensions?

A school-managed Chromebook can block extensions, allow only the ones the school picks, and install extensions you cannot remove. That control sits in the school's Google Admin console, not in Canvas.

Google's admin help says a Chrome Enterprise admin "can control which apps or extensions users can install on managed Chrome browsers or ChromeOS devices". The admin can allow everything except a blocklist, or block everything except the extensions the school allows. Google also notes: "By default, the Chrome Web Store service is turned off in some Education domains."

An admin can also force-install an extension. In Google's words, "Users can't remove items that are force-installed. The items also bypass any blocked apps and extensions." These policies apply to users who sign in with a managed Google account and to enrolled browsers.

None of this changes what Canvas sees. On a managed Chromebook, Canvas is still a web page, and it still cannot list what is installed. The school's control comes from the device and the account, and it is set before the quiz starts.

"Fingerprinting" claims on other blogs, and why they are unsupported

Some posts say Canvas fingerprints your browser and spots quiz extensions that way. No Instructure guide describes extension detection. The quiz log article lists four events. The Moderate page article lists attempt events and session details. Neither one mentions installed software.

The only browser identity in the system is the user agent string and the IP address that every request carries, and those sit in admin-level reporting. A user agent names a browser and an operating system version. It is not a list of extensions.

A second common claim is clipboard logging. The documented event list has no clipboard entry, and no Instructure guide describes a clipboard feature in quizzes. The quiz submission events API lists event types such as page_blurred, page_focused, question_answered and question_flagged, and none of them is a paste.

Does Canvas Quiz Solver work on New Quizzes?

Yes. As of 2026-09-25, Canvas Quiz Solver works on both Classic Quizzes and New Quizzes.

You may have read otherwise. In the June 2025 Instructure Community thread, an Instructure employee wrote that New Quizzes "does NOT work with this extension", and a staff reply said switching to New Quizzes could stop it. That no longer holds: the extension reads New Quizzes questions, which load in an embedded frame, as well as Classic Quizzes questions.

Canvas Quiz Solver is a Chrome extension that puts the answer right below the question you are on, inside the Canvas quiz page, on Classic Quizzes and New Quizzes. Because the answer is in the page, you do not open another tab or another window for it, so there is no page switch for the quiz log to record. A web page cannot list the Chrome extensions you have installed, and neither quiz log has an event for one. You can start free, then it is $14.99 per month.

It does not run inside LockDown Browser, and Honorlock can turn Chrome extensions off during a proctored exam. A school that manages your Chromebook can also block it, as it can block any extension. AI answers can be wrong, so check them against your course material.

Questions about how it behaves on a specific quiz page go to support@canvasquiz.com.

Common questions

Are Chrome extensions detectable?

Not by a normal website. A web page cannot ask Chrome which extensions are installed, and Chrome makes no extension files visible to pages unless the extension opts in. A page can only see elements an extension adds to that page. Software with more access can list extensions: a proctoring extension such as Honorlock, or the admin of a managed Chrome browser or Chromebook.

Can extensions be seen on Canvas?

No. Canvas gives instructors no report of installed extensions, and neither the Classic quiz log nor the New Quizzes log has an event for one. In a 2025 Community thread, Instructure staff wrote that they "can't take direct action on the extension itself".

Can professors see my extensions?

No. A web page cannot list the extensions in your browser, and Canvas gives instructors no extension report. What they open is the quiz log, the course access report and the activity times, and all three describe actions taken inside Canvas.

Does Canvas know if I use a quiz extension?

Canvas records events in its own page: a question viewed, a question answered, the page losing focus, the page resuming. There is no event for an extension. An element an extension adds to the page is part of that page while it is on screen, but Instructure documents no check for such elements.

Will an extension show in the quiz log?

No. The Classic Quizzes log lists four event types with timestamps: viewed a question, answered a question, stopped viewing the quiz-taking page, resumed. Installed software never appears. Instructure also states the log is not meant to identify cheating.

Does Honorlock disable extensions?

Yes. Honorlock's help center says it "can disable extensions after consent from the user for the duration of the exam" and does "not re-enable the extensions" when the exam ends. It is a Chrome extension itself, and it uses Chrome's management permission to query the extensions installed on your device.

Does LockDown Browser detect extensions?

It does not have to. LockDown Browser is a separate application, not Chrome, so Chrome extensions never load in it. Respondus says it also prevents copy and paste, screen capture and task switching, and blocks access to other applications, virtual machines and remote desktops.

Does Canvas detect Grammarly or other extensions?

No, and the rule is the same for every extension. Canvas receives the page in front of you, including text an extension writes into a field, but it does not receive the name of the tool that wrote the text. If you are comparing tools with similar names, see Canvas Helper extensions compared.

Does Canvas Quiz Solver work on New Quizzes?

Yes. As of 2026-09-25, Canvas Quiz Solver works on both Classic Quizzes and New Quizzes. A 2025 Instructure Community post said New Quizzes did not work with it; that is out of date. It does not run in LockDown Browser, because no Chrome extension does.

Related guides: Can Canvas detect cheating? The full guide · Does Canvas detect tab switching? · What the Canvas quiz log shows a professor · Canvas Hack vs Canvas Quiz Solver · Canvas Helper extensions compared · All Canvas detection guides · How to cheat on Canvas without leaving the page · What professors can see on Canvas · Best Canvas Chrome extensions · Honorlock: what it records and blocks · Proctorio on Canvas

Sources, each with the date we last checked it:

Answers inside Canvas, without leaving the page

Canvas Quiz Solver reads the question you are on and puts an answer right below it, on Classic Quizzes and New Quizzes. You can start free.

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