A browser extension that does nothing other than modify your search engine sounds harmless, almost boring, right? After reading this research, I am convinced that you should not ignore it.
Security company socket It says it has found over 300 Chrome extensions that silently swap a user’s default search engine and route every search through servers controlled by the people behind them before it reaches Bing or Yahoo. What’s even more alarming is that these extensions reportedly saw around 13.4 million installations in the last decade.
How can these expansions pass everyone by?
The trick is almost embarrassingly simple. Chrome has a built-in setting that allows an extension to replace your default search engine without executing a single line of code. One example analyzed by researcher John Tuckner used only a settings file and three icons and did not request any permissions.
The immediate goal is to earn referral payments from these two search engines. However, Tuckner warns that the same scenario could work against you.
The extensions disguise themselves as handy tools like PDF converters, manual finders, “safe search” helpers, and AI search add-ons. Most are distributed outside of the Chrome Web Store, so you won’t find them through a normal store search.
Instead, they reach users via spammy pop-up ads on smaller websites. Most had already been removed from the store by the time the report was published, but new ones kept popping up.
It’s easy to see why users might allow these extensions. Chrome does display a prompt during installation, but that doesn’t necessarily make the consequences of changing your search engine obvious.
Why does it matter if they just want advertising money?
Because every search query you enter first goes through the operator’s server, the people behind these extensions can see your search history, which is often linked to a unique identifier.
In one test, six identical search queries via the Predator Search extension ended up in four different locations, even though the extension itself remained unchanged.
Most searches currently end in Yahoo or Bing. However, the same system could potentially redirect certain search queries to phishing pages or malware downloads. Tuckner acknowledges that this is a potential risk and is not proof that such redirects are already taking place.
So what should you do? Open chrome://extensions and remove anything you don’t recognize, especially search, safe search, or PDF tools. Then go to Settings > Search Engine and make sure your default is the one you chose.
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