Bing Redirect Browser Hijackers Revealed - Beware!

There are a huge number of browser hijackers out there. A large number of them are distributed through free software bundles and some can even latch on to your favorite browser if you visit a malicious web page.

A lot of those browser hijackers use the Bing search engine as part of their method of operation. However, one thing should be made very clear. Bing is a legitimate search engine, owned and operated by the Microsoft Corporation. It is not a malicious page and service.

The way browser hijackers use Bing is, they would grab the user's search query, usually record and store it to sell it to advertising networks, and then return a Bing search page for the query entered by the user, with a modified URL that is different from the one you would get if you enter the same search directly into Bing.

The reason why browser hijackers do this is that the parties that operate them, for the most part, generate their revenue through selling search queries to ad networks. This data may not seem like it's worth much to the regular user, but to an ad network, the browsing habits and searches of hundreds of thousands of users are a valuable tool.

However, browser hijackers collect, store and resell this data without explicit user consent. This is what makes them fall in the "potentially unwanted software" or "potentially unwanted application" category. Potentially unwanted apps fill a gray area between dangerous, full-blown malware that will open up the victim system to exploitation and monitoring or will destroy data on it.

Browser hijackers, like most potentially unwanted apps, don't have such dangerous traits. However, they still collect user data without explicitly stated user consent, which is an issue.

Browser hijackers would also modify the browser's default search engine and home page without user consent.

To steer clear of software bundles that might contain browser hijackers, it's advisable to only use reputable download portals and websites.