Searchbaron dot com Browser Hijacker
Searchbaron dot com is a website as well as the name of a browser hijacker that may have ended up on your system. Browser hijackers are a group of applications that fall in the gray area in-between legitimate software and malware.
A browser hijacker can quietly plant itself in your favorite browser, whether you use Chrome, Opera, Firefox or Microsoft Edge. This is commonly done without the user's consent. Any changes made to browser and search engine settings also happen without informing the user and without their consent. This is why browser hijackers are classified as potentially unwanted programs or PUPs.
Searchbaron dot com may have ended up on your system in a number of ways. The end result would probably be your homepage being swapped to another one and your default search engine getting swapped to one used by Searchbaron dot com.
A lot of the time, browser hijackers tend to first capture user search queries, log them to resell the data to third parties, then feed the query into a legitimate search engine such as Bing or Yahoo and then serve the user a regular-looking results page, with a strange appendix in the URL as the only marker that something is not quite right.
Browser hijackers often enter your system through bundle installers. Those are packages containing several software applications, usually distributed through less reputable free download websites.
The bundler will commonly contain one legitimate application, with one or more potentially unwanted programs piggy-backing inside the same installer. The issue here is that the installer will usually have very poor disclosure of its full contents and users who just keep clicking Next will end up with more than they thought they are getting on your system.
The best way to steer clear of similar bundlers that may contain PUPs is to always source your downloads and software from legitimate, well-curated download platforms or directly from the software publisher's website.
