The adage nothing in life is ever free is definitely apt in the computing world. Have you ever downloaded a piece of free software, ran the installer, and clicked through the prompts half unconsciously? If this is your normal behavior you’ve likely suffered a few side effects in the process; your browser home page is changed, a new toolbar gets installed, or your default search engine is altered. While not all free applications sink to this level, the ones that do are earning a bit of coin for every extra value-add that gets applied along side their application.
You could argue this is a rather sneaky tactic by the software providers but in my experience, generally the additional installations occur because you, the user, have neglected to follow the dialog prompts or un-check an option here or there. Rarely do any of these changes get applied fully behind your back without your approval – even if approval is always defaulted to opt-in.
Preventing these hijacks can include a couple of methods. You could maintain some patience and read the options provided to you during a new installation – which quite frankly is the best approach, or you could use an extension in your browser that aids in protecting you from any change.
BrowserProtect is one such add-on for Firefox that guards against changes to your home page or search providers list. The protection is rather simple in that it relies on a white-listing approach to approval or denial of the changes. If a home page or search engine is not included in the add-ons whitelist, the extension warns the user with a dialog where you can then address the situation.
The white-list approach is effective but still warrants a few tweaks by the individual. For example, the allowed search engine providers list includes many of the heavyweights: Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. If your browser defaults to Firefox and an application installation attempts to change your search engine to Bing, BrowserProtect will allow for this to occur. As the user, you should go in and pair down the white-lists as appropriate. In this example I’d remove all search providers outside of my desired default. Likewise, the process can be repeated for allowed home pages.
While every Firefox user may not need this layer of protection I do appreciate the piece of mind it affords when I don’t take the time to fully process what I’m agreeing to when I install a new application.
