InitialWindow

InitialWindow is an application classified as a Possibly Unwanted Program (PUP) and a browser hijacker due to its ability to take over certain settings of the browser and prevent the users from changing them back to their original state. The goal is to drive artificial traffic to the promoted, in most cases, fake search engines.

When InitialWindow is installed, it performs a check to determine what is the default browser. If it is Safari, the browser hijacker sets the homepage, new tab page, and the default search engine to redirect to z6airr.com. This is a fake search engine due to its inability to conduct Web searches on its own. In order to provide the users with a list of relevant search results, it redirects every search query through search.yahoo.com. If InitialWindow detects a Chrome browser, it modifies the same settings, but this time sets them to adjustablesample.com, which can at least conduct searches on its own.

While some browser hijackers may boast having useful or convenient features, users should think carefully if they want such applications to be present on their computer systems. First, most of these applications are also equipped with adware capabilities resulting in various ad to be generated either as pop-up windows or injected into the list of search results. Furthermore, some browsing or system data such as conducted searches, visited websites, clicked URLs, IP addresses, etc. can be logged, stored, and sent to the developers of the applications.