Oodrampi

Users who encounter the Oodrampi application may be led to believe that it is a useful program capable of improving the way they navigate and search the Web. However, when installed, the application quickly reveals that one of its main functionalities is that of a browser hijacker. Browser hijackers are typically distributed through questionable or misleading tactics (software bundles, fake installers, etc) and, as such, they also are classified as PUPs (Potentially Unwanted Programs).

When activated on the user's device, the browser hijacker will quickly establish control over several important browser settings. Indeed, users are likely to have their current homepage, new tab page, and default search engine substituted with a new, unfamiliar address. The goal of the invasive application is to drive artificial traffic toward its promoted page.

In the vast majority of cases, the sponsored addresses spread via browser hijackers belong to fake search engines. These engines lack the functionality to generate results on their own and will instead take users' search queries and further redirect them to other sources. Based on factors such as the user's specific IP address/geolocation, the shown results could be taken from a legitimate engine (Yahoo, Bing, Google) or a dubious one, in which case the results could be of low quality and include numerous unrelated sponsored advertisements.

PUPs also are notorious for monitoring the users' browsing activities. The annoying applications also could harvest various information from the system - IP addresses, geolocation, device type, browser type, usernames, passwords, etc.