Satellite and Earth Maps

The Satellite and Earth Maps is a browser extension that was designed with a singular goal - hijack the user's browser and force it to open a fake search engine. All other supposed features, such as links to maps or route generation, are only there to trick the user into installing the application.

The Satellite and Earth Maps, a Possibly Unwanted Program (PUP), reveals its true intentions almost immediately after running on the computer. The Satellite and Earth Maps changes the default homepage, new page tab, and search engine to redirect to search.hsatelliteandearthmaps.com. The Satellite and Earth Maps also locks them, thus preventing the user from reverting to the old settings easily. As is typical for these fake search engines, search.hsatelliteandearthmaps.com cannot produce results on its own and instead uses a legitimate search engine - search.yahoo.com. It could, however, inject sponsored advertisements into the list of results.

Some browser extensions could indeed have useful features. However, suppose this comes at the cost of the users having limited access to their browser settings, their browsing or data monitored and logged, and risking being redirected to shady third-party sites whenever they click on an advertisement displayed by Sattelite and Earth Maps. In that case, it is time to reconsider if it is indeed worth it to keep such applications around.