Is RecipeSearch safe?

Medium risk

RecipeSearch force-navigates the user's active tab to its own landing page immediately after install, with no user action.

As soon as the extension is installed, its background service worker finds the user's current foreground tab and overwrites it with https://recipesearch.pro/thankyou.html, discarding whatever page was open. The same service worker also runs on every restart, reloading any tab already on recipesearch.pro. The extension's only stated purpose is a new-tab recipe search page.

AdsSquared LLCv0.0.7Chrome Web Store
45Risk
Who publishes it

LLC - no other listings under this identity, 1 shared hostname

What this publisher told the store about itself, and the other listings that told it the same thing.

Publisher
AdsSquared LLC
Declared legal entity
LLC
Registered address
1712 Pioneer Avenue, Suite 201, Cheyenne, WY 82001, US
Registered contact
AdsSquared
Website
recipesearch.pro/contact.html

Shared hosts - 1 hostname

Hostnames hardcoded in this extension that few other listings call. That can mean one operator behind both, and it can equally mean a small shared vendor, so it is context rather than a conclusion. Hosts that many listings call are left out: they are services, not connections.

d1z0mfyqx7ypd2.cloudfront.net
Also called by 3 other listings: Simple Quick Recipe, Recipe Sources, SpeedTestHere

AI-generated. Findings may contain errors. Those marked Verified have been manually reviewed.

Publishers can request a review.

Findings

RecipeSearch redirects your open tab to its own page the moment you install it

On install, RecipeSearch immediately redirects your active tab to its own page, recipesearch.pro/thankyou.html, before you click anything.

It also reloads that page in the background whenever you already have it open.

Severity
Medium unwanted
Type
Unexpected
CWE
CWE-506
Source
Dynamic sandbox
What actually happens
You did this

You install the RecipeSearch extension from the Chrome Web Store.

The extension did this

The extension immediately redirects your active tab to a page it controls.

This happens within about a second of installation, before you click anything.

Captured request
GEThttps://recipesearch.pro/thankyou.html

Top-level tab navigation via chrome.tabs.update. No request body; this overwrites the page you were viewing rather than submitting data.

The code that does this

The install handler in sw.js

Readable version

Redirects the active tab on fresh install

sw.js
chrome.runtime.onInstalled.addListener(function(details) {    if (details.reason == "install") {        var landerUrl = "https://recipesearch.pro/thankyou.html";        chrome.tabs.query({ active: true, lastFocusedWindow: true }, function(tabs) {            if (tabs.length > 0) {                var tabid = tabs[0].id;                chrome.tabs.update(tabid, { url: landerUrl });            }        });    }});
When this fires

On every browser startup

Every time the background service worker restarts, it reloads any tab that is already open on recipesearch.pro.

What this behavior doesn't do

This behavior does not read, collect, or transmit personal data. The impact is an unwanted navigation away from whatever page was open at install, plus a background refresh limited to tabs already on the extension's own domain.

Where it sends data

Destinations our analysis observed RecipeSearch contacting. Sending data somewhere is not a finding on its own - an extension that syncs your settings has to talk to its own server - but it is where your data can go, and who else it goes to.

  • recipesearch.pro

    RecipeSearch sends data to recipesearch.pro. No other extension we have analyzed sends data here.