Is Woodwo New Tab safe?

Low risk

Woodwo New Tab replaces every new tab with an instant redirect to www.woodwo.net.

The extension overrides the browser's new tab page with an HTML page containing a meta-refresh tag that forwards the user to www.woodwo.net within milliseconds of opening a tab. The extension contains no other code or user-visible functionality. Each redirect transmits the user's IP address and browser headers to www.woodwo.net.

Awesome Searchv1.1Chrome Web Store
20Risk

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

Publishers can request a review.

Findings

SeverityHIGH
ClassUNWANTED
TypeUnexpected
CWECWE-506
SourceAI SANDBOX

New tab override redirects every new tab to woodwo.net, exposing IP

This extension's new tab page redirects to https://www.woodwo.net/ via an HTML meta-refresh on every new tab, no interaction needed.

Confirmed: opening a new tab fires GETs to www.woodwo.net, which gets the visitor's IP and browser headers.

01EvidenceCAUSE EFFECT
What actually happens
You did this

You open a new browser tab.

The extension did this

The extension's new tab page immediately redirects the tab to https://www.woodwo.net/.

The redirect runs automatically with no click or confirmation, so every new tab leaves the browser's normal new tab page and loads woodwo.net instead.

02EvidenceCODE COMPARE
The code that does this

The override declaration and the redirect it loads

What it actually does
What the page doespages/page.html:2
// The override page contains no scripts. Its only content is a
// meta-refresh tag that navigates the tab to the external host
// with a 0-second delay, i.e. immediately on load.
//   content="0; url=https://www.woodwo.net/"
//   http-equiv="refresh"
// Result: every new tab open => navigation to https://www.woodwo.net/
03EvidenceNETWORK CAPTURE
Captured request
GEThttps://www.woodwo.net/
Observed during dynamic analysis: opening the new tab override navigated off the extension origin and emitted three GET requests to https://www.woodwo.net/. The host did not resolve from the analysis environment at scan time, so no response body was returned; when the host is live it receives the request including the visitor IP and headers shown.
Headers
User-AgentMozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/124.0.0.0 Safari/537.36
Accept-Languageen-US,en;q=0.9
04EvidenceFIELD TABLE
What www.woodwo.net receives on each new tab open
FieldValueWhy it matters
Your IP address
203.0.113.47Every navigation to the host exposes your public IP address, which approximates your location and identifies your network.
Browser headers
Chrome/124.0.0.0; Windows NT 10.0; en-USThe User-Agent and related headers describe your browser, operating system, and language, contributing to a recognizable fingerprint.
05EvidenceTHIRD PARTY LIST
Destination of the new tab redirect
  • www.woodwo.net

    Receives a navigation request on every new tab, including the visitor's IP address and browser headers. The hardcoded redirect target in the extension's new tab override page.

06EvidenceARTIFACT
Reproduce it yourself

Extracts the new tab override page from an unpacked copy of the extension and prints the redirect target, letting you confirm that every new tab navigates to the external host.

Requiresbashpython3grep
check_newtab_redirect.sh · sh
#!/usr/bin/env bash
# Confirm the new tab override redirects to an external host.
# Run against an unpacked copy of the extension directory.
set -euo pipefail
EXT_DIR="${1:?usage: check_newtab_redirect.sh <unpacked-extension-dir>}"

# 1. Which page is registered as the new tab override?
OVERRIDE=$(python3 -c "import json,sys; m=json.load(open(sys.argv[1])); print(m.get('chrome_url_overrides',{}).get('newtab',''))" "$EXT_DIR/manifest.json")
echo "newtab override page: $OVERRIDE"

# 2. What does that page redirect to?
grep -oE 'url=[^\"]+' "$EXT_DIR/$OVERRIDE" || echo "(no meta-refresh url found)"
How to run it
  1. 1
    Unpack the extension (e.g. unzip the .crx).
  2. 2
    Run: ./check_newtab_redirect.sh <unpacked-extension-dir>.
  3. 3
    Confirm the printed override page is pages/page.html and the redirect url is https://www.woodwo.net/.

Data recipients

www.woodwo.net
Updated 17 September 2026fmhlpikopbciobhaehihioohgfohghla