Browsing Guard Extension

Posted: January 25, 2018

Threat Metric

The Threat Meter is a malware assessment that SpywareRemove.com's research team is able to give every identifiable malware threat. Our Threat Meter includes several criteria based off of specific malware threats to value their severity, reach and volume. The Threat Meter is able to give you a numerical breakdown of each threat's initial Threat Level, Detection Count, Volume Count, Trend Path and Percentage Impact. The overall ranking of each threat in the Threat Meter is a basic breakdown of how all threats are ranked within our own extensive malware database. The scoring for each specific malware threat can be easily compared to other emerging threats to draw a contrast in its particular severity. The Threat Meter is a useful tool in the endeavor of seeking a solution to remove a threat or pursue additional analytical research for all types of computer users.

The following fields listed on the Threat Meter containing a specific value, are explained in detail below:

Threat Level: The threat level scale goes from 1 to 10 where 10 is the highest level of severity and 1 is the lowest level of severity. Each specific level is relative to the threat's consistent assessed behaviors collected from SpyHunter's risk assessment model.

Detection Count: The collective number of confirmed and suspected cases of a particular malware threat. The detection count is calculated from infected PCs retrieved from diagnostic and scan log reports generated by SpyHunter.

Volume Count: Similar to the detection count, the Volume Count is specifically based on the number of confirmed and suspected threats infecting systems on a daily basis. High volume counts usually represent a popular threat but may or may not have infected a large number of systems. High detection count threats could lay dormant and have a low volume count. Criteria for Volume Count is relative to a daily detection count.

Trend Path: The Trend Path, utilizing an up arrow, down arrow or equal symbol, represents the level of recent movement of a particular threat. Up arrows represent an increase, down arrows represent a decline and the equal symbol represent no change to a threat's recent movement.

% Impact (Last 7 Days): This demonstrates a 7-day period change in the frequency of a malware threat infecting PCs. The percentage impact correlates directly to the current Trend Path to determine a rise or decline in the percentage.

Ranking:	13,518
Threat Level:	8/10
Infected PCs:	21,702

First Seen:	July 28, 2016
Last Seen:	October 8, 2023
OS(es) Affected:	Windows

Nowadays many users are looking for neat tricks, which can help them protect their privacy online, and therefore reduce the number of targeted ads they see. It is not a secret that the majority of social media services, video viewing websites, and other pages are collecting anonymous data to enhance the quality of the advertising content they display. While there are some browser add-ons, which can help enhance your online privacy certainly, you can rest assured that the Browsing Guard Extension is not one of them. Its official website might promote it as a one-stop solution to protect the user's online searches and reduce the number of ads they see while browsing the Web. However, the truth is that the Browsing Guard Extension achieves this by replacing the user's Chrome configuration to include an alternative search aggregator. While this change is not harmful, it might have a negative impact on the user's Web searching experience and, in addition to this, it might benefit the extension's publisher significantly by increasing the quantity of traffic that their websites receive. In short, the true purpose of the Browsing Guard Extension is to boost a page's popularity artificially instead of help users.

The Browsing Guard Extension is offered by Playzonenow.com, but the company behind this website is also linked to various other browser add-ons, which claim to keep the privacy of users safe:

Internet Safety by Myappzcenter.com
Search Privately by Njoyapps.com
Safe Browsing by BetterSearchtools.com
onlinePrivacy by Bettersearchtools.com
SecurePrivacy by Bettersearchtools.com
privateNet by Meprivatenet.com
browsePrivately by Bettersearchtools.com
Safe Browser Pro Superappbox.com
secureNet by Medianetnow.com
netPrivacy by Medianetnow.com
Private Home by Theappjunkies.com
privacyProtection by Theappjunkies.com
privacyZone by Theappjunkies.com
Safe Browser by Playmediacenter.com
browsePrivately by Playmediacenter.com
PrivateBrowsingby Friendlyappz.com

The suggestion is to avoid installing any of these extensions since they might replace the Chrome's default new tab page and search aggregator with an alternative, less reputable Web page. Some of the websites that the Browsing Guard Extension and its clones are known to promote are search.myappzcenter.com and mps.eanswers.com. Although both of these search aggregators are safe, they might not provide search results as relevant as the ones offered by Bing, Google, Yahoo or other popular Web searching services. If you've installed any of the add-ons mentioned above and are not happy with the changes they brought, then we suggest that you remove them as soon as possible. Since they are Potentially Unwanted Programs (PUPs), which are not harmful, you can take care of their removal either manually or with the help of specialized PC security tools.

Browsing Guard Extension

Threat Metric

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