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Security researchers have discovered a fiendish form of browser malware that stands in for your copy of Google Chrome and hopes you won't notice the difference.
As reported by PCRisk, the "eFast Browser" works by installing and running itself in place of Chrome. It's based on Google's Chromium open-source software, so it maintains the look and feel of Chrome at first glance, but its behavior is much worse.
First, makes itself the default and takes over several system file associations, including HTML, JPG, PDF, and GIF, according to MalwareBytes. It also hijacks URL associations such as HTTP, HTTPS, and MAILTO, and replaces any Chrome desktop website shortcuts with its own versions. Essentially, eFast Browser makes sure to open itself at any opportunity.
During use, eFast Browser constantly displays pop-up and search ads on top of the page you're visiting. Some of these ads lead to ecommerce sites, while others redirect to potentially malicious webpages, where there's a risk of installing more adware or malware. PCRisk also warns that the browser collects browsing information that could be personally identifiable. It's unclear if eFast Browser adheres to any sort of privacy policy. (The company behind eFast Browser, Clara Labs, has its own privacy policy, though trying to load this page in Chrome brings up a malware warning.)
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 21 2015, @10:09AM
That's because in Linux, it's not the browser that's in control of the updates, it's the package manager. As far as the browser is concerned, you might just as well have manually installed the new version.
The fact that anything installed through your package manager also is maintained through your package manager should be fundamental knowledge in Linux. Indeed, I didn't even know that Firefox had its own update mechanism (other than for extensions).
Note that you don't need to "also" lock it in the package manager, you need to only lock it in the package manager. Your browser executable doesn't even have write permission to its own executable. Nor should it have.
Nonsense. Linux is easier. You have one central point where everything is controlled in an uniform way: The package manager. No reason to make yourself familiar with a dozen of program-specific update mechanisms.