Chrome Extension 'Planet Search' with 2M Installs Hijacks Search Queries via nextgeeker.com Network

A featured Chrome extension 'Planet Search' with 2 million installs routes every search query to the nextgeeker[.]com hijacker network. The extension, published by FREE VPN PLANET SRL, appears minimal with a 0-byte background.js file and no declared permissions. Instead, it uses chrome_settings_overrides to redirect searches through a chain of domains, starting with planet-search[.]com and ending at nextgeeker[.]com, which is flagged as a browser hijacker. The final results are displayed via a Google Custom Search Engine (CSE), though the extension’s listing does not disclose the redirection hops.