Features/Desktop/Keyword URL change detection

Status

Team

Open issues/risks

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Stage 1: Definition

1. Feature overview

One of the top user issues is search hijacking. That is when users who expect to hit Google instead end up on a third party site (sometimes malicious.) The most common cause of this is when a program/extension changes keyword.URL. This feature notifies users and allows them to restore default behavior when it changes.

2. Users & use cases

This feature has two parts:

1) One time for everyone, check to see if you have a non-standard keyword.URL and if so, ask the first time you use it (or on startup, need UX check). "We see that your address bar search preferences have changed to searchqu.com. [Keep][Restore]"

2) When your keyword.URL changes (on restarts, after installing extensions) ask again. (But restore would actually take them back rather than restoring to Google)

3. Dependencies

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4. Requirements

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Non-goals

Not addressing more complex hijacking (Search bar, DNS redirects etc). Also not directly trying to address cases where malware tries to circumvent this fix until we know how the circumventing is going to work.

Stage 2: Design

5. Functional specification

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6. User experience design

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Stage 3: Planning

7. Implementation plan

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8. Reviews

Security review

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Privacy review

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Localization review

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Accessibility

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Quality Assurance review

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Operations review

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Stage 4: Development

9. Implementation

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Stage 5: Release

10. Landing criteria

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Feature details

Team status notes