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Has anyone heard of this being exploited, as a means of placing a message in the toolbar search box?
I guess it would involve a pop-up window that closed itself...
I'm just concerned, someone asked this question [answers.google.com] at Google Answers:
Are the only items listed in the drop-down search history of my Google Toolbar items that I have typed in for a search, or can web sites that I have visited as a result of my search somehow get onto the list. In particular, can pop-up sites that have come in through my hotmail (and that I open) be recorded in the item list without my typing them in?
Off hand, I have not heard of anyone discussing ways to do just that.
I bet the persons real question goes something like this:
Was my 15 year old teenager telling me the truth when he told me that he didn't know how those porn search words got in the search history? :-)
Hey, it's IE. We've all seen stuff pop up in bookmarks, scumware installed via active X, and viruses galore.
Could it happen? Sure can.
Try this: go turn on the toolbar and in the search window type "WebmasterworldAnswersForFree". Let the page generate, and then exit IE. Now search your windows registry for "WebmasterworldAnswersForFree". You'll find it in: (HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\NavClient\1.1\History).
So we all know how easy it is to manipulate other programs reg entries... there you go.
