Planet Search Chrome Extension, Pushed by a Free VPN, Pulled After Search-Rerouting Report

A Chrome extension called Planet Search has been pulled from the Chrome Web Store after a TechRadar investigation found it rerouting users’ searches through a chain of intermediary sites before landing on monetized Yahoo results. The extension had about 2 million users, according to its Web Store listing, and it was pushed to people through the installer of Planet VPN, a free VPN with 50 million Android downloads.

TechRadar says it analyzed the extension’s source code and confirmed that it swaps Chrome’s default search engine to planet-search[.]com using Chrome’s standard search-provider override setting. Searches then bounce through several domains before reaching Yahoo’s syndication endpoint, tagged with commercial partner and campaign tracking parameters. That clashes with the extension’s own listing, which promised that “default search results will be provided by Google,” and another page that said Bing would be used. In TechRadar’s tests, results consistently came from Yahoo.

Planet Search’s privacy policy says some search services are provided through CodeFuel, a search monetization platform, and that the service may collect data including search queries and the time and date they were made. The extension’s parent company, Free Planet VPN S.R.L., was also named in an earlier investigation by security firm Socket into so-called “searchjacking” extensions, which take over the browser’s default search, route queries through a proxy and collect referral payments from Yahoo or Bing.

The VPN connection is the new part. TechRadar found that Planet VPN’s desktop client, version 2.10.69.99 released January 13, 2026, prompted users to install Planet Search during setup. Users have complained for years that the extension is hard to remove; one said they had “tried everything like deleting all of the folders on my PC,” and another said “it feels like malware.” TechRadar notes it hasn’t verified whether the current version is still difficult to uninstall, and it couldn’t confirm whether the VPN company earns money from the arrangement.

Free Planet VPN did not respond to TechRadar before publication. After the story ran, the extension disappeared from the Web Store, and TechRadar says it has asked Google and the company why, and whether it still works for people who already have it installed.

If you’ve used Planet VPN on a desktop, it’s worth opening chrome://extensions to look for Planet Search, and checking which search engine Chrome is set to use in Settings. It’s also a good reminder that a free VPN has to make money somehow, and routing your searches through ad networks is the opposite of what most people install a VPN for.

Source: TechRadar