Google has been conducting research into browser ad injectors and while the full report isn’t going to be published until May 1st, they have released some interesting bits of information.  Ad injectors are programs that insert ads or replace existing ads on webpages you are visiting.

The study is being conducted with researches at UC Berkeley and is based on a sample of 100 million page views from users using FireFox, Internet Explorer and Chrome.

Google released the following as a snipit of the upcoming report:

• Ad injectors were detected on operating systems (Mac and Windows), and web browsers (Chrome, FireFox, Internet Explorer) that were included in our test.
• More than 5% of people visiting Google sites have at least one ad injector installed. Within that group, half have at least two ad injectors installed and nearly one-third have at least four installed.
• Thirty-four percent of Chrome extensions injecting ads were classified as outright Malware.
• Researchers found 192 deceptive Chrome extensions that affected 14 million users; these have since been disabled. Google now incorporates the techniques researchers used to catch these extensions to scan all new and updated extensions.

It’s likely the snipit was released to let consumers know that Google is actively working to fight the growing issue.

[whohit]AdInjectors[/whohit]