What is this Firefox hidden add-on: "Add-ons Search Detection ([email protected])"?
In Firefox 95.0.1 task manager, I see the following item: "Add-ons Search Detection ([email protected])" with full permissions to all browsing and private tabs. What is this plugin? What does it do and should it be removed? Note that it doesn't show up in the Extensions list. Only way to see it is from Task Manager. NOTE that I disabled it - it was enabled. When disabled, it disappears from Task Manager.
After browsing the Github repository for it briefly I believe the add-on attempts to detect and report any other add-ons that try to hijack the browsers search engines and redirect those requests to another site.
From the data.md file in the repository:
This add-on will collect information about search engines.
addonsSearchDetection etld_change: indicates a eTLD change webrequest or other: the "API" used to change the eTLD. Note that other is used when the change has not been initiated from the client. extension or server: whether the eTLD change has been done by an extension (add-on) or server. addonId: the add-on ID tied to this change addonVersion: the version of the add-on from: the eTLD of the search endpoint hostname defined by the Search service to: the eTLD of the final endpoint hostname
This is a built-in add-on authored by Mozilla. There is nothing you can or should do about it. It will be enabled automatically the next time you launch Firefox.