How can perplexity.com persist on the browser without extension
A user reports that their Chromium browser on Arch Linux is attempting to connect to perplexity.com without any extensions or user-initiated actions, despite a clean restart and no prior login to the service. The connections were detected via Opensnitch, which flags outbound network requests. The user also discovered references to perplexity.ai in Firefox and other application libraries, raising concerns about embedded third-party content.
- ▪The user's Chromium browser attempted to connect to perplexity.com after a clean system restart with no user action.
- ▪These connections were detected using Opensnitch, which monitors and blocks network requests.
- ▪References to perplexity.ai were found in system libraries for Firefox, Librewolf, and Thunderbird, but not in Chromium's code.
- ▪The user does not have a Perplexity account or the AUR Perplexity client installed.
- ▪The issue occurs despite using uBlock Origin as the only browser extension.
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I talked about this before on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47142325Facts: - restarted archlinux yesterday after updates, so browser will start clean - did not open perplexity.com since that restart - on the morning chromium tried to open perplexity.com - again after more or less 8 hours, another call to that site - I don't have any extension other than ublock origin on Chromium: Version 147.0.7727.116 (Official Build, ungoogled-chromium) Arch Linux (64-bit)So why is chromium trying to open perplexity.com?I have opensnitch installed and every connection prompts to allow or deny, that is why I can find this requests.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Ycombinator.