Google's mysterious 'search.app' links leave Android users concerned

The report explains that after recent Google app and limited Chrome updates on Android, links shared from the app are being prefixed with the search.app redirector, likely enabling Google analytics, referrer tracking, and potential safety filtering. It associates search.app with Firebase Dynamic Links (despite that service’s deprecation timeline) and flags an atypical TLS certificate whose CN does not match the domain and appears shared across many sites on a Firebase IP, though there is no indication of malicious activity. The lack of public documentation and the certificate oddity are causing user concern, but the behavior appears to be an official Google-operated redirect mechanism.