I broke my Google Chrome. How to fix?

Factual Questions
1

A couple of days ago I get a pop up informing me that something fishy is going on with my GC. It recommended that I “reset” the browser, so I went ahead and clicked the OK button allowing them to do so.

Now it’s doing two things that are annoying the crap out of me. First, its got screen caps of the last websites I visited right there on the homepage. How do I get those off of there? I know clearing my history will technically get them off there but that’s not what I’m talking about. I don’t want them on there in the first place.
Second, the second I start typing something in the search box, it immediately bounces up to the address bar. I get that it’s still in search mode but still, this is annoying. How do I get my text to stay there in the search box?
Thanks.

2

For the first thing, hover over its thumbnail and click the X in the upper right.

For the second thing, where do you see that happening?

3

There is no X when you hover over the thunbnail.
Its happening from the search box in the middle of the page. I start typing there then it wants to finish me in the address bar.

4

Warning! Warning, Will Robinson! “Pop-up”? “Reset”? “I said OK”? Red flags, all.

Never saw that before, and I use Chrome all the time. How do you know that it came from Chrome?

In the worst case, scan your computer for cooties and reload Chrome.

5

Well, it had the Chrome logo on it. I’ve been told that’s what I should always look for when you click pop ups. Which begs the question: What’s to stop would be hackers from using fake logos? [shrugs]

Besides, my computer 's been acting fine. I will check just in case though. Thanks.

6

Are you using Google search as your homepage? There is an option to use the 8 most visited sites as your homepage, too, and it sounds like maybe you got switched to that? Look at your options for homepage.

Awhile ago Chrome updated to have the Google search thing on the same page as the top 8 and it was awful. I somehow managed to switch back to the old format, probably learned how from a thread here. I don’t remember now. But if you haven’t updated Chrome in a long time it may have forcefully updated itself.

7

It’s a new feature they added recently:

EDIT: OR it might’ve been malware masquerading as an official Chrome popup. Hard to say without more info or screenshots.

8

Nothing. The malware dudes usually do. Why wouldn’t they? It fooled you!

As Reply points out, it’s possible that it is legitimate. But using an official logo isn’t confirmation. Anyone can use an image file.

9

That’s exactly what I think happened.

10

Well, I’m no stranger to malware. I’m pretty sure this is a new set up by Google Chrome.

11

I hope so, and Google seems to be on the forefront of such technology. We’ll see how this plays out.

12

Ok, I did a little research after you guys scared me. :slight_smile:
It appears to be legit according to this blogger.

Apparently Google has been having a problem with hackers hijacking other peoples settings. Which appears to be what happened to me.

13

At this point I have uninstalled Chrome and I’m not going back. I don’t want my browsing and shopping monitored by google so they can continually throw ads at me. And I’m not sure of this but it seems like they allow other vendors to glom onto to chrome with their toolbars and such.

14

Aren’t the “screen shots of the last websites visited” there by default with Chrome? That “feature” bugged me when I encountered it too, and I never found a fix.

15

Believe me, I feel your pain.

But I suspect you might not have solved the problem, and may be rejecting a program that has many other redeeming qualities. I have found that after browsing for a particular product in Chrome, Firefox shows ads that are obviously related.

I’m not claiming there is a Grande Conspiracy, but maybe objecting to this common practice is a waste of our time. As one person put it, “Your life is an open book. Get used to it, as it will not get better.”

16

The person who said it (or, more accurately, that you’re paraphrasing) was Eric Schmidt… CEO of Google…so not really an unbiased observer, if you know what I mean.

Thanks. If you don’t mind, I won’t just roll over and let them do whatever they want.

17

If rape is inevitable, lie back and think of England.

18

For once, my memory and ability to zero in on a particular book in my personal collection has failed me. I’m not sure who I was quoting, but the jist of the book, written in the last 10 years, was “Nothing you do can be kept secret, no matter how hard you try; as technology improves, your life will be less and less private, so you might as well accept it and act accordingly. It’s futile to resist – celebrate and embrace it. You have no choice.”

19

Okay, that’s an interesting thing to do, but what does it have to do with this thread? Chrome itself noticed that some settings did not seem to be normal and gave the user a warning.

As far as I know, Chrome doesn’t monitor what you do any more than any other web browser, unless you explicitly opt into such upon installation. And, even then, that isn’t used for advertising purposes.

Google’s ad services have nothing at all to do with Chrome, and if you don’t opt out under your Google account settings, you are going to be tracked by any website that uses Google ads or if you get to said site through Google. Sounds like more of a reason to get an adblocker and use a different web search than to get rid of your web browser.

And I say that as someone who would otherwise be happy that a user is moving away from Chrome.

20

That’s the “new tab” page. It’s also the homepage by default, but you can change it to a regular webpage or about:blank.