WyzGuys Tech Talk

Browser hijacking is a growing and super annoying problem.  I see way too many instances where a client of mine has downloaded a “free” program, only to have the program installer bring a host of unwanted and undesirable adware programs.  Many times these freeware programs and games will change your default browser search provider from Google, Bing, or Yahoo to something like Search Conduit, My Web Search, or Babylon Search.  These “alternative” search services exist solely to feed you search results that are paid for by advertisers, and well as serving up pop-up ads of all sorts, and showing system performance warnings that not only are untrue, but trick users into downloading useless freeware performance booster software, which then comes with another round of useless crapware.  (See my earlier post.)  The companies that sponsor this madness get paid for delivering these programs and ads, in case you are wondering why this keeps happening to you.

The good news is that the fine people at Google have introduced in their Chrome browser the ability to warn users when their search and other browser settings have been changed.  When this happens you will see a warning like the one below:

Clicking the reset button will restore Google Chrome default settings.  Of course if you have selected a different home page for yourself, you will need to manually reset that yourself.