Google Software Removal Tool (Windows)

Google has come out with a tool (beta) for Windows to help users identify and remove rogue extensions and toolbars that are secretly tracking you.

When malicious programs are using your Chrome browser to collect data, serve you ads or cause overall sluggishness, there’s a quick way to find out what’s causing the issues. Google recently published the Software Removal tool for Windows that will scan for software that is causing issues with the browser.

A few words of caution before you use this tool:

  1. It is still in Beta so you may want to create a restore point just in case you’re that unlucky .01% user that something does go wrong.
  2. This will reset Chrome back to its ‘Factory Defaults’ which means it is going to remove your home page, pinned tabs, add-ons, new tab page and other personal customization and information (passwords and filled form data).

I recently discovered I had a rogue (tracking) add-on in Chrome which was causing the browser to hang-up mid-way on loading a page and was injecting content (not sure what, possibly a hidden iframe or image). The only way I knew about the latter was because I kept getting warnings that on sites which were suppose to be 100% secure content were displaying insecure content.

via C|Net