Google Chrome just disappeared from my laptop

[sifan]

Last night my wife was using her favorite browser Google Chrome on her laptop and claimed that the browser just suddenly disappeared. I was not there to witness what happened. It seemed like the browser was just removed completely without any notification. COMODO (anti-spyware software) was running under Windows 7 Professional. My son routinely visited many internet gaming sites and often accidentally downloaded undesirable software.

I tried to download Google Chrome and, instead, a whole bunch of 3rd party software self installed on my laptop. I had to uninstalled them one by one and finally gave up on Google Chrome. I probably picked a fake Google Chrome download site. It was just too troublesome.

Has anyone experienced the disappearance of Google Chrome? What could have caused this?

 

[badtlc]

It sounds like you know what caused it. Time to throw the gauntlet at the computer....

First step would be to clear all cache. Sounds like you might have some redirects and clearing cache can sometimes fix that on its own. Do a full system scan with Comodo. Then....

1) Scan with ESET free online scanner
2) Scan with F-secure free online scanner
3) download and scan with Malwarebytes anti-malware
4) download and scan with Super Antispyware. this also has a useful feature that allows you to uninstall any known problematic software (malware) before even scanning. You might see what is listed there.

After all that, there can't be much left. Then try http://chrome.google.com

 

[demarpaint]

Sounds like you got some nasty malware. Do what badtlc suggested.

 

[grumpyoldman]

Have you tried a System Restore to a time before all your problems started?

 

[Rand]

sounds like you have a browser redirect/hijacker might want to download a portable version on another computer and put it on a usb flash drive.

 

[SrDriver]

Originally Posted By: badtlc
It sounds like you know what caused it. Time to throw the gauntlet at the computer....

First step would be to clear all cache. Sounds like you might have some redirects and clearing cache can sometimes fix that on its own. Do a full system scan with Comodo. Then....

1) Scan with ESET free online scanner
2) Scan with F-secure free online scanner
3) download and scan with Malwarebytes anti-malware
4) download and scan with Super Antispyware. this also has a useful feature that allows you to uninstall any known problematic software (malware) before even scanning. You might see what is listed there.

After all that, there can't be much left. Then try http://chrome.google.com


Sounds like a great Idea. This type of infection has been going around a lot and know of some folks here that got hit with it.

 

[sifan]

Thank Badtlc.

I put too much faith on real-time Comodo to protect my laptop against my son's irresponsible internet surfing and hadn't done the full scan for a while. The best prevention is to ban my son from play internet games on my laptop.

I ran Comodo full scan twice (2 hours each, the first run ended with abort). 5 bugs were removed. Then I downloaded and ran ESET free online scanner without much success because it picked on Comodo's files. I decided to cancel the scanning after few hours to avoid Comodo being corrupted. I guess there exists conflict of interests among competitors; so, I skipped F-secure free online scanner. I then proceeded with Malwarebytes anti-malware (removing 322 bugs all related to Google Chrome) and SuperAntispyware (removal of 428 bugs). Again I noticed the Malwarebytes tiny icon on the task bar was replaced by SuperAntispyware's.

Now Google Chrome is back on my desktop and running healthier then ever.

Thanks to all.

 

[badtlc]

Glad to hear you got it working again.

Another option is to use Comodo Dragon Browser. It is a secure version of Chrome and lighter on resources. It also has a setting to use comodo's DNS servers which would filter out a lot of bad places.

Your scanning times are interesting too. Those scans usually take less than 15 minutes for me with malwarebytes taking the longest right at 17 minutes.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: badtlc
Your scanning times are interesting too. Those scans usually take less than 15 minutes for me with malwarebytes taking the longest right at 17 minutes.

I would think this would largely depend on the number of files/data you have on the drive(s) as well as whether you ran a quick scan or full scan.

I just finished an MBAM full scan on my notebook and it took over 33 minutes. That's on a 500GB SSD that's about 40% full. I remember it taking notably longer on a traditional HDD. Quick scan takes about 4 mins.

 

[badtlc]

Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Originally Posted By: badtlc
Your scanning times are interesting too. Those scans usually take less than 15 minutes for me with malwarebytes taking the longest right at 17 minutes.

I would think this would largely depend on the number of files/data you have on the drive(s) as well as whether you ran a quick scan or full scan.

I just finished an MBAM full scan on my notebook and it took over 33 minutes. That's on a 500GB SSD that's about 40% full. I remember it taking notably longer on a traditional HDD. Quick scan takes about 4 mins.



Those are some crazy long times.

 

[Rand]

commode-o AV isnt particularly good either.

Something like Eset or kaspersky would block more and proactively as well as reactively.

 

[sifan]

Originally Posted By: badtlc
Glad to hear you got it working again.

Another option is to use Comodo Dragon Browser. It is a secure version of Chrome and lighter on resources. It also has a setting to use comodo's DNS servers which would filter out a lot of bad places.

Your scanning times are interesting too. Those scans usually take less than 15 minutes for me with malwarebytes taking the longest right at 17 minutes.


I have lots of files of my laptop, which is shared by my family, that contributed to long scanning time.

Last night I tried Comodo Dragon Browser with sand box. My Windows froze for few minutes when I opened Yahoo Mail until a pop-up from Yahoo appeared. It seemed Comodo taking its time to exam the pop-up. For some reasons my HP laptop with 2nd generation i7 and 8 GB ram is always a slow performer. So, I closed the browser and tried it without sand box. With 4 tabs opened the browser gave a message that it could no longer function and terminated itself after 10 minutes of browsing. Then, I turned to Chrome browser with no time delay or any other issues.

At the end of night I did a Comodo full file scan (2 hours) and Malwarebytes full scan (1 hour). Both turned out no bugs found. So far so good without surprises. Then SUPERAntispyware full scan (1 hour) discovered 40 bugs all related to Chrome browser. I was really surprised by it since I only visited well know web sites like Yahoo, eBay, Amazon, bike forums (foreigh/domestic), and this web site. I wonder why Chrome browser plus its variant Comodo Dragon browser are so susceptible to cyber attacks. If our family continued to use Chrome browser, I would need to buy SUPERAntispyware license and run it every night to complement Comodo.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: sifan
Then SUPERAntispyware full scan (1 hour) discovered 40 bugs all related to Chrome browser. I was really surprised by it since I only visited well know web sites like Yahoo, eBay, Amazon, bike forums (foreigh/domestic), and this web site.

What kind of bugs? Tracking cookies? If so, they're not really bugs unless left behind by malicious websites. All websites save cookies on your computer, and for the most part that's OK. But SuperAntispyware wants to get rid of them all.

 

[badtlc]

Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Originally Posted By: sifan
Then SUPERAntispyware full scan (1 hour) discovered 40 bugs all related to Chrome browser. I was really surprised by it since I only visited well know web sites like Yahoo, eBay, Amazon, bike forums (foreigh/domestic), and this web site.

What kind of bugs? Tracking cookies? If so, they're not really bugs unless left behind by malicious websites. All websites save cookies on your computer, and for the most part that's OK. But SuperAntispyware wants to get rid of them all.


It doesn't get rid of all cookies, just tracking cookies. It leaves all my important cookies alone with no problems.

 

[sifan]

Originally Posted By: Rand
commode-o AV isnt particularly good either.

Something like Eset or kaspersky would block more and proactively as well as reactively.


I tried ESET and let it ran its full scan to the end for another Chrome issue which took more than 9 hours on my laptop last night. The bug list included mostly Comodo files but it took no actions on them (whew!) plus some others not detected by Comodo (I ran Comodo full scan prior). Now my laptop starts up noticeably faster. ESET does seem to be more effective than Comodo.