Sunday, November 8, 2015

Google Chrome Recovery from Poisoned Web Pages

The disease is spreading as multiple pages present an alert in which some type of component on your system is outdated and must be upgraded.  It's impossible to escape and following anything it offers will only make it worse.  There is a fix and the first part is Don't Panic.

Use whatever means necessary to quit the application.  For Chrome under Mac OS X, even the quit option is killed by the poisoned script so use Force Quit and that will absolutely stop the problem.  However, it is not fixed yet.

Note:  restarting the computer will not fix it because, at least with Safari, it will open the tabs again, depending on your settings for this parameter (i.e. see Safari or appropriate browser preferences to verify).


The next required step is to restart Chrome with the Shift Key Down.  That will restart it without opening any tabs and from there you can use your browser as you wish but damn sure stay away from that page or it will happen again.


There was a recent article listing essentially the same steps for curing the problem with Safari.  The reason for this report is Yevette got bitten within a day of when I did.  I know the solution so all they do is piss me off but it may result in panic if you don't know the response.  Yes, she is now recovered using exactly the steps listed above.  They should work for any browser.

The most important detail to the restart is you MUST hold down the Shift key to get the browser to come up in 'Safe Mode' (i.e. no open tabs).

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